Machine of the Month: Thomson MO5 (1984)
DCMOTO http://dcmoto.free.fr Minimum Pentium II 300 MHz
and Windows 98.
THIS MONTH, WE HEAD to France to explore a much-overlooked machine that can provide new experiences for hungry retro gamers. The Thomson MO5 is often referred to as “France’s BBC Micro”, and was the machine upon which many French schoolkids experienced their first taste of computing.
The MO5 uses unique hardware combinations with innovations well worth exploring, so let us take you on a brief tour of MO5 history, before showing you how to emulate this quirky machine. –JOHN KNIGHT
1 BACKGROUND
Thomson is a French sister company to General Electric, which began experimenting with computing in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Thomson started producing French microcomputers to capitalize on high import taxes, beginning with the T07 (1982) and TO7/70 (1984).
>> These were primarily business machines designed to take on the Apple II and Commodore 64. However, developments in Britain changed their priorities.
>> Sinclair’s cut-price ZX Spectrum was mopping up the UK budget market, and schools there had adopted the BBC Micro en-masse. Thomson wanted to monopolize both of these markets in France and attempted to do so with the MO5.
2 LAUNCH
Released in June 1984, the MO5 was a cut-down version of the TO7/70 that packed 32KB of RAM, a Motorola 6809E CPU, and Microsoft BASIC (called MO5 BASIC) for 2390 Francs, around US$400 at the time.
>> The MO5 has some peculiar hardware. Firstly, it used a Motorola 6809E CPU. The 6809 series had certain 16-bit capabilities and was more technically capable than its contemporaries, but was five or six times more expensive than a Z80 or 6502.
>> Sound-wise, the MO5 only gets a simple beeper. Rather than using a mouse, an optical pen came with the MO5 as standard. Thomson computers used proprietary parts, and add-ons were expensive. The MO5 was installed in French schools as part of the “Informatique pour tous” (Computing For All) plan. While the French government originally wanted to use the Apple Macintosh, Macs were simply too expensive, and an MO5 was a fifth of the price.
>> Although home users usually bought Thomson models with proper mechanical keyboards, schools were lumbered with cheaper models that used rubber keys.
>> Classrooms made use of the Thomson’s special “Nanoréseau” network, where a standard PC would broadcast programs to a network of MO5 terminals. Students were taught BASIC and Logo, which was often used to control a robot tortoise.
3 GAMES
Thomson probably spent and saved money in the wrong areas with the MO5, but it does provide retro gaming fans with something of a different dynamic. A lot of games feel slow, but the MO5 has a fascinating color palette as if someone crossed a ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and a Sega SC-3000.
>> Of course, it’s hard to find games you can play without the language barrier, but the following shouldn’t be too taxing.
>> Choplifter (1982) is an arcade classic and a decent conversion, and Wizball (1988) and EnduroRacer (1988) are surprising, if over-ambitious, inclusions.
>> LaMineAuxDiamants (1986) is a great BoulderDash clone for any fans wanting new levels, and Androides (1985) is a brutally difficult variation on LodeRunner. Fighting fans should try Yie Ar Kung Fu II (1986) and Kung Fou (1987).
4 LEGACY
Although the MO5 sold well in France, that didn’t translate to foreign markets. Improved models were introduced over the following two years, but were soon dropped in favor of 1986’s MO6, which had 128KB of RAM and was backward-compatible with the MO5.
>> Unfortunately, Thomson’s ubiquity in France was short-lived. Once economic conditions were favorable, Thomson was overtaken by the Amstrad CPC range (France was the Amstrad’s most successful territory) and the 16-bit Atari ST. Thomson began selling IBM Compatible PCs in 1987 before leaving the computer market in 1989.
5 EMULATION
While there are other Thomson emulators in existence, when it comes to the MO5, there is really only one choice: DCMOTO.
>> Although DCMOTO only comes with a Windows binary, Linux users needn’t panic, it works perfectly well under Wine. Thomson emulator aside, the DCMOTO website also contains all the Thomson software you’re looking for, as well as books, catalogs, documentation, and magazines.
>> To download the emulator, open the DCMOTO home page and click on the Emulator button. Most of the website is in French, but under the blue DCMOTO heading is a button labeled “Download”. Click that and a ZIP file will download.
>> Extract the file and inside will be a Windows executable. You will need to open this manually each time, so you may want to make a desktop shortcut if you use DCMOTO often.
6 GETTING STARTED
When starting DCMOTO, there is a help screen in French. Click OK and you’ll be taken to the main emulator screen. >> The first things to do include changing the interface to English, then changing the Thomson model to an MO5.
>> Click the Options button in the main menu and a new window will appear, “DCMOTO paramètres”.
>> At the left of the window, towards the middle, is a field called “Langue”. Change this from Français to Anglais (English) and click the Appliquer (Apply) button.
>> Now choose the Thomson model from the Computer field around the top of the window.
>> By default, DCMOTO is set to TO9+. There are seven MO5 models to choose from; MO5 v1.1 works best with US keyboards.
>> Choose the 1.1 and click OK. A pop-up will appear saying a reboot is needed. That’s just for DCMOTO, not your PC. Click OK.
>> vDCMOTO will now reset into an MO5 BASIC prompt, ready to be programmed or to load software.
7 LOADING CARTRIDGES AND DISKS
Whether you’re loading a tape, disk, or cartridge, click “Removable media” in the main menu to get started.
>> Cartridges are the easiest medium to load. Just click the Load button next to the “Cartridge (.rom)” field, choose your file, click Open, and your game will load.
>> While we couldn’t find a foolproof way of getting disks to load, we did find a decent method to get your game started, and thankfully MO5 disk software is quite rare.
>> First, you need to enable the external disk drive. Click Options in the main menu, and in the settings window is a field called “Extern controller”. Click the option “CD90-351 (3.5in)” then choose OK. Now click “Removable media” from the main menu and press Load to choose a disk image file. Browse for your disk file, then click Open.
>> Reset the MO5 by clicking File > Hard reset. With any luck, your disk will boot itself.
8 LOADING TAPES
Tape software is by far the most common format, but getting tapes to load is something of a lottery: so you will probably need to try several commands to load a program.
>> Start by choosing a tape image file from the Removable media window, then click OK.
>> Now you need to try entering a few BASIC load commands—remember to press Enter after each of these commands.
>> The easiest method is to try just entering LOAD by itself. If you’re left with an “OK” message and a blinking cursor, enter RUN .
>> If that doesn’t work, try typing:
LOADM””,,R
Or in the case of Le5emeAxe, simply:
LOADM
>> If you’re using a US keyboard, you will need to press Shift + 2 to type the “character.
>> If none of these commands work, try typing: LOADM “CASS:”,R
>> On our keyboard, we entered the : symbol by pressing Shift + \ , which should be above the Enter key. If you run into any further problems entering characters, you can bring up a French virtual keyboard by clicking Tools > Keyboard.
>> Lastly, if any program needs a strange command to load, it’s worth looking at the filename, which often contains the required load command.