Tiki 100
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Tiki 100 was a desktop home/personal computer manufactured by Tiki Data of Oslo, Norway. The computer was launched in the spring of 1984 under the original name Kontiki¹ 100², the computer was first and foremost intended for the emerging educational sector, especially for primary schools.
The computer was based on the Zilog Z80 CPU, and featured:
- A full-travel keyboard integrated into the computer case
- A colour graphics CRT interface with palette, supporting 3 different graphics modes with 240, 480 or 960 by 256 pixels with 16, 4, or 2 simultaneous colours respectively in 32 kilobytes of dual ported memory.
- A TV interface
- A polyphonic sound generator
- One or two integrated 5¼ inch floppy disk drives
- Two RS-232 serial ports
- One Centronics printer port
- 64 kilobytes (KB) of RAM (main memory)
- 8 kilobytes of EPROM memory
Software included:
- TIKO, a CP/M-compatible operating system
- A version of the BBC BASIC programming language interpreter
- A COMAL interpreter
Optional equipment:
- Harddisk controller, replacing one of the floppy disk stations with a harddisk.
- A bespoke network-hub that allowed up to 16 computers to connect in a network, sharing disks and printers. The server was a Tiki-100 with harddisk, running the MP/M operating system, serving up to 3 different printers simultaneously.
- A second CPU card, with an 8088 processor running MS-DOS (but not PC-compatible). In this mode, the Z80 CPU is serving as an I/O processor, handling disk I/O, graphics etc.
The Tiki-100 had 3 different graphics modes, but no text-mode as it used bitmapped graphics only. The modes supported 40, 80 or 160 by 25 characters, respectively, and hardware vertical scroll.
[edit] The rev.D
Later, an Intel 8088 based IBM PC compatible model running MS-DOS was made, somewhat confusingly called Tiki 100 Rev.D. In addition to being PC-compatible (including CGA-compatible graphics), it also contained a Z80 processor so that it could seamlessly run the original Tiki 100 software, although with a slightly reduced graphics specification due to the CGA. The two processors shared the same bus, and the Z80 programs still ran under the 8088 operating system.
[edit] Notes
- Due to a dispute with Thor Heyerdahl, famous for his Kon-Tiki raft used in his expedition in 1947, the name was later changed to Tiki 100.
- Early prototypes had 4KB EPROM, and the '100' in the machine's name was based on the total KB amount of memory.
