Hello! And welcome back to the 8-Bit Guy. I have been sent some Huggies. OK, no, not actually.
This is a fairly rare machine. I haven’t unboxed it yet. So, let’s have a look.
OK, so what I have here is a Tomy Tutor. This is a pretty interesting, albeit rare piece of
equipment that has been loaned to me. And, I’m actually going to a restoration on it,
hopefully it works. We haven’t even powered this thing on, don’t even know if it will work. It’s
very dirty but I think we can clean it up. I’ll be returning this to the owner when I’m done with it.
But, I always grew up pronouncing the name of this company as Tommy. I guess that actually makes
sense that it is Tomy. When I did the video on the restoration of the Hearoid, and I had mentioned
the Tommy Omnibot, I got flooded with emails and comments telling me it is actually pronounced
Tomy. But anyway, it’s just one of those things that I’ve only ever seen the name in print before
and I’ve never actually heard it pronounced. So, in my mind I had always pronounced it Tommy. But,
apparently it’s pronounced Tomy, so now we all know. So anyway, let’s get started.
So, just to be clear. This should not be confused with the Tomy Tutor toy computer,
or Tomy’s Tutor Typewriter. Both were made by the same company, but obviously not the same product.
No, the Tutor was an actual computer and most people will probably be surprised
to find that it shares a lot in common with the TI 99/4 series.
I would say it has the same CPU and Video chip as the TI99/4, but it doesn’t. They're
actually slightly improved versions of both, and would have actually ended up being in the TI99/8
product had TI not cancelled it. But they are backwards compatible for the most part.
Unfortunately, the specs still aren’t that impressive. They heavily advertise this as
being a 16-bit machine, which it was technically speaking. But it only had 16K of RAM, which is
less than most 8-bit computers were shipping with at the time. It also had a video resolution of
256x192 pixels with 16 colors. Which, I guess was okay for the time period, but considering
it used color-cells like the Commodore and Sinclair systems, it really didn’t have a
video chip that fit well with a 16-bit computer. They promised a memory upgrade that would expand
the system to 64K, but apparently nobody has ever seen one. So it probably never got made.
The Tomy Tutor was sold mostly in Japan, but it had a very short lived time on the North American
market in 1983, with a price of $380. Much like it’s brother the TI-99/4, it just wasn’t
competitive with offerings from Commodore or Atari, nor did it have the brand name recognition.
Unlike TI, who used Bill Cosby for their spokesman, Tomy used Sarah Purcell, who was the
host of a reality television series called “Real People.” As you can see in the advertisement here,
they claim “Here’s a real computer that’s so easy to use, there’s no parental guidance necessary.”
So, enough history, let’s have a look at the one we have here. It
comes with this really cute little “DataCorder.” And it also comes with
these two little controllers that sort of resemble Intellivision controllers.
I have several cartridges here. They appear to pop in the top like so.
Oh.. and please please please, don’t put tape around cables. It makes them very sticky.
Let’s turn this thing around and plug in the audio and video.
Oddly, the colors are backwards, so I’m going to go off of the words. OK, time to power it on.
Well, good news. It appears to work. That’s actually a pretty neat intro screen for
1983. I like it. Unfortunately, it says to press any key, but I have tried every key
on the keyboard and nothing seems to work. Maybe I just haven’t found the any-key yet?
Anyway, I guess the keyboard is dead.
OK, so I want to show you the user manual. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Now,
unfortunately the top piece is broken off, but I think you’ll still get the idea. So, this flops
out like this. And ideally, the manual actually stands up on the table by itself. I’ll just take
that off for a moment. So, every time you flip the page, so you’ve got this page here. The following
page that comes after it is right down here. So, you might be wondering, “well, gee what’s
all of this stuff on the top?” So the way this works is, you simply flip it around and then you
get, it’s basically like the second half of the book is on the other side. So, that’s pretty neat.
So, you can see by the ages of the kids on the manual exactly what demographic
they were targeting. Although, I suspect that even at that age, I would have been
very put off by the idea that this computer was for kids, and the name itself “tutor”
suggests it is educational in nature, which would have been another put off for me.
