Old Computer Ad - The Exidy Sorcerer

December 25, 2004 7:34 PM

"The Exidy Sorcerer. . . It does everything I wanted [it] to do and some things I never dreamed of." It even uses . . . are those 8-track tapes?! We have come so far in so short a time. What a world we live in! Link goes to old Advert. via]
posted by johnj (26 comments total)

that's some ancient artifact--did it hook up to a tv?
posted by amberglow at 7:40 PM on December 25, 2004

Those are ROM cartridges, not 8 tracks, and it probably did hook up to a TV. 64 columns is actually high tech for a TV display - most were 40. Also, with regard to boot time, we've actually regressed.
posted by rfs at 7:49 PM on December 25, 2004

There was something so simple and quick bout those computers - way back when. I wonder if we are really progressing, sometimes.
posted by johnj at 8:06 PM on December 25, 2004

I really wish they made computer ads like that these days.

That man is so confident.
posted by cmonkey at 8:20 PM on December 25, 2004

We have come so far in so short a time.

In more ways than one.
posted by dhartung at 8:42 PM on December 25, 2004

Oh, dear.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:58 PM on December 25, 2004

Oh my ... we've come so far, and forgotten so much...

Yes, they're ROM cartridges - IIRC, they were very similar in shape to an 8-track cartridge. Maybe a little smaller (I've only ever seen a few 8-tracks; it never really took off here).

These things were one of the many hybrid computer / game consoles of the time. The TI 99/4A approached the same idea from the other side - it was more game console with add-on computer bits.

The Sorcerer was a cool little beast - Z80 based, very easy to program the low level hardware, and you could even get a S-100 expansion bus cartridge (well, it was big in the day!). There was 4-voice polyphonic sound cartridge too...

Never actually owned one of these, but I had one of the companion Exidy-branded cassette recorders which I used on a Microbee and a Sinclair ZX80.

I hobble off now, 'cos my knees are creaking and my mind is wandering...
posted by Pinback at 9:01 PM on December 25, 2004

Thank you so much, I love ephemera!
posted by joelf at 9:04 PM on December 25, 2004

Although they're not used much anymore, it's funny to see that this had parallel and serial ports, as does my screaming fast Asus mobo I bought about a year back. I'm sure that will look ancient in about 20 years ... but I wonder if computers sold as PCs 20 years from now will still have serial and parallel ports. It is sort of quaint to see a line like "applications such as Word Processor." What an inventive name, sort of reflective of the size of the marketplace. I had an Apple IIe back then and used WordPerfect, which is still around, but alas is not the same.
posted by krinklyfig at 9:44 PM on December 25, 2004

I started with a Sinclair ZX-80, then went the Commodore route - VIC 20, C64, C128, Amiga 1000, Amiga 1200. I didn't own a Wintel computer at home until 1999, although I had them at work from about 1982 on ...
posted by rfs at 9:45 PM on December 25, 2004

Okay... help me out here, gang. Just what sort of creature is depicted here? It looks like E.T. in a suit.
posted by Clay201 at 9:48 PM on December 25, 2004

"Sorry to interrupt your recreation fellows, but it is time for Sergeant Pinback to feed the alien."

Appropos of nothing and totally OT, so forgive me ...

Hey, Pinback, I noticed your name immediately and wondered if you'd ever heard of Dark Star, so I checked out your profile.

"Dark Star". The best S-F movie ever made. Seriously.

Excellent. I didn't think anyone knew about this flick anymore. Apparently John Carpenter initially developed it as a short film while he was still a student. Funny how some filmmakers do their best work in film school. Anyway, not to hijack the thread, but like I said it's rare to encounter anyone who has even heard of Dark Star.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:01 PM on December 25, 2004

I don't know, Clay201, that's very strange. It looks like I'm supposed to be seeing something different, like one of those illusions where you see a man on a bicycle or a woman in a dress (or something like that), depending on how you look at it. But all I see is E.T. hawking pharmaceuticals.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:07 PM on December 25, 2004

That's definitely an extraterrestrial of some sort in the "GAL CIV" ad. How very odd. Pinback, is it time to feed the alien?

("GAL CIV" = "galactic civilization"?)
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:24 PM on December 25, 2004

That Gal Civ ad is probably a photoshop. Torians are an alien race in the computer game Galactic Civilizations, often abbreviated Gal Civ.
posted by lazy-ville at 11:34 PM on December 25, 2004

Well, here's an interesting overlap for our conversation: Galaxians on the Exidy Sorcerer! From Mike's Exidy Sorcerer Page.

There's a nice big photo of the Exidy Sorcerer in action (first item) here. By the way, I used to work on one of these (first image) in the ancient past. (This person's homecomputers main page here.)
posted by taz at 12:32 AM on December 26, 2004

Ah, well now it's not nearly as fun. I was happy in my world of illusion ...
posted by krinklyfig at 12:38 AM on December 26, 2004

I actually had an Exidy Sorcerer II as a kid. They didn't plug into the TV though, they used an external monochrome monitor.

Mine had the BASIC ROM cartridge, as well as another ROM cartridge which was a word processor. The big selling point for the Sorcerer II was that it had 48K of RAM - you'd never need to use all that! We also modified our Sorcerer to run at 3MHz, instead of the standard 2MHz, which was blindingly fast to us then.

Smaller programs were loaded via a cassette deck, at 300 baud. The majority of games were text only adventures, such as the Scott Adams series. I remember waiting around 50 minutes for a game to load, only to receive a 'CRC Error' and have to start all over again.

More info on the Sorcerer, and links to some emulators.
posted by davem at 2:23 AM on December 26, 2004

We have come so far in so short a time.

We certainly have.
posted by Meridian at 2:33 AM on December 26, 2004

We certainly have

Amen to that!
posted by johnj at 6:23 AM on December 26, 2004

I said it's rare to encounter anyone who has even heard of Dark Star.


"Reason with the bomb..."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:47 AM on December 26, 2004

Dating myself, yikes, but the first PC I laid my nearsighted eyes on. Presented in the glory of 3D! 64K memory, 128 KB 8-inch diskettes, and if you were lucky a brand-new Lear-Siegler ADM3A instead of a teletype. Where's my cane?
posted by nj_subgenius at 10:31 AM on December 26, 2004

Wow, a discussion that involves both obsolete computers AND Darkstar! My inner nerd is delighted. Thanks!
posted by afroblanca at 12:19 PM on December 26, 2004

just chiming in to say that "Dark Star" is one of my favorite movies
posted by interrobang at 4:30 PM on December 26, 2004

drop...

drop...

DROP!!!
posted by Foosnark at 8:46 AM on December 27, 2004

Let there be light.
posted by interrobang at 6:05 PM on December 27, 2004