The Thomson MO5 is a home computer introduced in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

in June 1984 to compete against systems such as the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

and Commodore 64. It had a release price of 2390 FF. At the same time, Thomson also released the up-market

Thomson TO7/70 Thomson may refer to: Names * Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin * Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson Businesses and organizations * SGS-Thomson Mi ...

machine. The MO5 was not sold in vast quantities outside France and was largely discontinued in favour of the improved Thomson MO6 in 1986. MO5s were used as educational tools in French schools for a period (see

Computing for All The Computing for All plan (''Plan Informatique pour Tous - IPT'') was a French government plan to introduce computers to the country's 11 million pupils. A second goal was to support national industry. It followed several introductory computer sci ...

, a French government plan to introduce computers to the country's pupils), and could be used as a "''nano-machine"'' terminal for the ''"Nanoréseau"'' educational network. The computer boots directly to the built-in

Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ...

interpreter ( MO5 Basic 1.0).

Specifications

The Thomson MO5 runs on a

Motorola 6809E The Motorola 6809 ("''sixty-eight-oh-nine''") is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor with some 16-bit computing, 16-bit features. It was designed by Motorola's Terry Ritter and Joel Boney and introduced in 1978. Although source compatible wi ...

processor clocked at 1 MHz and features 48 KB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch ...

(16 KB used as video memory, 32KB as free user RAM) and 16KB of ROM (4KB for the monitor and 12KB for the BASIC interpreter). Graphics were generated by a EFGJ03L (or MA4Q-1200)

gate array A gate array is an approach to the design and manufacture of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) using a prefabricated chip with components that are later interconnected into logic devices (e.g. NAND gates, flip-flops, etc.) accord ...

capable of 40×25 text display and a resolution of 320 x 200 pixels with 16 colours (limited by 8x1 pixel colour attribute areas).. The hardware colour palette is 4-bit RGBI, with 8 basic RGB colours and a intensity bit (called P for "Pastel") that controlled saturation ("saturated" or "pastel"). In memory, the bit order was PBGR. The desaturated colours were obtained by mixing of the original RGB components within the video hardware. This is done by a PROM circuit, where a two bit mask controls colour mixing ratios of 0%, 33%, 66% and 100% of the saturated hue. This approach allows the display of Orange instead of "desaturated white", and Gray instead of "desaturated black". According to the values specified on the computer's technical manual (''“Manuel Technique du MO5”'', p. 11-19), the hardware palette was: ''Displayed colors are only approximate due to different transfer and color spaces used on web pages (sRGB) and analog video (BT.601)'' Video RAM was 16KB. As common on home computers designed to be connected to an ordinary TV screen, the 320 x 200 pixels active area doesn't cover the entire screen, and is surrounded by a border. The video output is

RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additiv ...

on a SCART connector, with the refresh rate being

625-line 625-lines is a standard-definition television resolution used mainly in the context of analog systems. It was first demonstrated by Mark Iosifovich Krivosheev in 1948. Analog broadcast television standards The following International Telecommunic ...

compatible 50Hz. Audio is limited to 1-bit

square wave A square wave is a non-sinusoidal periodic waveform in which the amplitude alternates at a steady frequency between fixed minimum and maximum values, with the same duration at minimum and maximum. In an ideal square wave, the transitions b ...

tones, outputted via the TV using the SCART connector. The tape player's output is also routed to the computer's sound output. The keyboard has 58 keys and includes a reset button. The machine used cassette tapes for file storage, played on a proprietary player connected using a 5-pin

DIN connector The DIN connector is an electrical connector that was standardized by the ' (DIN), the German Institute for Standards, in the early 1970s. The male DIN connectors (plugs) feature a 13.2 mm diameter metal shield with a notch that limits the ...

Expansion

A cartridge port was available. A RAM expansion adding extra 64 KB and a "''Nanoréseau"'' network card could be plugged into it, but was incompatible early MO5 machines.

Software

Around 200 software titles are known to exist for the MO5.

Variants

An improved version, named Thomson MO5E ("E" for "Export", a model designed for foreign markets) was presented in 1985. It had a different casing featuring a mechanical keyboard, a parallel port, two joystick ports, an internal

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

modulator In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the ''carrier signal'', with a separate signal called the ''modulation signal'' that typically contains informatio ...

and an integrated power supply. Sound was also improved, with four voices and seven octaves. The Thomson MO5NR ("NR" for ''"Nanoréseau"'', a network standard - see

) was introduced in 1986 and added a 58 key

AZERTY AZERTY () is a specific layout for the characters of the Latin alphabet on typewriter keys and computer keyboards. The layout takes its name from the first six letters to appear on the first row of alphabetical keys; that is, ( ). Similar t ...

keyboard and an integrated "''Nanoréseau"'' network controller. Memory was expanded to 128K and the machine came with a new version of BASIC (Microsoft Basic 128 1.0). Graphics were improved by the use of the Thomson EF9369 graphics chip, and the MO5NR could generate 4096 colors, and display up to 16 depending on the resolution used: 320 x 200 with 16 colors (with proximity limitations), 640 x 200 with 2 colors, 320 x 200 with 4 colors, 160 x 200 with 16 colors, 320 x 200 with 3 colors and 1 transparency level, two pages of 320 x 200 with 2 colors, 160 x 200 with 5 colors and 3 transparency levels. Sound was also updated to four voices and five octaves.

References

External links