Of course, we all know the marketing was aimed at the parents, not the kids.
So, let’s take a look at some of the ports. Obviously, you’ve got the cartridge port on
the top. But, it looks like you’ve got some sort of IO port back here which could be for some kind
of expansion. The controller port, It looks very much like an Atari or Commodore style joystick
port. Whether it is really compatible or not, I will have to investigate. This looks more like
a video port that you would see on a Commodore to Atari, or even a Texas Instruments machine. But,
it’s actually a tape recorder. So, that’s kind of a strange use of that connector.
At least your audio and video connectors are your standard RCA, although the colors they are using
are very backwards. Normally video should be yellow and audio should be white. But other than
that, that will be fine. But of course it looks like they have a regular RF modulated TV spot.
So, let’s just take a moment to look how dirty and grungy this thing is.
Well, it’s going to need some work, but I think I can handle it. Let’s go ahead and
start disassembly. Watch what happens with the keyboard ribbon cable. See that? It was barely
attached. I didn’t even feel a tug when that happened. That could explain why the keyboard
wasn’t working. Of course, I absolutely hate these types of connectors. They are impossible
to repair when they break. Well, here’s the inside. It’s smaller than I thought it would be.
There’s a lot of dirt and possibly rust on what little I can see of the motherboard.
On the bright side, none of the capacitors in the power supply appear to be bulging or leaking.
There’s a date stamp here, but I do not know what sort of numbering scheme they
are using. Maybe somebody else can figure it out.
OK, I’m going to take the RF shield off so we can get a look at the board.
It’s a pretty simple board, actually. And, as you can see, it is running on
the Texas Instruments CPU, and video display unit.
And looking at this keyboard connector, it is bent. I get the feeling somebody
opened this thing up before and the ribbon was yanked pretty hard. I’ll bend that back later.
I think the keyboard will pop out of the main case by releasing some of these snaps.
And there we go. Wow, it’s actually heavier than I expected. Must be that metal plate on the back.
Well, I wanted to see if the keyboard worked, so I just plugged it in with the case off.
I have good news and bad news. The good news is, now most of the keyboard is working.
Except the arrow keys. I can get into the built-in drawing
program. And as you can see every key beeps and displays on the screen. But
for whatever reason the top row of arrow keys doesn’t work. Well, we’ll come back to this later.
For now, it’s time to start cleaning.
I’ll go ahead and remove this piece along with the spring so
there won’t be any metal parts submerged in water.
Now time for alcohol.
This keyboard is pretty grungy. Let’s see what we can do to improve it.
I’ll start with some windex. Holy cow. I was surprised one single wipe made such a
noticeable difference. I mean, look at that. Wow.
Well, that doesn’t look too bad!
Now to clean this RF shield. I’m not sure how much of this is dirt
and how much is rust. It’s nice and shiny on the inside part, at least.
OK, well, it does look better. But yeah, some of that is rust.
I’ll need to clean the inside of the case too.
I think canned air will get rid of most of this.
Now it’s time for an indoor retrobrite. Just a few weeks ago I could have done it outdoors,
but now it has turned cold and rainy. And, so there we go. I’ll let that sit for a day or two.
And here we are after just about 24 hours. I think it looks quite a bit better.
For comparison, here’s that cassette drive that came with it. They started off the same color/.
OK, since the top row of keys aren’t working and since every other key on the keyboard
works except for this top row, my guess is that there is possibly something wrong
with either the cable here or perhaps the connector on the
computer side. The only way for me to figure it out is to figure out which
connector this row of keys uses. So, the best way for me to do that is to take this thing apart.
OK good. I can clearly see the traces and figure out where these are going.
Well, it wasn’t hard to figure out which wires I needed to test. So,
I put my meter on the wires in question and had my wife press the keys. And as you can see,
pressing the arrow keys definitely causes something to register. So,
I think the keyboard itself is okay. I put some Deoxit on the edge of the ribbon cable,
in case it was oxidized. Then I went ahead and popped the keyboard back into the case.
