SDLTRS and the Videogenies

( German text )

There are various emulators for the TRS-80 (and other models) from Tandy. Unfortunately, little is known about the computers from EACA and TCS that are compatible with Tandy and are manufactured and distributed in Germany. These are only partially supported in the well-known emulators.I use Jens Guenter's emulator SDLTRS for the demonstration. Unfortunately, pictures of the screens of the original systems are much more difficult to take with a digital camera and are not always visually appealing. I also don't have all the systems presented here in my collection, which is why they can only be shown in the emulation. Please read the SDLTRS online documentation.

All files on this webside are included in sdltrs_und_die_videogenies.7z so that the examples can also be tried out locally. I have tested the calls under Windows 10-64bit, if a 32bit Windows is used, SDL2TRS64.EXE must be replaced with SDL2TRS.EXE in the calls.

And yes, EACA made even the Colour Genie. But this one  doesn't belong to the true TRS-80 compatibel systems, but a lot code in the ROM of  the Colour Genie  comes from the Video Genie. For the Colour Genie there are spezial emulators found on the web. I prefer the  "CGENIE - The EG 2000 Colour Genie Emulator" from Jürgen Buchmüller (Pullmoll) running with MSDOS and real floppydrives. A  version for linux was completed by Schnitzeltony.

Contents:

Genie I/II   G-DOS    NEWDOS   H(acktory)-DOS   Schmidtke CP/M

Genie III   G-DOS2.1   G-DOS2.4   Kaempf  CP/M   Holte CP/M   Lowe CP/M

Speedmaster

Genie IIs   Kaempf CP/M   G. Schroeder CP/M   Grafik

Genie IIIs   Holte CP/M   Kaempf  CP/M 2.x   Kaempf  CP/M 3   G-DOS 2.4   Grafik und RDLBASIC  

The Video Genie

The Video Genie was originally delivered with NEWDOS-80.But then there was G-DOS (a germanized and expanded NEWDOS) and with various extensions to the 64-character mode, the 80-character mode and "high-resolution" graphics. With a banking adapter and memory expansion (necessary for the older models), CP/M was also available and possible as operating system.
Emulation for G-DOS with german character set:

[g1_gdos22_charset1-genie.cmd]:
sdl2trs64 -rom vg1-TCS-rom.bin -charset1 genie -disk0 flogd02.dmk

 


and for NEWDOS:

[g1_newdos.cmd]:
sdl2trs64 -rom vg1-TCS-rom.bin -disk0 flond62.dmk



There were also various adjustments to NEWDOS / G-DOS in the user groups of the time.

Here are the adaptations by Arnulf Sopp which he called H(acktory)-DOS. The H-DOS 2.3c supports the "EG-64 MBA (Memory-Banking Adapter" from TCS and this is also emulated with SDLTRS. The command B? displays the corresponding RAM banks of the EG-64 MBA. See also the german documentation for HDOS.

In SDLTRS: Press ALT-I, select "Model I Character Set" and there select "Genie", with ENTER, TAB or SPACE confirm and press ESC... or on the command line with the option -charset1 genie ...
This character set is then used:
/* CG 10 - german charset for Genie I/II & Video Genie from: http://oldcomputers-ddns.org/public/pub/rechner/eaca/genie_1/roms/vg1_mit_tcs-expansion/tcs-rom-ext_zeichensatz_2716.bin */
With the option of memory expansion and/or bank switching, CP/M 2.2 was also possible, giving access to another large software area. Since port 0xFE got a bit "tight" for the emulator, there are a few changes:

The option for "CP/M-Banking" (Mattes/Schmidtke) is:
-speedup cpm, while the clock frequency remains at 1.78 MHz: it becomes a bit more "cozy"
- with -speedup lnw the LNW80 emulation is activated: 4 MHz and "fade in" the HRG into the lower 16K

With the Schmidtke CP/M for the Videogenie the driver for the 80-Z card can be installed with copy sys.sys=sys80.sys. After a "cold start" with SHIFT-F10, this is then activated and 80*22 characters are displayed. In the Schmidtke-CP/M, the keyboard layout has been changed somewhat: the colon is on SHIFT-0 (function key F6 in SDLTRS), the semicolon is replaced in the "original" by SHIFT + SPACEBAR + ;, in SDLTRS this is currently only possible via the "Virtual Keyboard": ALT + J and select Keyboard there.

Genie III

CP/M 2.2a from Thomas Holte

Genie IIs with the CP/M from Gerald Schroeder. Gerald Schroeder replaced the Z80 with a moderne HD64180 and build the CP/M for his system.

[g2s_gs_cpm.cmd:]
sdl2trs64.exe -rom speedm.rom -disk0 g2s-gs-cpm.dmk -doubler both -speedup tcs

As of the special hardware and using a terminal over rs232 connection in this emulating is no cursor seen but the system is running.

Below the Genie IIIs from  TCS with the metallcase of  1mm dickness. The picture is from the TCS flyer as my Genie IIIs is open at the moment.