Re: Laser 128EX RAM

[a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

"william strutts" <wrstrutts1@nospam.home.com> wrote:

>"Mitchell Spector" <a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca> wrote in message
>3b62cf1b.11064709@newsflash.concordia.ca">news:3b62cf1b.11064709@newsflash.concordia.ca...
>> Wayne Stewart <waynes@intergate.bc.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >I had the cover off a Laser 128EX and was wondering if anyone knew what
>> >the extra 64k on the motherboard was for? Odd it being separate from the
>> >other
>> >128k..
>>
>>     That extra 64K is dedicated video RAM. From what I remember, the Laser
>> used it for shadowing techniques to help speed up video screens when the
>> built-in accelerator was active. It also had built-in support for driving
>a
>> digital RGB/TTL monitor.
>>
>>     Hm, another thing unique to the Laser that I remember hearing about is
>> an interlaced mode very much like that of the Apple III Plus (280x384 and
>> 560x384).
>
>I saw one of those the other day at a thrift store (Laser 128) but it was
>missing the power cord and many of the cables for the ports
>seemed unusual.  Reminded me a lot of the IIc ports.  Din-5
>connectors if I recall right.  It had a built in 5.25 drive.  The box
>claimed it could have 1 meg of RAM.

    There were actually four Laser models, released in this order: 
Laser 3000, Laser 128, Laser 128EX and Laser 128EX/2.

    Off hand I can't remember which features were added to each
model, but they did came with many cool features built-in. There
was the equivalent of a 1MB Slinky RAM card on some (with the
sockets on the mainboard), an accelerated CPU, built-in UDC
controller, RGB video, MIDI, parallel port, battery operated clock
and Control Panel, function keys, a numeric keypad, an internal
floppy drive, etc. Even a standard 50-pin Apple II slot on the side 
of the machine. The EX/2 really put the Apple IIc Plus to shame.

    VTech/Laser was also know as one of the only companies 
that managed to be Apple II compatible without duplicating the 
original Apple ROMs. Apparently they were working on (or at 
least planned to built) a super enhanced Apple IIGS clone, but
Apple prevented that from happening. Ah well, if you can find
some, they made excellent IBM-101 keyboards. :-)

Mitchell Spector
a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca