The Tomy Tutor and the state of 1983 home computers

The Tomy Tutor was my first computer, in late 1983. I was seven and we got it at Federated. I've acquired several more since then, but this is the actual one I used and it still works perfectly.

Using a design modeled on the doomed Texas Instruments 99/8, one of several unreleased successors to the TI 99/4A, the Tomy Tutor and its overseas siblings, the Japanese Pyuuta (ぴゅう太) series, promised an easy kid-friendly introduction to computers with a durable case, nice graphics and sound, games on cartridge, and two, count 'em, two internal dialects of BASIC (one on early systems). It had 16K of RAM, though this was entirely tied up in the 9918A video display processor with only 256 bytes of RAM directly addressible by its 2.7MHz TMS 9995 CPU, and of Tomy's promised peripherals only game controllers and a tape deck were ever offered. Still, despite the bowdlerized operating system and bupkis contemporary expansion options, the Tutor was nevertheless one of the first true 16-bit home computers, and as part of the 1983 low-end home system cavalcade, an inexpensive choice as well.

Another thing the Tomy doesn't have much of is history: the story of its development is rather murky, and modern-day Takara Tomy all but disowns it. I don't compulsively collect for many systems, but I do for this one, because it was the first computer we actually had at home. So when a folder with handwritten Tomy marketing notes turned up on eBay, I jumped on it. It turned out to contain proposed names for what would become the Tutor, various test marketing slogans, and even an internal pitch discussing the competition, which I'll reproduce in its entirety as an interesting insider snapshot of the early 1980s U.S. home computer landscape — after we make a quick trip to that scene in its native Japan.

Testing MacOS on the Apple Network Server 2.0 ROMs

It's time for another save point in the continuing saga of the various ROMs for the Apple Network Server, Apple's first through-and-through Unix server (previously, previously). The Apple Network Server was only ever officially able to boot AIX, IBM's proprietary Power ISA-specific Unix, though it was originally intended to run Novell NetWare and was demonstrated booting Mac OS with early pre-production ROMs. However, much to industry surprise, late in its life cycle then-CTO Ellen Hancock announced that the ANS would be able to boot Mac OS and even Windows NT as well using ROM upgrades. Neither ROM was officially released before Steve Jobs convinced Gil Amelio to cancel the line, and for many years they were believed to be vapourware.

But they've started to surface, first with an ex-Apple employee who had both the preproduction ROM and the Mac OS ROM on a flash ROM SIMM, and later another employee turned up with the NT ROM, though sadly more is needed to make it actually run NT. It turned out that I also had the preproduction ROM in a box gathering dust, and a couple months ago we put both the preproduction ROMs and NT ROMs through their paces.

Well, thanks to Jeff Walther who generously built a few replica ROM DIMMs for me to test, we can now try the "2.0" MacOS ROMs on holmstock, our hard-working Apple Network Server 700 test rig (stockholm, my original ANS 500, is still officially a production unit). And there are some interesting things to report, especially when we pit the preproduction ROMs and this set head-to-head in MacBench, and even try booting Rhapsody on it.