The SMC 70 was, like its successor, the SMC 70G designed for professional video applications. It was the first computer in the world to use 3.5" floppy disk, created a little earlier by Sony.
The graphic and character display screens are controlled separately, the screen can be changed instantly from character to graphics, and so forth. There are four display surfaces in the 160 x 100 mode.
Fun fact: This computer was briefly seen being used by the alien-human hybrid child Elisabeth in the V:The Final Battle miniseries.
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New information from Randall Solem:
The SMC-70 is only capable of producing 1 voice. It has a 3-position switch on the side allowing you to boot from the internal ROM (Allows you access to several functions including a Sony ROM BASIC), the disk, or a plug-in ROM card of some sort (I never saw one). The RGB Multi Out is a proprietary connector used for a monitor with a built-in speaker. There is a 4-way switch visible on the front of the computer which allows 3 volume levels and OFF for the built-in speaker.
Grahame Weinbren experience:
I used the SMC-70 for my first interactive art work, "The Erl King." The computer controlled 3 laser disc players through a multi port serial controller, a custom designed cuts only switcher. Navigation through the videodisc material was through a touch screen.
Widely condered the first interactive video artwork, "The Erl King" was exhibited at museums and galleries all over the world, and has been acqured this year (2004) for the Guggenheim Museum collection. They are also emulating the piece digitally for preservation purposes.
Keypad and floppy drives, by Jack Ungerleider:
This is one of the first computers someone actually paid me to program. I've got plenty of stories but I'll keep it to things that relate to the system and its use.
First off the key pad port was an oddball. It was simply contact points for switch closure. This came in handy for "alternative" input devices. The big problem was getting plugs to fit the port.
I can't tell if the drive unit on the pictured machine has "Auto Shutter" printed on the front. Many of the early systems had this. The first generation of 3.5" drives used manual shutter disks. When the auto shutter mechanism was introduced the diskettes where made so you could still lock the shudder open for manual drives. Also in 1984 We had an use getting the Sony dual drive unit. It seems Apple was buying up all the 3.5" drives the Macintosh and Sony could keep up enough to make there own products.
Thanks to Maurice Turgeon for the pictures.
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.).
I developed software for the SMC-70 in 1980 in Atsugi, Japan, including a symbolic disassembled and 3-D Breakout game. I continued to work in-house on related products for Sony Canada in Toronto in the early 1980s.
It''s been 15 years since I last posted here, and in the meantime I managed to locate both an SMC-70 and SMC-70G. Here is what the SMC-70 Sony Basic demo program looks like: https://youtu.be/EatkqjMQP5w I''m still looking for many of the accessories. Email me if you are looking to get rid of any, my updated email address is mark@mailscraps.com. Thanks!
Saturday 4th November 2017
Mark Malley (Plymouth, CT)
I was a support engineer for Sony Professional at the time we were selling these. A couple things - the "G" was the later model with the ability to genlock to incoming video and be used as a primitive character generator / graphics generator. There were actually a number of these used on the set of "V". We were excited to be part of the project until we saw the script that called for a computer with no brand recognition. Not exactly what the marketing people wanted to hear... We also used these (we were all given one) for corporate e-mail (remember Compuserve?).
Thursday 3rd October 2013
Bob Warren (Conifer, CO)
NAME
SMC 70
MANUFACTURER
Sony
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
Japan
YEAR
1982
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
BASIC interpreter
KEYBOARD
Full-stroke keyboard, 72 keys with editing and arrow keys
CPU
Z80A
SPEED
4.028
RAM
64
VRAM
32 KB + 2KB Character RAM
ROM
16 KB
TEXT MODES
40 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES
160 x 100 /
COLORS
16 / 4 (640 x 200) / 640 x 400 (monochrom)
SOUND
? voices, 5 octaves
I/O PORTS
RS 23C, Tape, Light Pen, Key Pad, Audio output, RGB Multi Out, B/W Multi Out, I/O Expansion connector, Centronics.