I noticed there was some dust and debris down in the connector, so I got most of that out
with some canned air. Then I also sprayed some Deoxit down into the connector too.
I decided to go ahead and reassemble the computer and hope for the best because I’m not really
qualified to diagnose any motherboard problems on this thing, So it will either work or it won’t
work. By the way, have I mentioned how I hate these sort of ribbon cables? It definitely takes
two hands to get it inserted properly. And good news! The arrow keys appear to be working now!
But I’m not quite done yet with the computer. All 4 rubber feet are missing. All that is
left is some black adhesive residue. My first line product for this is WD-40.
I’ll let that sit for a few minutes and come back and see if it worked. And so here we
are 10 minutes later, and it does appear to have worked. This stuff is coming off easily.
Of course, I have to get rid of the WD-40 otherwise the new feet will never stick
correctly. And…Windex works well to remove WD-40. And I just so happen to have 4 of
these left over from a previous project. These are the same ones that fit Commodore machines.
I think they will work here. And sure enough, they fit perfectly! The computer is done!
OK, so what about this Tomy Data Recorder? This thing is just too
cute not to attempt to restore it as well. Now, I’ve been looking for a power adapter for it,
because it does not run off batteries, it does require 6 volts and it has to be negative center,
which is really irritating. And the only thing I’ve been able to find for that is unfortunately
one of these multi-adapter things. But anyway, we’re going to plug it in and see if it works.
Well, it does appear to work. Including fast forward and rewind.
All right, so let’s take this thing apart!
I managed to get the mechanism out, but it is soldered to a little piezo speaker,
which appears glued in place. I also found this, which appears to be a projectile for some sort of
airgun, I think. Of course, this speaker has to come out if I’m going to retrobrite the thing. I
barely tugged on this wire and it broke loose. I’m going to try to cut the glue around the speaker.
And with a little luck, I was able to get it to pop out. Now I need to remove
the cassette door. But to do that, I first need to remove this spring. There we go.
Now I’ll go ahead and give it the usual cleaning process.
I do have to be careful with the alcohol near this text. This is the type of thing I’ve seen
wipe right off of plastic when using alcohol. So I
have paper towels wrapped around a screwdriver, coated in alcohol.
There we go.. The whole thing is now ready for retrobrite. On the bright side, I can
use a smaller container than usual. I started the process but noticed it was floating the top
immediately. So, too solve that problem, I added a couple of rocks. Hopefully that will do the trick.
And here we are the next day. It looks a lot better! Now I will re-assemble the top.
But I need to clean out this mechanism some. It’s full of dust bunnies.
Canned air did the trick for the most part. I also used some alcohol to clean the erase
head and the play head. And then also on the pinch roller. I used some lithium grease on
the moving parts as well. And, of course, I had to resolder the wire on this speaker.
I don’t have any cassettes for this computer, so I wanted to see if this thing would play an audio
cassette. I found this the other day, which I used to listen to back in the 90s. But David,
you scream into the computer screen, that will give you a content match on YouTube.
Well, no it won’t because , while it does appear to be playing, no sound comes out.
I was trying to record from the output port. And it does actually look like
music is playing when you see what Audacity is recording.
But this is the recording I actually got.
Beats me. Its possible it is designed only for digital signals kind of like
Commodore’s drive. But why then does it have a speaker?
Anyway, so here are the two restored pieces. And while I don’t have any cassettes,
I do have cartridges. Some very dirty cartridges.
So, I can certainly attempt to clean these up, but I cannot retrobrite them because these are
paper labels and I am certain these would be destroyed if I attempted to retrorbite. So,
I’m just going to try to clean them up the best I can.
SO, here we go. Yep, cleaned up pretty well. Here it is next to a dirty cartridge. Or an even
dirtier one. Yep, somebody drew all over this one. Let’s see if that cleans off.
To my surprise, just windex and a little scrubbing cleaned that up. Not too bad!
And here we go. All done!
