The Gundam RX-78 was originaly a very popular manga animation movie from the 80's. Bandai then marketed a personal computer under this name...
Little is known about this small computer. Since the Gundam Rx-78 was only sold in Japan nearly all the information currently comes from Japanese websites.
The capabilities of the RX-78 were not bad at all for 1983, and the space between the keys offered the possibility to use keyboard overlays with games or applications, except maybe for complaints about the poor keyboard quality.
It appears that there were two cartridge slots at the back of the system. One slot was often used for the BS Basic programming language and the other could be used for special expansion cartridges (to connect a printer for example).
The BS-Basic cartridge was also equipped with connectors to plug a tape-recorder into the RX-78.
While games were the main software developed for this computer an asian brand word processor was also available.
We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system,
please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
If I may suggest an alternative introductory sentence-
I would replace "The Gundam RX-78 was originaly a very popular manga animation movie from the 80''s. Bandai then marketed a personal computer under this name..."
with "The Bandai RX-78 was named after the titular mecha from the 1979 anime series Mobile Suit Gundam"
or something along those lines.
Wednesday 14th March 2018
$ 1 3 8 $
(btw, I posted here because the link on the page for adding info is broken upon submission)
Tuesday 21st March 2017
Chester
Ok, hope *this* works:
http://bit.ly/2mpepcY
Tuesday 21st March 2017
Chester
NAME
Gundam RX-78
MANUFACTURER
Bandai
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
Japan
YEAR
September 1983
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
BS-BASIC delivered on cartridge
KEYBOARD
QWERTY chicklet keyboard, 61 keys
CPU
Zilog Z80A
SPEED
4.1Mhz
RAM
30 kb
ROM
8 kb
TEXT MODES
30 x 23
GRAPHIC MODES
192 x 184
COLORS
27
SOUND
3 voices (4 octaves) + 1 noise generator
SIZE / WEIGHT
286 x 210 x 48.5 mm / 1.5kg
I/O PORTS
2 joysticks sockets, 2 x cartridge slots, RF video, video & sound (RCA)
