VTech Laser 200

A VZ200 in operation

The VZ200 uses the Motorola 6847 video processor ( like the TRS-80 Color Computer ), which has a resolution of 256 × 192 pixels made from either 8 × 8 pixel character blocks in a 32 × 24 block screen, or a monochrome bitmapped mode.

As the VZ200 is limited to only 2 kB of video memory since only 4 kB of memory in total was initially available, the screen is limited to only 16 lines down, making the total number of pixels in text mode 256 × 128 pixels. The bitmapped mode is unavailable.

The VZ200 has nine colours, an eight colour palette plus black. The VZ200 has 256 predefined character blocks. Text is only available in upper case. The character blocks cannot be redefined. The screen can use green mode or black mode, the latter using inverse colours.

In mode 0, the background colour can be either dark green or orange.

In mode 0, text uses a black foreground with either background colour. The first 128 character blocks are 64 alpha-numeric characters and their inverses. Text mode 0 is the only mode in which black is available.

The latter 128 character blocks consist of a 2×2 pixel block in each possible combination (8), in every of the 8 colour palette for foreground, together with either background colour chosen. Black is not available.

For mode 1, two colour sets are used with each background colour:

SET 1 → background: light green - foreground: light green, yellow, blue or red.

SET 2 → background: buff [white] - foreground: buff, cyan, magenta or orange.

Text is identical to Mode 0, using either colour set for foreground with each background colour. The difference is that all 2kB of video memory is used, whereas only 512 bytes of video memory is used for Mode 0, and the text cannot be black, which is unavailable in this mode.

The graphics mode has 128×64 addressable points. For each character block, the background colour can be either light green or buff (white), with the foreground any of the four colours in the set. The colours can be used in any combination on the screen, but only one colour set can be used per screen, so screens are limited to four colours at most.

By using intricate video timing in assembly it is possible to split the display to show all eight colours on the screen, as shown in the VZ200 Five Finger Punch demo '2018AD' and Bushy555's demo '8 colours'. Both of these demos technically should not be possible.

An internal latch is used for cassette output, to drive the piezoelectric loudspeaker attached to the casing, and to control two signals for the 6847 video processor. The loudspeaker is driven using a push-pull method, alternating the outputs on bits 0 and 5 of the latch at $6800.

A 2.5 octave range is available in BASIC through the SOUND command.

Most of the ~70 known 1-bit music players that are written for the ZX Spectrum will also work on the VZ/Laser computer. These have since been ported to the VZ. Since the latch has two bits driving the internal piezo speaker, there is the ability of a software driven volume control - half-volume and full-volume.

The back panel of the VZ200

The VZ200 and VZ300 datasettes along with the VZ200 Printer Plotter

Within a year of the Laser 310's release, an 80k disk drive unit was released on to the market, of which two could be connected to the computer at the same time. A plug-pack cartridge containing the DOS ROM was required to operate the drives. The DOS ROM and diskette drives were backwards compatible with the Laser 200.

A number of other VTech designed plug-in peripherals were also available for both the Laser 200 and Laser 310 computers. Among them were joysticks, cassette drive, light pen, printer plotter, 75 baud MODEM, word processor cartridge, and the 16k and 64k extended RAM cartridges. As numbers of users grew, so did the number of home-made kits which were on offer, which included a Speech synthesizer, Music Synthesiser that used the Texas Instruments SN76489AN chip, a real world relay interface, EEPROM programmer, data logger, 300 baud MODEM, full 101 keyboard, 128 Kb sideways RAM extension and a RTTY Ham radio kit.

In 2020 Ben Grimmett from BennVenn Electronics designed and built 50 SD-Card readers for enthusiasts, which gives the computer a total of 128 Kb of banked RAM, and, depending on memory card, typically a minimum of 2 gigabytes of storage space. A VZ FAT32 DOS was also written for this project and is embedded in EEPROM.

VTech Laser 310 with keyboard template and cassette deck

The Laser 310 was released in 1985 throughout parts of Europe as well as for Mainland China. It was named and sold as the "Dick Smith" VZ 300 throughout Australia and New Zealand. Also based on a Zilog Z80A CPU with a slightly updated 16k ROM version, it was driven by a television colour burst (3.54 MHz) crystal. It came with 16k of RAM for programming, along with the same 2k of Video Ram as that of the Laser 200.

The VZ300 had a small number of physical upgrades, but is completely compatible with the VZ200. There were three models of keyboard released for the VZ300 - being :

1) Generation 1 : Brown keys with no under-key labels. (1985)

2) Generation 2 : Brown keys with under-key labels. (1986)

3) Generation 3 : Light-grey/cream coloured keys, with under-key labels. (1987)

VTech Laser 310 (1987) with Light-grey/cream coloured keys and under-key labels

Externally, the rubber keys were replaced with hard plastic capped keys. The case was made with a less brittle type of plastic.

