The Dick Smith VZ-200 and VZ-300 were very popular in Australia and New Zealand from 1983 to 1990. The VZ200 was the same model as the VTech Laser 200.
Despite of its poor chicklet keyboard and short RAM space, users could find hundreds of programs from local magazines, Dick Smith store or from several very active VZ user clubs.
Several peripherals and add-on were quickly available, among them, a 16 KB RAM plug-in module, a tape recorder, a mouse, a Speech Synthesiser and later a floppy disc drive unit.
See a complete review of the VZ 200 in the 'Read more' page.
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I own a Zenith VZ-200 with the 16K memory module, cassette and joysticks. The base system has 8K ROM Basic and 4K RAM (2KB user, 2KB video). I had a good start on a Sub Commander style game (never finished) with nice wave action working on the horizon. I''m digging it out again to give to my 3 year-old grandson (he LOVES keyboards!). This system (along with a T/S 80) gave me a start towards a Robotics degree and an IT career that lasted 20+ years. In my retirement I''ve moved to Arduino UNO and Raspberry PI (both together cost less than the $99.00 US I paid for the base VZ).
Go the VZ''s. Sep 2013: I''ve just managed to get the VZ''s to play WAV file samples through its internal piezo, as well as the start of a .MOD music module player - all done with assembly and easily compiled with the Z88 dev kit. I''d love it if more people were keen enough to come on board. Find me and various music programs over on the VZEMU Yahoogroups email list. Cheers to all whom read this.
Monday 16th September 2013
Dave (Aus)
NAME
VZ200
MANUFACTURER
Dick Smith
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
Australia
YEAR
1982
END OF PRODUCTION
Unknown
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
Microsoft BASIC
KEYBOARD
45 rubber keys, Basic instructions and graphic symbols
