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The most
spectacular feature of the EXL-100 is the infra-red connections, apparently
directly inherited from a canceled Texas-Instrument project. So, the keyboard
and the joysticks do not use any cord, but send infra-red signals to the
main unit to communicate. This allows the user to stand up to four meters
away from the screen, but it also means several drawbacks : first, the
keyboard and each joystick have to be powered by a battery cell. Then
there must not be any object in between the IR sender and the IR receiver.
The IR signals also often interfere with other IR domestic equipments
such as the TV ! Thus, some IR signals sent by the keyboard can increase
the sound volume or simply turn off the TV...
Another
drawback is that only one key can pressed at a time. Thus when using key
combinations, you must first type the SHIFT, CONTROL or FUNCTION key before
the second key, not the two keys pressed at the same time like on a majority
of other computers.
The two
optional IR joysticks are stored in a small plastic drawer housed by the
main unit. These joysticks can be used to play games (of course), but
also to move the cursor on the screen.One of the keys of their keyboard
acts like the spacebar and the others like a numeric keypad.
The IR
keyboard is quite small and the tiny rubber keys are a bit unpleasant
to use. Fortunately, a better keyboard was available with "normal"
full-stroke keys but still infra-red featured, so key combinations had
still to be made key by key.
The "infra-red"
idea surely came up in the Texas-Instrument research department where
the Exelvision team worked... TI had plans for IR controllers for their
TI-99 4/A system.
There
are two slots on the front panel. One is the cartridge slot and the other
is blocked and is housing the infra-red receiver. Next to them are two
switches : on/off and reset. The reset is a "hard reset", i.e.
if you press it you loose your program.
At the
back of the main unit are two large connectors : the expansion port and
the Exelmémoire slot. The Exelmémoire is a CMOS RAM card
(16k or 64k) which acts like a small hard-disk. It is generally used to
store small programs and can be directly used from the Basic using the
CROS (Cmos Ram Oprerating System). The lithium cell can keep the information
from 1 to 2 years.
The design
of the system is quite sober and was intended to facilitate the integration
of the EXL-100 in the living-rom next to the TV and the Hi-fi. Only two
cables are needed to start to use the computer (power in & video SCART).
>
INSIDE
Inside
the system, no surprise, the most important chips are from Texas-Instrument.
I remind you that Exelvision was founded by ancient "Texas-Instrument
France" employees, who took a lot from the CC-40 technology to create
the EXL-100. For example, the heart of the system if composed by two TI
chips, the TMS-7020 (cpu) and TMS-7041 (I/O). The TMS-7020 has its own
2k RAM memory, and the EXL-100 has 32k of Video RAM (VRAM) which can be
used by the user programs too. So it's total of virtually 34k RAM. But
if you use the high-resolution on the whole screen, there is not much
left for programming.
The mainboard
also includes the TMS-5220A sound chip which can act as an excellent vocal
synthesizer ! Some software (Tennis, Wizord) use this feature and the
result is really amazing. The sound chip can be used from the Basic with
the CALL SPEECH statement, but its syntax is quite complicated. For a
shotgun effect wich last 2 seconds, you would have to type in 200 hexadecimal
characters ! It's nearly impossible to invent a new sound or a new word.
The sound is composed by sections of 25 milliseconds. Each of these sections
are defined by an amplitude, a frequency and a tone. The hexadecimal codes
used with CALL SPEECH correspond to these parameters. But all the problem
lies in finding the right numbers for the sound you want to produce...
Exelvision has a solution to create the sentences you hear in the games
for example. They record the sound they want on a tape and send it to
Texas Instruments in Dallas. The sound is sampled there and analysed by
a big VAX computer which outputs the right parameters to be used with
the TMS-5220A. The results are then sent back to Exelvision at Valbonne...
Hard to do this alone at home !
The graphic
features of the EXL-100 are not bad at all. The TMS-3356 from Texas-Instrument
enables the EXL-100 to display 320 x 200 pixels with 8 colors and no proximity
conflicts. In fact you can choose the size of the graphic screen : 320
by N x 10 pixels, where N can be from 1 to 20. The rest of the screen
is then in text mode.
Christian
Pietot, head of the Exelvision hardware and former employee of the TI
"home computer" and later "vocal synthesis" departments
in Nice (France), recalls : "From our first prototype we were wondering
about the screen controler. Having chosen a chip developed for Videotex,
i.e. conceived to display text and not animate objects, we wondered if
we would be able to move graphical objects fast enough. Thus we finally
adopted a bi-processor solution. One handles the display and the other
the peripherals".
