Tatung Einstein - Definition and Overview

The Tatung Einstein was an eight-bit home/personal computer produced by Taiwanese corporation Tatung but designed and assembled in England, at Telford. It was aimed primarily at small businesses.

The Einstein was released in the United Kingdom in the summer of 1984, and 5,000 were exported back to Taipei later that year. A Tatung monitor (monochrome or color) and printer were also available as options.

The machine was physically large, with an option for one or two built-in three-inch floppy disk drives manufactured by Hitachi. At the time, most home computers used ordinary tape recorders for storage. Another unusual feature of the Einstein was that on start-up the computer entered a simple machine code monitor, called MOS (Machine Operating System). A variety of software could then be loaded from disk, including a CP/M-compatible operating system named Xtal, and a BASIC interpreter.

More expensive than most of its rivals, and lacking an obvious niche market other than technically-advanced home programmers, the Einstein was commercially unsuccessful.

Technical specifications

• CPU: Zilog Z80A @ 4 MHz
• RAM: 64KB system RAM; 16KB video RAM
• Video: 16 colors, 32 sprite planes