The Sony SMC-70 (Sony Micro Computer, so is that a bit like ATM Machine?) was my first computer and was both ahead of, and behind the times when it was released in 1982. It was a color CP/M system at a time when not only color CP/M systems were rare, but color was rare in the computer industry. IBM’s CGA adapter, available in the Model 5150, was capable of displaying 16 colors at 320×200, and 2 colors at 640×200. The SMC-70 was also capable of 16 colors at 320×200, but could display 4 colors at 640×200, and monochrome graphics at 640×400. Like other color palettes of the time, the colors of the rainbow weren’t available, but Sony didn’t offer the standard CGA color palette either. The colors available were black, ash blue, dark green, deep blue, red, bright green, salmon, yellow, gray, light blue, moss green, turquoise, pale pink, brilliant pink, tan, and white.
At an announcement on May 17, 1982, Sony stated a list price of $1,475 for the SMC-70, which would fall to $995 by January 1984. Buying a computer in 1982 wasn’t like buying a computer today, so while that $1,475 purchased a capable machine, there wouldn’t have been much someone could have done with the machine other than make it beep! That purchase price didn’t include any floppy drives (or floppy drive controller), a monitor, or a cassette drive.
So the second obvious purchase would be a monitor.
What perhaps set the SMC-70’s color capabilities apart from the few other color CP/M machines on the market was the Sony Trinitron monitor. While a 12″ long persistence green phosphor monitor with a built-in speaker was available (the CPD-120) with a list price of $375 (often available for $280), the system was typically paired with the 12″ KX-1211HG which had a list price of $895. Oddly, the monitor was named the KX-13HG1 in Japan, with a list price of $650. The monitor had a 0.39mm dot pitch, accepted both composite and RGB (analog or TTL) signals, and had a 15 kHz horizontal and 60Hz vertical scan range. It had handy (and sturdy) carrying handles on top, screw holes on the side to mount speakers, and a removable tinted glass front panel that improved the contrast but had to be removed to use the optional light pen (SMI-7061; $175).
For those with deeper wallets, the PVM-1271Q/1371QM, released in 1985 was a later option, with a 0.25mm dot pitch, and a list price of ~$950. The cable to connect the computer to the monitor was another $55 for the KX monitors (SMK-0001), and $90 for the PV monitors (SMK-0002).
By spending $2,425, a user could buy a computer with a color monitor and the cable to connect the two that included Sony’s System Monitor and Sony BASIC in ROM.
If you actually wanted to know how to use your computer, that would cost you even more! The Micro Computer Operating Instructions (SML-7000) cost $12; one was included with the system, the Sony BASIC Introductory Manual (SML-7001) was $20, the Sony BASIC Programming Reference Manual (SML-7002) was $20, the System Monitor Reference Manual (SML-7003) was $25, and the Hardware Reference Manual (SML-7004) cost $20. In Japan, the prices were higher ($13, $28, $33, $43, and $37). While the prices may seem high, Sony was widely praised for the quality of their documentation.
In the US, the manuals came in a 3-ring binder, and each manual included a disk holder to store the master copy of the software. The manual model numbers ended with a Z to indicate they included the binder (e.g., SML-7002Z). You might notice as you read on almost everything for this system started with SM (Sony Micro), and another letter, L stood for literature, I for interface unit, W for software, WM for software manual, k for kēburu (the Japanese word for cable, though k was used for a couple of accessories, including the monitor stand and carrying case), J-G for Japanese game, W-G for software game, J-E for Japanese educational software, and W-E for software educational. Two other SM codes existed, J-S for Japanese software and W-H for software home, but these seem to only apply to software that was released for the SMC-777.
Sony’s versioning wasn’t always exactly clear. For example, Metasoft’s Letterwriter was SMW-7045, but this wasn’t noted on the disks. The disk labeled it as version 1-A. The title screen indicated it was LetterWriter 2.0.
The Word Processor had at least 3 releases, with SMW-70461-B being version 1-B but listed as Word Processor 3.0K, and SMW-70461-C being version 1-C but listed as Word Processor 3.0M, yet the W/P Mathpack had 2 releases, with SMW-7049 version 1-A being listed as W/P Mathpack Ver 3.0K, and SMW-7049 version 1-B listed as W/P Mathpack Ver 3.0M.
The computer (and software) didn’t come with a copy of the CP/M operating system. CP/M 2.2 Release 1.0 was released for the system (SMW-7002) and retailed for $150. Known versions include releases 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, and 2.1. One of the first instructions in any software manual was to make a copy of the disk, and make that copy bootable.