Well, I’m sure you wanted to see more than just how it looks. You probably want to see how it
works. Now, I’ll preface this by saying I’m probably not the best person to do a review
on this system because I’ve never seen one of these until just a couple of days ago.
Also, there doesn’t appear to be a huge amount of software for it,
but I think I actually have the majority of the software library right here. Because,
there just wasn’t that much made for it. So, let’s go ahead and try out a few of these cartridges.
When you first power it on, it will ask if you want to go into the built in art program,
or use BASIC. I thought I’d give BASIC a try. It only has a 32 column screen, so the characters are
a bit chunky. But it’s still more than the VIC-20. Here’s the obligatory scrolling message test.
Now let’s try sticking in a cartridge. After the intro screen you now have THREE options,
the new one being cartridge. This is actually somewhat similar to what the TI-99/4 systems do.
So, let’s pick cartridge and see what happens. I’m also going to
try out my newest video capture system, specifically designed for retro computers.
OK, so one thing I’ve notice in common between all of the cartridges is they start off by asking
you to press 1 or 2 on the keyboard to select the number of players. So, I’ll do that. OK,
the next thing every cartridge asks is for is SLAMA or SRPRO. I was seriously confused by this,
but eventually realized that it wants you to press SL for amateur or SR
for Professional. But in this case, SL and SR are on the controllers here.
So, after starting a game I discovered quickly that the controllers just weren’t working. Or,
really I should say not working very well. So, I took the controller apart
to see if I could clean it. The pad thingy was glued on in the center,
but it could be moved just enough that I was able to scrub all of the pads with alcohol.
I tried playing some games without the case on and it seemed to be working decently enough.
Which is good, that saves me from having to use this carbon contact repair stuff.
OK, so with the controller back together I tried playing some games. And honestly,
the controller is just absolutely terrible. It is certainly working better now than it was,
but the design is one of the worst I’ve ever used. Again, it reminds me a bit of the Intellivision
controller. You don’t really get a good tactile feel for where you are supposed to apply pressure.
It’s actually easier to use the controller as a bare PCB where you can feel the buttons.
So, enough about the controller, what do I think about the games? Well, keeping in mind this was
1983, the graphics and sound aren’t too bad. They are on par for a lot of systems of that
time period. But, certainly not as good as the Commodore 64 which came out a year earlier. And
for a product that advertises that it is a 16-bit system, I guess I feel underwhelmed. Granted,
I’m sure the system could have done better with the right programmers. After all, there are more
impressive games on the TI-99, which as I’ve mentioned has more or less the same hardware.
However, other than Mr.Do there aren’t exactly any name-recognizable releases. I don’t think there
was much incentive for big software companies like Activision or Namco to step in and make software
for this computer. So, what you get are a bunch of B or C grade games and educational software.
Interestingly enough, cartridges from a TI-99/4 will actually fit in here.
The slot and the card edge appear compatible. But, I’m not even going
to attempt to power it on like this as I’m about 99% sure it will short something out.
It’s really no wonder that the Tomy Tutor wasn’t a commercial success here in the
United States. I mean, I don’t recall ever seeing a Tomy Tutor on the shelf
in any of the retail outlets next to say the TI, Commodore, or Atari. And I have a really
hard time imagining any kids walking into the electronics department, seeing this,
and then going “hey Mommy! Mommy! Daddy! Daddy! I want a Tomy Tutor for Christmas or my birthday!”
Not when there were Atari and Commodore systems sitting right next to it for the same price
with a much bigger software library that had all of the well known games.
I know there hasn’t been much on the channel the last month,
but I’ve been working hard on the new studio, which you’ll see a part 2 on that coming soon,
as well as the final episode of the Texas road trip series, and a follow up to Attack of the
PETSCII Robots and you’ll get to see just how far the game has advanced this month,
and also a road trip to Oklahoma where I visit a recycling center
and pick up some very interesting VIC-20 products.
So, as you can see, I’ve been quite busy this month and you will be seeing a lot of that stuff
in the coming weeks and I hope you stick around for that and as always, thanks for watching!