>
EXELBASIC
The basic
called Exelbasic was delivered on a ROM cartridge. It is largely inspired
by the TI CC-40 one, which is itself derived from the TI 99 Extended Basic
(remember CALL CHAR function ?). Exelvision asked and obtained the right
to develop their own Basic from it. An american employee who participated
in the development of the CC40 Basic, even came to Sophia Antipolis (where
is based Exelvision) to test the Exelbasic (wow !).
The Exelbasic
enables to handle easily the errors with statements like ON ERROR and
CALL ERR. This is quite rare feature for that time. It is also possible
to build independant functions with local variables.
The EXL-100
offers a set of 127 redifinable characters which can be used to create
graphics for games for example. IMAGIX is a software that helps the user
to conceive these characters.
IMAGIX
The editor
is a full page editor and makes it possible to scroll the listing up (!)
or down to point the right line to be corrected.
The interpreter
can also be used in a "direct" mode. Type "3 x 6"
and you get "18" as the answer ! Thus the EXL-100 can easily
be used as a simple calculator.
>
SOFTWARE
Some
games were available for the EXL-100. Most were classics but some were
quite good such as the Tennis game which was adapted to many classic computers
(Match Point for Sinclair Spectrum for example). But the original version
was developped by D&L Research for the EXL-100. The game actually
speaks quite impressively !
Sadly,
the number of good games available was not enough and the other programs
were poor educative software. This didn't help the EXL-100...
>
CONCLUSION
The EXL-100
was a good and quite innovative machine, but who suffered a lot from the
competition, and especially from Thomson and its computers (MO5, TO-7/70)
which were clearly targeted as THE competitor. Despite its qualities,
the software developed was not good enough. Hopefully, in 1985, 9000 EXL-100s
were placed in schools thanks to the "Informatique Pour Tous"
governemental plan. This litteraly saved the company which could then
work on their next computer.
The EXL-100 was replaced by the Exeltel, putting the "telematique"
orientation of the system in concrete form.
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The infra-red keyboard and joysticks
+ The built-in speech synthesizer |
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The lack of software
- The keyboard
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SOFTWARE LIST |
| NAME |
EDITOR |
| Algenubi |
Minipuce |
| Amiral Cup |
Minipuce |
| Anaconda |
Minipuce |
| Arcade |
Parallèles |
| Ati 42 |
Minipuce |
| Backgammon |
Parallèles |
| Bugs Busters |
Free Game Blot |
| Capitaine Menkar |
Exelvision |
| Car Crash |
Minipuce |
| CB5 |
Exelvision |
| Cité d'or |
Exelvision |
| Coloric |
Free Game Blot |
| Echecolor |
Minipuce |
| L'énigme
Algenubi |
Minipuce |
| Exelcalc |
Exelvision |
| Exeldrums |
Exelvision |
| Exelfile |
Exelvision |
| Exelmax |
Exelvision |
| Exelogo |
Exelvision |
| Exelmodem |
Exelvision |
| Exelpaint |
Exelvision |
| Exelpoker |
Electron Software |
| Extensions Basic |
Exelvision |
| Extensions Vocale |
Exelvision |
| Fixel |
Minipuce |
| Fitext |
Minipuce |
| Fixtab |
Initiel |
| Généalogie |
Parallèles |
| Géoméga
le monde |
Minipuce |
| Golphabet |
Minipuce |
| Golfachiffres |
Minipuce |
| Graphix |
Minipuce |
| Guppy |
Exelvision |
| Histoire de théâtre |
Free Game |
| Imagix |
Exelvision |
| Initiation aux
additions |
Minipuce |
| Initiation à
la multiplication |
Minipuce |
| Introduction
à l'Exelbasic |
Initiel |
| Introduction
à l'Exelogo |
Initiel |
| Knowledge base |
Initiel |
| Kung Fu |
Exelvision
|
| L'Anneau de l'union |
Initiel |
| Le trésor
de Tout Ankh Amon |
Parallèles |
| Meutre à
grande vitesse |
Cobra Soft |
| Microprocess |
Exelvision |
| Mnemologik |
Minipuce |
| Monopolic |
Free Game Blot |
| Musique |
Parallèles |
| Neurone |
Exelvision |
| Numbers and words |
Minipuce |
| Otho |
Initiel |
| Pascal base |
Free Game Blot |
| Pindo |
Minipuce |
| Polichinelle |
Minipuce |
| Quizzy |
Exelvision |
| Remi |
Minipuce |
| Robix |
Vidéomatique |
| Romulus, Rome
et moi |
Free Game Blot |
| S.O.S. Space |
Minipuce |
| Tank Attack |
Exelvision |
| Tennis |
Exelvision |
| Tour d'Europe |
Initiel |
| Tour de Hanoï |
Minipuce |
| Vega X4 |
Minipuce |
| Verbes irréguliers
Allemands |
Minipuce |
| Virus |
Exelvision |
| Wizord |
Exelvision |
| Zeke |
Minipuce |
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