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The Philips/Magnavox VideoWriter (styled VideoWRITER) is a standalone, fixed-application,
electronic typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively ag ...
/ dedicated word processor produced by Philips Home Interactive Systems (PHIS), a division of the Dutch electronics company
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...
. It includes a 10"
CRT CRT or Crt most commonly refers to: * Cathode-ray tube, a display * Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis CRT may also refer to: Law * Charitable remainder trust, United States * Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada * Columbia ...
amber screen with a wide
aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...
(i.e. more than 4:3), a
black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
thermal transfer printer Thermal-transfer printing is a digital printing method in which material is applied to paper (or some other material) by melting a coating of ribbon so that it stays glued to the material on which the print is applied. It contrasts with direct th ...
, a 3.5" floppy drive for saving documents, and dedicated computing hardware, all enclosed in a single case. The keyboard is separate and a custom design whose unusual features include a key and not just an key but also a key. The VideoWriter is not a freely programmable computer but a typewriter replacement appliance. It is not a laptop machine but was designed to be transportable in either a cloth or hard plastic carry case accessory.


History

First released in 1985, the VideoWriter was sold with a moderate degree of success for several years, with worldwide sales in the mid-hundreds-of-thousands. Notable users included Portuguese
Nobel Prize Winner Nobel often refers to: *Nobel Prize, awarded annually since 1901, from the bequest of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel *The Nobel family, a prominent Swedish and Russian family; see there for the list of people with the surname Nobel may also refe ...
José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which ...
and American poet Lucille Clifton. Some units were primarily Magnavox">Lucille Clifton">ith which ...
and American poet Lucille Clifton. Some units were primarily Magnavox-branded and some were just
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...
-branded, and there were several models. With the VideoWriter, Magnavox/Philips competed with Coleco, Brother (company), Brother, Smith-Corona and Canon (company), Canon, all of which offered similar inexpensive dedicated word processors. The VideoWriter appeared in the movies ''
52 Pick-Up ''52 Pick-Up'' is a 1986 American neo-noir crime film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, and Vanity. It is based on Elmore Leonard's 1974 novel ''52 Pickup'' and is the second adaptation of it after '' The Amb ...
'', '' Broadcast News'', and repeatedly in ''
Licence to Kill ''Licence to Kill'' is a 1989 spy film, the sixteenth in the List of James Bond films, ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the second and final film to star Timothy Dalton as the MI6 agent James Bond (literary character), J ...
''. The VideoWriter became the principal product of Philips Home Interactive Systems after management decided to discontinue all development of video game consoles and home PCs (even though in 1984, the
Magnavox Odyssey The Magnavox Odyssey is the first commercial home video game console. The hardware was designed by a small team led by Ralph H. Baer at Sanders Associates, while Magnavox completed development and released it in the United States in September ...
held 55% of worldwide console market share). This system was intended to bring $10,000 professional word processors to consumers, targeting high school and college students in particular. While in design, it was nicknamed the PWP, or the "Little Orange" (as the local
University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...
sports nickname was "Big Orange"), but this was dropped when Coleco started using the name PWP. The 100+ column amber screen was selected for the very best in readability, along with extra space for on-screen help to the right of the typing area. Similarly, the keyboard was designed with quality ease of typing in mind in all aspects. After the original version was released in 1985, it was localized to and sold in 11 European countries, although the character set originally included support for Spanish. About a dozen software engineers from the Magnavox Odyssey video game console group (which became PHIS) worked on the product; overall, PHIS at this time employed over 70. Not only were there follow-up models, but also a sheet feeder accessory was released for the VideoWriter. Recognizing that the
ink cartridge An ink cartridge or inkjet cartridge is a component of an inkjet printer that contains ink to be deposited onto paper during printing. It consists of one or more ink reservoirs and can include Inkjet printer#Underlying business model, electronic ...
s and the special VideoWriter floppies (which included a 50,000 word dictionary) were ephemeral, the application designed included the ability for the VideoWriter to recognize blank 3-1/2" floppies and
format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...
them for VideoWriter use (although without the dictionary feature). Also, the non-reusable thermal transfer ink cartridge can be removed from the printer mechanism, in which case the VideoWriter will print to standard
thermal paper Thermal paper (often supplied in roll form, and sometimes referred to as an audit roll) is a special fine paper that is coated with a material formulated to change color locally when exposed to heat. It is used in thermal printers, particularly ...
sheets, thus allowing the system to be used up to the current day. Although the VideoWriter has the capability to accept program disks, none were ever sold, although game designer Bob Harris designed several entertaining apps, such as an
acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...
solver. The groups that became PHIS included the Philips division that invented
laser disc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United States in 1978 under the name Dis ...
technology and designed the first laser video disc player (Bob Gepp was the project manager of this effort). After specifying, along with partner
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
, the fundamental specs for CD music and
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...
(the so-called Red, Yellow, and Green Books), the storage area was split off into Philips LMS (Laser/Magnetic Storage), which eventually moved from the PHIS office location to Colorado, forming the nucleus of what would become the storage products industry there. Meanwhile, the Odyssey group had finished designing the next generation Odyssey console as well as the C9000 personal computer system, which would have been the first CD-ROM-based and
GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...
-based
Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
-family system in the
personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...
industry. According to PHIS president Lou Arpino, referring to game consoles and PCs: "It's just a Cabbage-Patch Doll phenomenon"—and thus dropping all products except the VideoWriter.


