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RAM Pack
RAM pack,http://fjkraan.home.xs4all.nl/comp/zx80/rampack.html (shown as "RAM pack" on 1–3 KB unit itself)http://www.jupiter-ace.co.uk/hardware_rampacks.html (shown as "RAM pack" on manual) RAMpack, RAM expansion cartridge, RAM expansion unit (REU), memory expansion pak and memory module are some of the most common names given to various self-contained units or cartridges that expand a computer, games console or other device's own internal RAM in a user-friendly manner. Such units are generally designed to be installable by an end-user with little technical knowledge, often simply by plugging them into an expansion or cartridge slot easily accessible at the rear of the machine (e.g. the Sinclair ZX81 or the VTech Laser 200), or via a user-accessible hatch (e.g. the Atari 800's CX852 and CX853 modules or the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak). The ZX81 16K RAM expansion gained particular notoriety for the "RAM pack wobble" problem because it was top-heavy and only supported by the ...
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ZX81 - Rampack - ZX Printer
The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful; more than 1.5 million units were sold. In the United States it was initially sold as the ZX-81 under licence by Timex. Timex later produced its own versions of the ZX81: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. Unauthorized ZX81 clones were produced in several countries. The ZX81 was designed to be small, simple, and above all, inexpensive, with as few components as possible. Video output is to a television set rather than a dedicated monitor. Programs and data are loaded and saved onto compact audio cassettes. It uses only four silicon chips and a mere 1 KB of memory. It has no power switch or moving parts, with the exception of a ...
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Random-access Memory
Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the physical location of data inside the memory, in contrast with other direct-access data storage media (such as hard disks, CD-RWs, DVD-RWs and the older magnetic tapes and drum memory), where the time required to read and write data items varies significantly depending on their physical locations on the recording medium, due to mechanical limitations such as media rotation speeds and arm movement. RAM contains multiplexing and demultiplexing circuitry, to connect the data lines to the addressed storage for reading or writing the entry. Usually more than one bit of storage is accessed by the same address, and RAM devices often have multiple data lines and are said to be "8-bit" or "16-bit", etc ...
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Atari 8-bit Family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, and Atari XEGS, the last discontinued in 1992. They differ primarily in packaging, each based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ... at and the same custom coprocessor chips. As the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, it has graphics and sound more advanced than most contemporary machines. Video games were a major draw, and first-person space combat simulator ''Star Raiders'' is considered the platform's killer app. The plug-and-play peripherals use the Atari SIO serial bus, wit ...
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Jupiter Ace
The Jupiter Ace by Jupiter Cantab was a British home computer of the early 1980s. The Ace differed from other microcomputers of the time in that its programming environment used Forth instead of the more popular BASIC. After Jupiter Cantab ceased trading, the brand was acquired by Boldfield Computing Ltd in 1984, before eventually being sold to Paul Andrews's company Andrews UK Limited in 2015. History Jupiter Cantab was formed by Richard Altwasser and Steven Vickers. Both had been on the design team for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum: Altwasser did some work on the development of the ZX-81 and in the design of the hardware of the Spectrum. Vickers adapted and expanded the 4K ZX-80 ROM to the 8K ZX-81 ROM and wrote most of the ROM for the Spectrum. The Jupiter Ace was named after an early British computer, the Pilot ACE. Sales to the general public were slow. Initially the computer was only available by mail order, and Jupiter Cantab reported that there were production ...
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ZX80
The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer launched on 29 January 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. (later to be better known as Sinclair Research). It is notable for being one of the first computers available in the United Kingdom for less than a hundred pounds. It was available in kit form for £79.95, where purchasers had to assemble and solder it together, and as a ready-built version at £99.95. The ZX80 was very popular straight away, and for some time there was a waiting list of several months for either version of the machine. Name The ZX80 was named after the Z80 processor with the 'X' meaning "the mystery ingredient". Hardware Internally, the machine was designed by Jim Westwood around a Z80 central processing unit with a clock speed of 3.25 MHz, and was equipped with 1  KB of static RAM and 4 KB of read-only memory (ROM). It had no sound output. The ZX80 was designed around readily available TTL chips; the only proprietary technology was the ...
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ZX81
The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful; more than 1.5 million units were sold. In the United States it was initially sold as the ZX-81 under licence by Timex. Timex later produced its own versions of the ZX81: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. Unauthorized ZX81 clones were produced in several countries. The ZX81 was designed to be small, simple, and above all, inexpensive, with as few components as possible. Video output is to a television set rather than a dedicated monitor. Programs and data are loaded and saved onto compact audio cassettes. It uses only four silicon chips and a mere 1 KB of memory. It has no power switch or moving parts, with the exception of a V ...
