The Tomy Tutor and the state of 1983 home computers
The Tomy Tutor, released in 1983, was one of the first affordable 16-bit home computers and served as an early introduction to computing for many children. It was based on the design of the unreleased Texas Instruments 99/8 and marketed as a durable, user-friendly system with built-in BASIC and cartridge-based games. Despite limited expansion options and sparse historical documentation, the Tutor remains a notable part of early home computing history.
- ▪The Tomy Tutor was based on the design of the Texas Instruments 99/8, a system that was never commercially released.
- ▪It featured 16K of RAM, most of which was dedicated to the video processor, leaving only 256 bytes directly accessible by the CPU.
- ▪The Japanese version, called the Pyuuta, was first publicly shown at the 1982 Tokyo Toy Show as a 'graphics-based computer.'
- ▪Only game controllers and a tape deck were ever released as peripherals for the Tomy Tutor.
- ▪Takara Tomy has largely distanced itself from the Tutor, and documentation about its development remains scarce.
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The Tomy Tutor was my first computer, in late 1983. I was seven and we got it at Federated. I've acquired several more since then, but this is the actual one I used and it still works perfectly. Using a design modeled on the doomed Texas Instruments 99/8, one of several unreleased successors to the TI 99/4A, the Tomy Tutor and its overseas siblings, the Japanese Pyuuta (ぴゅう太) series, promised an easy kid-friendly introduction to computers with a durable case, nice graphics and sound, games on cartridge, and two, count 'em, two internal dialects of BASIC (one on early systems).
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