Televideo TS1603

From: Doug Spence <ds_spenc_at_alcor.concordia.ca>
Date: Fri Jul 25 04:11:51 1997

On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Sam Ismail wrote:

> I got a nice system for free today from a nice old couple who run a
> thrift shop that they are closing down.

It's always nice to get free stuff. :)

> Its a Televideo 1603. What's interesting about this system for one thing
> is that it was made by Televideo, whom I thought only made terminals.

I keep running into TeleVideo terminals these days, but yeah, they did
make computers. I myself have a TeleVideo TPC-I, which is their portable
CP/M system. VERY nice machine, and well worth the $Can50 I paid for it
(especially considering that included transportation from Toronto to
Montreal, and a drink with a VERY nice computer geek femme) but I also
lack information on my system. (I got three original disks with it, but no
documentation, and of course, no mouse.)

> It has two 5.25" floppies integrated with a green monochrome monitor on a
> swivel armature and a detached keyboard. On the back are two DB-25 serial
> ports, a D-type connector RS-422 port, a telephone jack for a mouse (which
> I didn't get), and two dipswitch blocks. Inside it has an 8088 and a
> 6502! I was talking to Doug Coward tonight about it and he suggested that
> the 6502 was for the terminal operation, and the 8088 was actually the
> main processor. This makes sense, but I was wondering if anyone knew more
> about it.

Well, I did record some information about it from a large book I found in
my university library. The book is "The Microcomputer Users Handbook
1985" by Longley (possibly et. al., I didn't record the full info on the
book, just enough so I could find it again). The information in this book
tended to be pretty shoddy, but ANY information is better than total
vacuum.

Other than the information you have listed here, all I can add is that the
book says it ran at 5MHz (using the 8088), maximum RAM was 256K, and it
had 32K of display memory (as does my TPC-I). Graphics of 640 x 240
pixels were listed as optional, so the 32K of display memory would
probably only be there if the graphics option is in the machine.
(Resolution specs are also the same as my TPC-I, what a coincidence! ;) )

The machine was supposed to have two 1.46MB 5-1/4" floppy drives (would
that be quad density?), and supposedly ran CP/M and MS-DOS, though I'd
guess it'd really be CP/M-86 if there's no Z80/8080 in there.

It was packaged with a printer, and is listed in the book at 2395UKP.

I know that's a lot of words for very little help, I guess I'm just in the
typing mood tonight. :)

(Thanks for the work on the HHC deal even though it didn't work out, BTW)

> Sam
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
>

Doug Spence
ds_spenc_at_alcor.concordia.ca
Received on Fri Jul 25 1997 - 04:11:51 BST