Tiki 100
Tiki 100 was a desktop
home/
personal computer manufactured by
Tiki Data of
Oslo,
Norway. The computer was launched in the spring of
1984 under the original name
Kontiki¹ 100², the computer was first and foremost intended for the emerging educational sector, especially for primary schools.
The computer was based on the
Zilog Z80 CPU, and featured:
*A full-travel
keyboard integrated into the computer case
*A colour graphics
CRT interface with
palette, supporting 3 different graphics modes with 240, 480 or 960 by 256 pixels with 16, 4, or 2 simultaneous colours respectively in 32 kilobytes of dual ported memory.
*A
TV interface
*A polyphonic sound generator
*One or two integrated 5¼ inch
floppy disk drives
*Two
RS-232 serial ports
*One
Centronics printer port
*64
kilobytes (KB) of
RAM (main memory)
* 8 kilobytes of
EPROM memory
Software included:
*TIKO, a
CP/M-compatible
operating system*A version of the
BBC BASIC programming language interpreter*A
COMAL interpreter
Optional equipment:
* Harddisk controller, replacing one of the floppy disk stations with a
harddisk.
* A bespoke network-hub that allowed up to 16 computers to connect in a network, sharing disks and printers. The server was a Tiki-100 with harddisk, running the
MP/M operating system, serving up to 3 different printers simultaneously.
* A second CPU card, with an 8088 processor running
MS-DOS (but not PC-compatible). In this mode, the Z80 CPU is serving as an I/O processor, handling disk I/O, graphics etc.
The Tiki-100 had 3 different graphics modes, but no text-mode as it used bitmapped graphics only. The modes supported 40, 80 or 160 by 25 characters, respectively, and hardware vertical scroll.
The rev.D
Later, an
Intel 8088 based
IBM PC compatible model running
MS-DOS was made, somewhat confusingly called
Tiki 100 Rev.D. In addition to being PC-compatible (including
CGA-compatible graphics), it also contained a Z80 processor so that it could
seamlessly run the original
Tiki 100 software, although with a slightly reduced graphics specification due to the CGA. The two processors shared the same
bus, and the Z80 programs still ran under the 8088 operating system.
Notes
# Due to a dispute with
Thor Heyerdahl, famous for his
Kon-Tiki raft used in his expedition in
1947, the name was later changed to
Tiki 100.# Early prototypes had 4KB EPROM, and the '100' in the machine's name was based on the total KB amount of memory.
*
Tiki-100*
Emulator and specs