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Atari 8-bit Computer Peripherals
Atari 8-bit computer peripherals include floppy drives, printers, modems, and video game controllers for Atari's 8-bit computer family, which includes the 400/800, XL, XE, and XEGS. Because the Atari 400/800 8-bit computers were bundled with an RF modulator, stringent FCC regulations limiting radio emissions applied. Consequently, the Atari 400/800 systems internal construction use large metal frames as Faraday cages to prevent emissions. This prevents the use of internal cards to add connections for peripherals. To permit easy expansion, Atari developed the SIO (Serial Input/Output) bus. This bus daisy chains together all Atari peripherals into a single string. The Atari computer family was designed to be easy for novice users to expand, with one universal connector plug. Peripherals have their own IDs and can deliver downloadable drivers to the computer during the boot process. However, the additional electronics in these "intelligent" peripherals made them cost more than the ...
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Commodore VIC-20
The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units. It was described as "one of the first anti-spectatorial, non-esoteric computers by design...no longer relegated to hobbyist/enthusiasts or those with money, the computer Commodore developed was the computer of the future." The VIC-20 was called ''VC-20'' in Germany because the pronunciation of ''VIC'' with a German accent sounds like the German expletives "fick" or "wichsen". The term ''VC'' was marketed as though it were an abbreviation of ''VolksComputer'' ("people's computer," similar to Volkswagen and Volksempfänger). History Origin and marketing The VIC-20 was intended to be more economical than the PET computer. It was equipped with 5  KB o ...
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Commodore REU
Commodore's RAM Expansion Unit (REU) range of external RAM add-ons for their Commodore 64/128 home computers was announced at the same time as the C128. The REUs came in three models, initially the 1700 (128  KB) and 1750 (), and later the 1764 (, for the C64). The need for the REU came about when Commodore management decided to not use the final version of the custom Memory Management Unit (MMU) which then limited the size of memory in spite of early discussion of a larger memory map. Engineers traveling to the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) were confronted with flyers and billboards advertising a memory size that was no longer supported and finally the top management asked where the additional memory (up to ) would plug in. By the time of the 1985 CES show in Chicago, the engineers were able to display a spinning globe of the earth as a demonstration of Direct Memory Access (DMA) by the new REU units. The REU hardware was designed by Frank Palia and the dedicate ...
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Sega Saturn
The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the successful Sega Genesis. The Saturn has a dual-Central processing unit, CPU architecture and eight processors. Its games are in CD-ROM format, and its game library contains several Porting, ports of arcade games as well as original games. Development of the Saturn began in 1992, the same year Sega's groundbreaking 3D computer graphics, 3D Sega Model 1, Model 1 arcade hardware debuted. The Saturn was designed around a new CPU from the Japanese electronics company Hitachi. Sega added another video display processor in early 1994 to better compete with Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony's forthcoming PlayStation (console), PlayStation. The Saturn was initially successful in Japan but failed to sell in large numbers in the United States, where ...
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Nintendo 64
The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and Australia. It was the last major home console to use cartridges as its primary storage format until the Nintendo Switch in 2017. It competed primarily with the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. Development began in 1993 in partnership with Silicon Graphics, using the codename Project Reality, then a test model and arcade platform called Ultra 64. The final design was named after its 64-bit CPU, which aided in the console's 3D capabilities. Its design was mostly complete by mid-1995 and launch was delayed until 1996 for the completion of the launch games '' Super Mario 64'', '' Pilotwings 64'', and ''Saikyō Habu Shōgi'' (exclusive to Japan). The charcoal-gray console was followed by a series of color variants. Some games requ ...
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Nintendo DS Memory Expansion Pak
The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tandem (the bottom one being a touchscreen), a built-in microphone and support for wireless connectivity. Both screens are encompassed within a clamshell design similar to the Game Boy Advance SP. The Nintendo DS also features the ability for multiple DS consoles to directly interact with each other over Wi-Fi within a short range without the need to connect to an existing wireless network. Alternatively, they could interact online using the now-defunct Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. Its main competitor was Sony's PlayStation Portable during the seventh generation of video game consoles. Prior to its release, the Nintendo DS was marketed as an experimental "third pillar" in Nintendo's console lineup, meant to complement the Game Boy Ad ...
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