The MO-5 was presented alongside the TO 7/70, in march 1984. While the TO-7/70 follows and enhances the TO-7 philosophy, the MO-5 is more a cut-down version of the TO-7/70. The idea was to design a coherent french home computer, able to compete with such systems as the ZX Spectrum or the Commodore 64.
The case of the MO-5 is elegant with its anthracit colour and pleasant lines. The keyboard, though made of rubber keys, is an improvement over the flat membrane keyboard of the TO-7. Most BASIC statements are engraved onto the keys and can be directly entered by pressing a special BASIC key and the key matching the desire statement. But the Basic commands can also be typed in letter by letter. The keyboard layout is AZERTY which is normal as the MO-5 is a french system. Accentuated letters can directly be accessed by pressing the ACC key, followed by the desired key (6 for é, 7 for è, 8 for ù, 9 for ç and 0 for à). There are also four arrow keys, INS to insert a space, EFF to delete the pointed character, STOP to pause a program, CNT to resume a program stoped and RAZ (remise à zéro) to clear the screen.
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Ive got two of Games for the MO5. Its Categoric and Flipper. I want to buy this. Please help me.
Thursday 17th July 2014
Ralf Schmid (Germany)
NAME
MO 5
MANUFACTURER
Thomson
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
France
YEAR
March 1984
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
Microsoft Basic 1.0
KEYBOARD
AZERTY, calculator type (rubber keys), 58 keys. Arrow keys, SHIFT (yellow key), BASIC key, INS (insert), EFF (delete), ACC (accent), STOP, CNT (continue), CLEAR (cls), HOM (home), RESET button
CPU
Motorola 6809e
SPEED
1 MHz
RAM
32 KB (31008 bytes free)
VRAM
16 KB
ROM
16 KB (4 KB for the monitor + 12 KB for the BASIC interpreter)
TEXT MODES
40 chars x 25 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
320 x 200 dots
COLORS
16
SOUND
One channel, 5 octaves (7 octaves, 3 channels with the joystick extension)