website/content/museum/toshiba-t-200.md

---
title: Toshiba T 200
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Home Computer
origins:
- Japan
years:
- '1980'
cpus:
- Intel 8085
params:
  name: T 200
  image: /media/museum/photos/toshiba_t200_1.jpg
  company: /companies/toshiba
  company_name: Toshiba
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: T 200
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: Toshiba
  - label: TYPE
    value: Home Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: Japan
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1980'
  - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE
    value: None
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: Full-stroke keyboard
  - label: CPU
    value: Intel 8085
  - label: SPEED
    value: 2 MHz
  - label: RAM
    value: 64 KB
  - label: ROM
    value: 32 KB
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: 80 columns x 24 lines
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: Unknown
  - label: COLORS
    value: monochrome built-in display
  - label: SOUND
    value: Built-in loudspeaker. One canal output
  - label: SIZE / WEIGHT
    value: 60 x 40 x 40 cm / 15 Kg
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: RS232c, Centronics
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: Change according models
  - label: OS
    value: CP/M
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: Built-in power supply unit
  - label: PERIPHERALS
    value: unknown
  - label: PRICE
    value: 'System + WTZ80 printer. : 666,000 pta (Spain, 1980)'
  comments:
  - author: pedro (portugal)
    date: Friday 1st January 2021
    text: 'I am looking to buy some toshiba t200 software because I have one but no software. Please help. If you have some software contact me my email is: pedrovfroque@outlook.com'
  - author: spartan59 (US)
    date: Saturday 17th March 2018
    text: |-
      Hi,

      I am pleased to see this webpage. Anyone still having pictures of the machine Toshiba T-200?

      herewith a nice flyer: https://imgur.com/a/7Nozo

      Anyone still having the user manual ?
  - author: Steve (Australia)
    date: Thursday 11th April 2013
    text: I wrote debtors, creditors and stock control for this system prior to it''s introduction into Australia in 1981.
  - author: Ninh (USA)
    date: Sunday 23rd December 2012
    text: Oh Lord, I had this machine because I am a computer enthusiast so I stated to learn how to write a program with Basic, bought this machine in Seattle during 1984 for 900$ comes with all software like General Ledger and a data base software called "Friday" and later I bought a manual Datec Modem with push button to originate the contact and spent all night long for BBS.
  - author: patrick295767@gmail.com (France)
    date: Tuesday 3rd July 2012
    text: |-
      Hi Guys,

      I still have the floppies. If you still have one of those machine, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am looking forward for more JPEG of this great T200. Shall we meet on icq or irc.

      patrick295767@gmail.com
  - author: Lorenzo Pedrazzi (Torino Italy)
    date: Saturday 14th April 2012
    text: |-
      I bought a new TOSHIBA T/200 in far 1980 (just put on the market) , I worked with him several and several years completely satisfied.\
      I still have it, every time I look at it, I fall in remembrations pleasure.\
      Sorry about my bad English\
      See you!\
      Lorenzo - Turin Italy
  - author: Julius Cseresnyesi (Canada)
    date: Sunday 11th December 2011
    text: We have 2 working T 250s with owners manual, $ a drawer full of 8" floppies still that we use to support our really OLD equipment. Found this site looking for images to show our company''s evolution. We will post a few when our new site goes live.
  - author: paul (uk)
    date: Monday 14th November 2011
    text: |-
      I have a working T200 in my collection ,and yes this is the heaviest machine I have ! I am needing some floppies with software to run on the machine, the only disk I have is to boot the machine into cp/m ,If Patrick295767\
      could contact me I am very interested in some of his disks .\
      thanks Paul
  - author: Tom C (California)
    date: Sunday 16th October 2011
    text: I have a dedicated word processor labelled as Toshiba EW100, that looks like the picture of the T200. Uses two 8'' floppy disks, one for the operating system. Acquired it in the mid 1980s and used it heavily in my office until 1991. Last time I plugged it in about 4-5 years ago it still worked! I still have a number of disks, and would like to get that data converted for use on a PC or Mac.
  - author: patrick295767 (France)
    date: Saturday 10th September 2011
    text: |-
      Hi,

      Anyone know how to get it the bios/or run the emulator under WIndows or other?

      Anyone has still the floppies to start it? I have a lot of floppies still ... of this Toshiba T-200 if you would like guys, but no drive 5 1/4 anymore
  - author: patrick295767 (France)
    date: Saturday 25th September 2010
    text: |-
      Hello,

      I used it a lot this machine when I was younger. I still have lot of floppies of it.

      It was a great machine. I looked forward for an emulator under LINUX of it.\
      My first coding was on that, - oh it was lot lot lot of coding

      All the best

      Patrick295767
  - author: Maurin Sylvain (France)
    date: Monday 3rd May 2010
    text: |-
      My first personal computer, a great gift made by old computer scientist to a teenager in 1980''s. I learned english with toshiba manual, and I did not really improved since !