Design

Based on a 1984
motherboard A motherboard, also called a mainboard, a system board, a logic board, and informally a mobo (see #Nomenclature, "Nomenclature" section), is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It ho ...
design by PHIS engineer Dan Murphy, that was elegantly simple and able to be manufactured for $25, the VideoWriter used the
Hitachi HD64180 The HD64180 is a Z80-based embedded microprocessor developed by Hitachi with an integrated memory management unit (MMU) and on-chip peripherals. It appeared in 1985. The Hitachi HD64180 "Super Z80" was later licensed to Zilog and sold by them ...
or
National Semiconductor National Semiconductor Corporation was an United States of America, American Semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analogue electronics, analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, ...
NSC800N CPU, clones of the
Zilog Z80 The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog that played an important role in the evolution of early personal computing. Launched in 1976, it was designed to be Backward compatibility, software-compatible with the ...
with a unique pinout, along with an NCR 7250
video controller A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...
. The system included 16K RAM, 64K ROM, a 3-1/2"
floppy disk drive A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...
(possibly the third system to use one after the 1983 ACT Apricot then the 1984
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
), and an integral thermal transfer
dot matrix printer Dot matrix printing, sometimes called impact matrix printing, is a computer printing process in which ink is applied to a surface using a relatively low-resolution dot matrix for layout. Dot matrix printers are a type of impact printer that p ...
. While designed originally to sell for $399, parts were sourced in Europe and Asia that were greatly affected by the inflation that plagued this period in time, and thus it ended up selling in the U.S. for $799 (less than the
IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...
at $1500 or Mac at $2500). The industrial design for the exterior was created by Duncan Copeland, a Philips designer from Europe assigned to the PHIS operation in
Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...
. The application and thus keyboard layout was designed by Greg L. Weinstein, inspired by the Ashton-Tate MultiMate Advantage software for the IBM PC. Project Manager was Robert S. (Bob) Gepp, lead software engineer was Rexford A. (Rex) Battenberg, and lead developer of the custom
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
was Nicholas (Nick) Vigorito. It was manufactured at the Philips factory in Vienna, originally at the rate of 11 systems/hour, although some of the inventory was remanufactured at the master Magnavox North American warehouse in
Jefferson City, Tennessee Jefferson City (originally named Mossy Creek) is a city in Jefferson County, Tennessee, United States. It is part of the Morristown Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the population was 8,419. Histor ...
(an hour away from the PHIS offices).


Floppy format

The 3-1/2" floppy disk format was
proprietary {{Short pages monitor