Video Technology used higher capacity memory ICs for the VZ-300, having 18kb of memory (16kb CPU RAM + 2kb video RAM). The system RAM capacity was increased to 16kB, which together with 16kB of expansion RAM, makes a total of 34kB RAM for the system.

The VZ200 16kb RAM expansion could be used, but because of the way the chip select pins were arranged, only 8kB would actually be available.

ETI magazine in Australia published an electronic circuit which would enable VZ300 owners to use all 16kB of the VZ200 expansion.

Rare 64k VZ300 unit - There is at least one VZ300 known to exist with 66k of memory (64K RAM + 2K Video), built on the motherboard, built by Video Technology. This unit uses 8x HM4864P-2 8K Static Ram chips instead of the usual 8x 2K memory chips.

The Video Technology Laser 110 computer.

The Laser 100 and 110 were released just prior to the Laser 210 / VZ200. These computers were very similar to TRS-80 Model 1, from the BASIC ROM's point of view.

For video part, instead, it uses a MC6847 (as the TRS-80 Color Computer, which is MC6809-based, not Z80-based like the Laser).

Both computers were released with the same orange coloured keyboard 'chicklet' style keyboard on a black background.

Both computers also had the same BASIC in ROM, of which, there are at least three versions: 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2.

The Laser 100 was released with 2K RAM + 2K Video RAM, whilst the Laser 110 was released with 4K RAM + 2K Video RAM.

Both computers supported colour within the internal language interpreters (BASIC, Assembler), however, the output video from the NTSC and PAL circuitry only supplied black and white signals.

The Laser 100 and 110 computers were never released as a re-badged 'VZ-100'.

A rare Laser 305 computer

The Laser 305 is an extremely rare computer produced by Video Technology. Essentially it is the Laser 310 motherboard placed inside the Laser 200 keyboard, of which, anyone with these two computers could perform themselves. However, the original release and the reasoning behind VTech releasing this particular configuration, unfortunately, has been lost to history. As of July 2021 there are only two known Laser 305's in existence.

The Seltron 200 Color Computer is quite unique. Named after the supermarket retail chain 'Scale ELEKTRON' imported 80 units into Austria and was sold throughout the countries of Austria, Hungary and Italy. The known examples of the Seltron are unique with its own configuration layout of the motherboard; quite different from that of the other family of computers.

The Seltron's motherboard contained the same custom VZ300/Laser310 single packaged GA003 and GA004 chipsets (which replaced discrete VZ200/Laser200-210 components), though the design eliminated the need for the GA008 (clock register and DRAM controller) that is used in the 16Kb VZ300/Laser310. Some speculate that it was Video Technology's attempt at cost reducing the manufacturing process. It was released with the usual 2Kb of video RAM, along with 2Kb of user RAM (Same as the Laser 200), however, the motherboard allowed for further expansion of another 2 KB or 4Kb of RAM. By adding an additional 2x 2 KB user RAM it would bring the Seltron up to the same spec as an "8K" VZ200/Laser210. The Seltron also had the standard 16k ROM, and the motherboard allowed for the option of either a single 16Kb ROM package or 2x 8Kb ROM chip packages.

As of 2022 there are around 10 Seltron 200 computers known to be existing, mostly in Hungary.

Sold as the Salora Fellow throughout Finland, Sweden & Scandinavia. These were supplied with 2k RAM + 2K Video RAM Laser200 computers.

Re-labelled and sold/distributed on a small scale throughout the USA.

Throughout the United Kingdom, the Laser200 was named the Texet TX8000A. Very few models were ever sold, and it is unknown if any exist today.

The VZ includes a built-in BASIC interpreter in ROM, which is used not just for programming, but for accessing the OS, recording programs, and all other operations on the micro.

The VZ200 uses a version of Microsoft BASIC II, similar but not identical to Level II BASIC on the TRS-80, including useful commands like SET, PRINT@ and IF-THEN-ELSE. Firmware machine code routines are available using the RSX command. The firmware contains a large number of useful routines provided by Zilog, via NEC.

Some TRS-80 BASIC commands, such as RANDOMIZE, ON and the really useful DEF commands (only subroutines can be used for formulae), are not available, so only simple TRS-80 programs can be entered without alteration. A number of Extended Basics were written that "unhid" approximately 25 of these hidden BASIC commands that were partially disabled from factory by Video Technology.

The BASIC can use integers, decimals and floating point numbers. Double precision numbers are not available, but can be used by storing the different power position numbers in a string and concatenating the strings.