Computers with 8-bit CPUs were the predominant systems far into the 1980s. From the mid-1970s, the MOS 6502 CPU and the Zilog Z80 were inexpensive 8-bit processors that finally made computers affordable for home use. The demand for such computers was correspondingly enormous. As a result, more and more companies wanted to share in the success of the pioneers. These included Atari, Apple, Commodore, Sinclair, Tandy Radio Shack and many more. Another newcomer to the computer market was the Taiwanese group Tatung Inc. They developed an 8-bit computer based on the Z80 microprocessor at their facility in the UK, which was different from the competitors in many aspects and is therefore an interesting computer from today’s collector’s point of view.
In the 1980s, many new companies entered the 8-bit microcomputer market. In Europe, some computer companies that are still legendary today emerged at that time, particularly in the UK. The hype on the island was fuelled in part by the government’s ‘Computer Literacy Project’ in collaboration with the BBC. The nationwide equipping of schools with computers and the broadcasting of television programmes explaining how to use computers led to a corresponding increase in demand for home computers in the private sector. Sinclair was one of the pioneers here – with the unbeatably affordable learning and home computers of this era. Other manufacturers followed in higher price segments and satisfied the demand for more comfort and performance, such as Acorn, Dragon, Oric or Amstrad. The variety of computers at the time was overwhelming and there was no compatibility between them.
Curtain up: Tatung Inc.
It was not until 1984, when the computer boom was already well underway, that the Taiwanese company Tatung Inc. launched the Einstein TC01 on the UK market. Tatung Inc. is an electronics company rich in tradition and still operating worldwide today with a turnover of many billions of dollars. It was founded in Taiwan in 1907 and has its headquarters in Taipei. In Germany, the Tatung brand name is not particularly well known. However, the Asian company was very relevant worldwide thanks to its televisions, video recorders and electrical household appliances.
In the 1980s, Tatung had several branches in the UK, with the development laboratory based in Bradford, England. The Einstein was developed here and manufactured in Bridgnorth and Telford. The market launch in the UK finally took place in the summer of 1984 with an entry-level price of £499 including a floppy disc drive – 5,000 units were also exported to Taipei. Only one successor model was developed and released in 1985, the Tatung Einstein 256, after which the company focussed on IBM-compatible PCs. In 1989, a German subsidiary was finally founded and a series of multi-user capable PC ATs of the 286 and 386 class for use with Unix, Xenix or OS/2 were introduced. Tatung continued to produce PCs and laptops until around 1997, including temporary Mac clones with PowerPC processors.
Exterior
Designed for more professional use, the Einstein TC01 has generous dimensions: the footprint is 43.5 × 51.5 cm and thus exceeds the Apple ][ by quite a bit. However, the housing is designed to accommodate a 14″ monitor on the rear part of the housing. On closer inspection, there are repeated references to other well-known computers of the time. For example, the contrasting grey function keys immediately catch the eye, which are strongly reminiscent of the BBC Micro – the numbering also starts at ‘f0’. With its 48 alphanumeric keys (plus 8 function keys and 11 control keys), the keyboard enables smooth typing. The keys are very robust and have a typewriter-like layout. Unfortunately, the shift key is a little too small. The speed and delay of the character repetition can be programmed.
The two 3-inch floppy drives on the Western Digital WD1770 floppy controller with a capacity of 400 KByte formatted (200 KByte with 40 tracks per side) are a rather striking highlight. The 5.25 inch drives were still more common at the time, but new, more compact floppy formats were slowly coming onto the market. The direction in which a standard would develop (3 inch or 3.5 inch) was not yet clear at the time. In the end, the 3-inch format was not able to establish itself and was only used occasionally by computer manufacturers. Nowadays, 3 inch floppy discs are hard to come by and the drives often need attention. Collectors of Schneider and Amstrad CPC systems, for example, can tell you a thing or two about how easily the drive belts of 3 inch floppy disc drives disintegrate. Einstein users are spared this, as very reliable models with direct drives are installed here. The TC01 was available with both one and two internal 3-inch floppy disc drives in the basic configuration. In addition, further MFM floppy drives can be connected to the 34-pin ‘External Disk’ connector at the rear.
