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.
We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system,
please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
Hi everyone!
I have just completed the development of Verbix, my latest universal game written with Cross-Lib (https://github.com/Fabrizio-Caruso/CROSS-LIB) for about 200 different vintage consoles, computers and other devices including the VZ200 and its big brother the VTech Laser 500.
GAMEPLAY
Sort of like Scrabble: form 5-letter words on the bottom row by rotating columns or the row itself.
CONTROLS
I (rotate column upwards)
J (move left or rotate the row to the left)
K (rotate column downwards)
L (move right or rotate the row to the right)
You can play the VTech versions of the game online at:
VZ200: https://nippur72.github.io/laser310-emu/?load$http://github.com/Fabrizio-Caruso/CROSS-LIB/releases/download/verbix/Xverbix_vz200_24k.vz
Laser 500: https://nippur72.github.io/laser500emu/?load$http://github.com/Fabrizio-Caruso/CROSS-LIB/releases/download/verbix/Xverbix_laser500.bin
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
VZ200 binary: https://github.com/Fabrizio-Caruso/CROSS-LIB/releases/download/verbix/Xverbix_vz200_24k.vz
Laser 500 wav file: https://github.com/Fabrizio-Caruso/CROSS-LIB/releases/download/verbix/Xverbix_laser500.wav
I used to have the VZ200 with the memory expansion, tape player, color plotter and it was amazing. I used to buy a game a week with money I used to make from delivering newspapers. Unfortunately, my mother has thrown everything out at some stage.. I do recall, spending many afternoons writing the sample programs and then modifying them for a bit of fun.
Tuesday 1st February 2022
Chris Tapping (Scotland / Australia)
Hi All,
We are after retro fans to join our ''VZ200/VZ300 fans" groups on Facebook. We are after more people whom want to make the VZ community grow.
We now have arduino and FPGA projects for the VZ. We even have a SD card reader with FAT32 dos running on the VZ !
We''re also trying to gather all known software and articles for the VZ and Laser computers. Do you still have old VZ software laying around on tape or disc? We want a copy of it to keep for historical purposes.
Facebook search : VZ200/VZ300 fans.
Monday 26th July 2021
Dave (australia)
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