      I got great time to understand brun usage of b80 basic, yeap \_the\_ basic compiler from Bill worked under CP/M along his interpreter ! Peek/poke weren''t here, happily assembler was not so far :) Toshiba Basic sucked against b80/asm but editor and interpreter integration were great against the poor CP/M environment.

      I trashed my T200 with sadness ten years ago and I am nostalgic now, it worked flawlessly from 1980 until 1995. My brother and I, we made our first step in CS with this old stuff. It is incredible to see a photo now on your comp-museum.
  - author: Thomas Fusco (Ocala, FL)
    date: Wednesday 27th April 2005
    text: Sadly, I was just informed that the T200 I wrote about on the main page was discarded several years ago. This site re-kindled my interest, and I was going to ask them to ship it to me (I have the skills now to repair it). Oh, well...
  - author: Olivier (France)
    date: Thursday 15th August 2002
    text: 16 EXTERNAL hard-drives! of course...
  - author: Peter (Greenwich,CT)
    date: Tuesday 22nd January 2002
    text: How could you put in 16 hard drives in that case. It is too small!
  oc_id: 232
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230328114933/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=232
    date: '2023-03-28'
---

Two models were available: the **Toshiba T200 C-5** with only one floppy disk unit (250 KB) and a hard disk (5 MB), and the **T200 C-20** with a double floppy disk unit, one hard disk (10 MB) and one streamer (10 MB). It was possible to connect up to 16 hard disks (140 MB max)!

It was sold with accounting software running an OS called Toshiba Business Basic which was different to the CPM OS with MBasic etc.

---

**David Gimeno i Ayuso reports :**\
The Toshiba T200 had 64KB RAM and 32KB ROM, which was copied to RAM after startup, so leaving only 32KB RAM available. Its size was around 60x40x40 cm. It may weight from 15 kg to 30 kg (or 66 lb) but not too much more because one young and not too strong man could carry it. And finally, its price in Spain for the 2 floppy system, was 666,000 pta (currently 4,002.74€ or $4,962.20), including the WTZ80 printer. T200 floppies could use diskettes up to 640KB. They worked with double-sided, 80 tracks, 16 sectors of 256 bytes each. This printer was an 80 columns non-optimized printer (it printed moving its head side-to-side of the printing area, no matter how much characters it should print), 100 cps, tractor only and 10,12,17 pitches with corresponding 5, 6, 8.5 expanded pitches. And I'm thinking the paper tractor was both pull only and push'n'pull, but I'm unsure about that.

**Thomas Fusco's** memories:\
I have very fond memories of this machine. I operated one of these at a small company in New Jersey from 1986 through 1989. Our unit was made in 1981. A sales rep later told us that the IBM PC rendered this machine (and many similar ones) obsolete, and it was discontinued soon after. The configuration was a bit different than listed on this page, comprising two 5 1/4" floppy drives employing single-sided, 360K diskettes with no hard drive. The computer booted from the left "A" drive (the failure of which finally retired the system to a dark corner of the warehouse where it may still be to this day). The printer that came with it was not the one pictured, but a Toshiba 1281 wide carriage daisy wheel, which, although quite noisy, produced great output. Each key was individually hard-wired so that the cable connecting the keyboard to the main unit was near the diameter of your thumb. When powered up, the green monochrome screen displayed C/PM, but would boot a version of DOS from the A: floppy on which we ran WordStar.

I remember the unit as weighing more than the 15kg (33 lbs) listed. The T200 had a big brother called the T250 that looked almost identical except it was significantly bigger, sporting a larger display and dual 8" floppy drives (the literature I saw listed the T250's main unit weight at 135 lbs!).

In 1989, I placed a support call to Toshiba concerning some minor question. When I told the man what I had, he asked me to hold on for a moment, after which you could hear him yelling to others in the background, "Hey, guess what this guy has? A T200!" followed by a barrage of laughter. He returned and told me that mine was one of only about ten known in the world to still be in use (which made me quite proud), and referred me to an "old-timer downstairs" who might know something about this system (and who actually proved to be quite helpful).

Up until the A: drive's demise, this machine ran absolutely flawlessly for the three years I used it, with not one problem or glitch ever....zero, zip, ziltch. Try that with a Wintel machine!

**Lorenzo Garcia** (from Spain) adds:\
The Toshiba T200 was the first computer model that I used as a profesional computer programer. The T200 was fitted with an "operating sistem / Basic interpreter" called "Business Basic". Business Basic sintax included sentences to manage "indexed files". That feature was innovative at the time and very useful for business applications development.After a cuple of years, the IBM PC and clones phased out this supperb piece of techonolgie.

<table> <tr> <td></td> <td>We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.</td> <td></td> </tr> </table>