The Einstein also has hardly any weaknesses in terms of connection options. Next to the connector for external floppy drives is the so-called ‘Tatung Pipe’ interface, which can be used to directly address the 8-bit data bus of the Z80A. This is similar in concept to the tube interface of the Acorn BBC Micro, but is not compatible with it. There is also a user port and a Centronics printer connection at the rear. The 6-pin round monitor connection is pin-compatible with that of the BBC Micro and can be switched internally between YUV and RGB using jumper.
The TV connection and round DIN connections for RS232-C (full duplex) and two analogue-to-digital ports (e.g. for joysticks) are also located on the side of the housing. The volume of the internal loudspeaker can be adjusted from the side using a rotary knob. However, the Einstein lacks a cartridge slot and a cassette drive cannot be connected either.
The inner values
The specifications are often similar to the MSX standard, but the computer is not compatible with it: The 8-bit processor, a Zilog Z80A, is clocked at 4 MHz. It has 64 KByte RAM and 8 KByte ROM (upgradeable to 32 KByte), which was standard for the time. There is also 16 KByte of video RAM for a resolution of up to 256×192 pixels with 16 colours and support for up to 32 sprites. The video display controller is a TMS9918 from Texas Instruments, which is also used in the TI-99/4 (not a), several games consoles and MSX computers. The sound is produced by a 3-voice General Instruments AY-3-8910 sound chip, which is also used in many arcade games, game consoles (such as the Vectrex), the Amstrad CPC, Oric-1 and Colour Genie.
MOS/Xtal DOS
Tatung advertises the Einstein as a ‘clean machine’. This is to make it clear that after switching on, only a so-called machine operating system (MOS) is loaded from the ROM if no floppy disc is inserted. Here it is only possible to communicate with the computer using machine language, similar to the Sharp MZ models. This method also offers the possibility (or necessity, depending on how you look at it) of loading any interpreter from a floppy disc. A whole range of alternative computer languages are available for the Einstein: In addition to its own Xtal BASIC, there is BBC BASIC, C++, COBOL, Forth, Pascal, Prolog, PL/1, Lisp, DR Logo and many others.
Because the Einstein was primarily intended for office use, a CP/M-compatible DOS is also included in the scope of delivery. It is started automatically from disc drive 0 after switching on. Xtal DOS (pronounced ‘Crystal DOS’, developed by Crystal Computers in Torquay) is somewhat more convenient than CP/M 2.2 and compatible with the popular and widespread application programmes of the time. The TC01 was also offered at the time as a business bundle with Wordstar, 80 character extension and green monitor for £900.00.
Xtal BASIC
With Xtal BASIC, Tatung supplies its own BASIC interpreter on a 3 inch floppy disc. It has often been compared in computer magazines with the performance of GW-BASIC. Xtal BASIC also includes some command extensions adapted to the Einstein. For example, you can switch between different graphics modes and there are separate graphics and sound commands such as DRAW, ELLIPSE, FILL, MUSIC – to name but a few. With Xtal BASIC it is possible to design up to 42 user-defined characters (shapes), which can be addressed via free ASCII codes. Sprites can also be created with the SPRITE command on up to 32 planes. The BASIC dialect also has a special feature: with the MAG command (magnification), sprites can be easily enlarged from 8×8 to 16×16 pixels. In the same way, four 8×8 pixel sprites can be combined into one large sprite.
Game Machine
But the Einstein is not just for boring office work. Due to its proximity to other technically related computers, the Tatung was particularly popular with game developers as a cross-development platform. Well-known game labels such as Imagine, Ocean or Elite Systems Ltd (known for the game ‘Paperboy’, among others) used the Einstein TC01 to develop games for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC or C64. The computer was often the developers’ favourite choice due to its reliability, speed and good keyboard. To test the programme versions, the code was then sent directly to the target device via a cable connection and executed there. This significantly increased the speed of development and resulted in classic games such as ‘Ghost’n Goblins’ and ‘Ghouls’n Ghosts’ being created on the Einstein.
