A Tribute to the Dick Smith System 80
(aka Video Genie and PMC-80/81)

Downloadable Cassette Images

As with the TRS-80, when people first purchased their shiny System 80 it was usually as a cassette-based 16 kilobyte RAM machine. Indeed, adding disk drives and memory expansion often cost more than the base unit itself!

Consequently, a lot of software was written for this "vanilla" tape-based configuration. Below are some of my favourite cassette-based programs, originally published on that media for (unless otherwise indicated) 16k computers.

It's amazing what programmers have crammed into such a tiny memory!

These "virtual cassettes" can be run from many of the TRS-80 or System 80 emulators. If you are not familiar with how the '80 computers manage their input and output, check out the driving instructions before trying to load the files. In short..

For those who wish to go a little deeper and learn more about how these machines actually work, start with the manuals.

With the TRS32 emulator, realism is taken to its full extent in that loading takes as long as it does in a real machine (i.e. ages!). It's more authentic, but if you are an impatient type, you might do better with one of the HT-1080z emulators. These load them in a flash!

Using the CAS files with a real machine

These CAS files can also be used with a real System 80 or TRS-80 Model 1. With Knut Roll-Lund's Play Cas software you can use your PC as a cassette player. The program will output audio through the sound port, which you can connect to the '80s external cassette input.

However there is one caveat. Unless you have an added switch on the System 80 that changes cassette #2 to #1, you will be unable to load machine language programs directly with a simple hook-up as described. This is because the SYSTEM command used to load these kind of programs only recognises cassette port #1. In the System 80, this is the internal cassette player not the external one. Therefore, if you want to get machine language (system) CAS files from this site into an unmodified System 80, you'll have to record the audio from the PC soundcard onto a REAL cassette (using a real cassette recorder), then load it into the machine from the built-in cassette player.

BASIC programs don't have this problem as the CLOAD command can be made to specify the external cassette port (#2). TRS-80 Model 1s don't have this problem either as these machines only have one cassette port, and that is external anyway.

Enjoy!

1. Favourite Programs

2. Dick Smith Cassette Programs

3. EACA Cassette Demo Programs

4. Other