One option that set the computer apart were those floppy disks. The 3.5″ floppy drive was developed by Sony in 1980, but it’s not quite the same floppy drive that was widely used in computers around the world. In some ways, Sony’s was better and worse. Sony’s drive had the same transfer rate as an 8″ drive at 500 kbps. It did this by spinning at 600 RPM, twice the speed of a modern 3.5″ floppy drive. One of the side effects of this high rotational speed was a lower latency of 50ms compared to 100ms of a typical 3.5″ or 5.25″ floppy drive. There were a few other differences as well. One major one that impacted compatibility between old media and newer drives was the coercivity or magnetic strength with which the data is written to the disk. The original disks stored data using a lower coercivity, and therefore modern drive heads can’t read the media. Another major difference was the media used 70 tracks instead of 80, which gave the disks an unformatted capacity of 437.5K, and 280K formatted. The original drives were single sided. With each track storing 6.25K, 80 tracks would provide 500K of storage per side, or 1MB per disk, which was what eventually became the standard. The drives provided with the SMC-70 could write all 80 tracks with a modified version of CP/M.
The final difference between Sony’s standard and modern disks was that Sony did not include an auto shutter, or disk shutter. On the original Sony disk, the OM-D3310 (Office Media), the user was required to manually open the disk shutter before inserting the floppy disk into the drive. After ejecting the disk, the shutter had to be manually closed.
The first product to use the newly developed 3.5″ drive was Sony’s WYSISYG word processor released in 1981, the Series 35 (OA-S3300, OA standing for Office Automation). Their second product to use the drives was the SMC-70. The SMC-70 shipped with the SMI-7014, which was a model OA-D30V drive (single sided), at a price of $500 each. A short time later the SMI-7014A started shipping, which was a model OA-D31V/MFD-31V drive. This drive included the ability to open the disk shutter. The dual floppy drive unit cost $1,100.
Software was shipped both manual and auto shutter media, but Sony was quick to release a drive that supported this new auto-shutter design, and they offered retrofit kits for existing drives, making them somewhat rare to find. Drives with the mechanism to open the shutter should say “Auto Shutter” on them, unless the retrofit was installed.
Sony had to make media with a locking shutter for some time to be backwards compatible with drives that did not have the retrofit applied, though only the OA-D30V and OA-D31V could read the first generation of media (OM-D3310). Because the auto shutter media (OM-D3320) had the locking shutter, many users thought they had to manually lock the shutter before inserting it into the drive, negating the entire purpose of the auto shutter! It could have been out of habit because they had to do it for some disks, so they did it with all disks. Disks were sold in a 10 pack at a price of $5 per disk ($17.86 a MB).
Being this cutting edge wasn’t necessarily a good thing; while history shows Sony was the victor in the floppy format war, this wasn’t assured, they didn’t have as much luck with Betamax, Memory Stick, and MiniDisc (though MiniDisc was successful in Japan). But this history of creating media formats was what got Sony into the computer business in the first place. While so much of their system was cutting edge, one thing really stood out in 1982, their reliance on CP/M.
The Z80, the processor inside the SMC-70 was released 6 years earlier in 1976, while CP/M 2.2 was released 2 years earlier in 1980. Things were moving quickly in the early 80s. The 16’ish bit IBM PC was released the previous year in August 1981 and was now considered the benchmark for business computers, the market Sony was trying to enter.
For anyone keeping track, the running total for a PC with monitor, monitor cable, disk drives, operating system, manuals, and a pack of disks would run $3,760. A dot matrix printer, cable, and monitor stand (SMI-7020; $800, SMK-0020; $60 & SMK-0091A or SMK-0091B; $60) would bring the total to $4,680. This was a competitive price. The IBM PC cost $4,540 for a system with the same 64KB of RAM, a single 5.25″ floppy drive, a CGA card with CGA monitor, and PC-DOS. The Sony included a RTC with battery backup (which incidentally, the original NiCad batteries still work on all of my systems, but it is not Y2K compliant). Both systems offered options to expand the system, though Sony’s method was much easier.
The SMC-70 had 2 internal expansion ports, 3 external expansion slots, and a rear port to allow additional expansion options, including an expantion unit, the SMI-7040 ($575) that provided 5 more slots. Since the video, serial, and parallel ports were built into the SMC-70, they did not tie up expansion ports like those options did on the IBM 5150.
- 1. Internal expansion ports
- 2. Sharp Z80 processor
- 3. 2 128kbit system ROM chips
- 4. RTC battery
- 5. Power connector for battery backup (SMI-7080; $350)
- 6. 50 pin expansion for 192K Bank RAM (SMI-7051)
- 7. 19,200 baud serial adapter
One internal expansion port was almost always used for the 3.5″ disk controller. The second could be used for a variety of upgrades. In the US, the most likely would be the 192K Bank RAM card, which would increase the total RAM to 254K.
The second use for the other internal slot was the various character ROMs, such as the SMI-7052. The Kanji ROM kit was comprised of four 16KB ROM chips (SMK-0052; $174). It included around 3,000 characters (JIS Level 1). As these weren’t for the US market, there’s not a lot of US literature on them.
If an internal slot wasn’t available, the SMI-7054 ($785) was Kanji ROM kit that occupied one of the external expansion slots.
…to be continued!