There was also a hardware extension for the computer called the ‘Speculator’, which is connected to the Pipe interface and can emulate a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. This is a small white box that was originally available for just under £50.00 and contains a 3.5 mm jack socket for connecting a cassette recorder. The cassette recorder can then be used to load games from the ZX Spectrum into the Einstein. However, this requires small adjustments to the programme code of the games. The ‘Speculator’ already comes with a disc with adaptations for 20 games, which are loaded into the memory as a loader before the actual game. After the games have been loaded once from tape, they can be saved on 3 inch floppy discs. The box also contains a small sound chip that emulates the sound of the Spectrum games. The enclosed ‘The Speculator Book’ explains exactly how the Speculator works and how the machine code can be customised for other games.
According to the website http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk, 136 games were published for the Einstein. These include classics that were also available for other computers. These include well-known titles such as Chuckie Egg, Jet Set Willie, Maniac Miner, Zork and Lazy Jones by David Whittaker. His Stardust soundtrack became world-famous thanks to the cover version Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nations. Even ‘Elite’, the absolute classic BBC Micro game and the first open-world game in the history of video games, was ported to the Einstein. Thanks to the high clock frequency of the Z80 CPU and the separate video memory, it certainly makes a good impression.
Repair
The author’s computer had a difficult start at first, as it was unfortunately defective. However, thanks to the support of club members, it was brought back to life. However, diagnosing the fault proved difficult because there were several problems at once: Defective CPU, defective sound keyboard chip (AY-3-8910) and destroyed traces. It therefore took teamwork and heavy equipment (logic analyser) to breathe life back into the ‘little Einstein’. The success story can be read in the club forum.
Conclusion
The Tatung Einstein TC01 is a robust 8-bit computer with some technical highlights that are missing from other computers of the time. The manufacturer’s approach of placing the computer in office use is clearly recognisable. Thanks to the CP/M compatibility, the most common office programmes of the 1980s could be run. Nevertheless, there is no need to miss out on the fun factor, as it has everything that home computers of the time had to offer. The 3-inch floppy disc drives are rather unusual, but are very robust and reliable, especially on the Einstein. In German-speaking countries, however, the computer is even rarer than in Great Britain. There, devices sometimes appear on eBay, which are then priced at around £300.00. However, the collector community is not particularly large and therefore a major increase in value is not to be expected. If you need technical help, you will quickly end up in English forums, some of which are not very frequented. A pity really, because with its technical possibilities the computer certainly deserves more attention. A good place to go for Einstein fans is the website http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk. There is always up-to-date information, lots of software, game images, documentation and magazines about the ‘Einy’.
Why Tatung failed with the computer is in the end difficult to say. One problem was certainly the huge competition from 8-bit home computers at the time, most of which were cheaper and whose manufacturers had already made a name for themselves. It was extremely difficult for a new manufacturer to catch up. In terms of performance, the Einstein could probably best be compared with the BBC Micro from Acorn or the Apple ][. However, those who had the choice back then often opted for the alternatives because they were already much more widespread and therefore had a greater choice of software. And finally, ‘Big Blue’ entered the market with the IBM PC.
From today’s point of view, however, the Tatung Einstein TC01 is an interesting device because of its limited distribution. Manuals and magazines are available on the Internet as PDFs. Game and software images can also be downloaded and easily executed on the Einstein using the Gotek floppy emulator.
Publication
My article was also published in the retro computer magazine LOAD issue 11 / 2025 of the ‘Verein zum Erhalt klassischer Computer’ (VzEkC) in June 2025.
It is therefore subject to the Creative Commons Licence (CC-BY-NC-SA)
URLs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatung_Company
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMS9918
https://www.elite-systems.co.uk
http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk/front/specgames.htm