Tomy Tutor

The **Tomy Tutor** ( in Japan and **Grandstand Tutor** in the United Kingdom) is a home computer made by the Japanese toy company Tomy and manufactured by Matsushita. It works like the TI-99/4A inside, but neither are compatible. It was released in Japan in 1982 and the United Kingdom and United States in 1983.

## Overview

Tomy said the Tutor is good for games and education and easy for eight-year-old children to learn to use without needing an adult.

Its hardware is similar to the TI-99/4. For example, the CPU is a TMS9995, which is related to the TI-99/4's TMS9900. Both CPUs were 16-bit when most other home systems used 8-bit CPUs.

The Pyūta Jr. was a console version of the Pyūta. It was only released in Japan, and came out in April 1983.

Tomy wanted to make ¥5 billion from the Pyūta and sell at least 90,000 of them in its first year in Japan. To help with this, they sold it as a "drawing computer" for elementary and junior high school students. Almost 40,000 Pyūtas were shipped in its first 4 months. It sold much less after Nintendo's Family Computer (the Nintendo Entertainment System in other countries), which did more for less money, came out in 1983. It also failed outside of Japan. The original model was soon replaced with the Pyūta mk2 in Japan. It replaced the original chiclet keyboard with a better mechanical one, but also failed. The Tomy Tutor stopped being made and sold in February 1985.

As of May 1984, 120,000 Pyūtas had been shipped.

Some games needed a special adapter to work on the original model.

## Specifications

- CPU: Texas Instruments TMS9995
- Video: TMS9918 VDP (Video Display Processor)
    - Resolution: 256 x 192 pixels
    - 16 colors (up to 2 per cell)
    - Up to 32 monochrome 8x8 pixel sprites (up to 4 on each horizontal line)
    - No hardware scrolling
- Memory: 20 KB ROM built-in, 16 KB RAM, 256 bytes CPU RAM
- Keyboard: 56 keys, JIS compliant
- Audio: SN76489AN
- Weight:
- Media: ROM cartridge, cassette

## Games

- _Baseball 3D_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Battle Fighter 3D_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Bomb Man_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Car-azy Racer_ (USA-exclusive, developed by Wordwright)
- _Cave Crawlers_ (USA)/_Maze Patrol_ (Japan)
- _Deep Six_ (USA)/_Marine Adventure_ (Japan)
- _Donpan_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Frogger_ (Japan-exclusive port of the 1981 Konami arcade game)
- _Hyperspace_ (USA)/_Tron_ (Japan)
- _Jungler_ (USA/Japan, port of the 1981 Konami arcade game)
- _Loco-Motion_ (USA)/_Guttang Gottong_ (Japan) (port of the 1982 Konami arcade game)
- _Mickey Athletic Land_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Mission Attack_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Monster Inn_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Mr. Do!_ (Japan-exclusive port of the 1982 Universal arcade game)
- _Mystery Gold_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Night Flight_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Pooyan_ (USA/Japan, port of the 1982 Konami arcade game)
- _Rescue Copter_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Saurus Land_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Scramble_ (USA/Japan, port of the 1981 Konami arcade game)
- _Super Bike_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Torpedo Terror_ (USA)/_Bermuda Triangle_ (Japan)
- _Traffic Jam_ (USA/Japan)
- _Triple Command_ (Japan-exclusive)
- _Turpin_ (Japan-exclusive port of the 1981 Konami arcade game)
- _Yonin Mahjong_ (Japan-exclusive)

## References

</references>

## Other websites

- Tomy Tutor at Floodgap.com
- Review of Tomy Tutor from _Your Computer_ magazine, October 1983
- Emulator on C64

## Infobox (information appliance)

- **name**: Tomy Tutor
- **aka**: Grandstand Tutor (UK)
Pyūta (ぴゅう太) (Japan)
- **image**: Tomy-Tutor-wControllers.jpg
- **caption**: Tomy Tutor with controllers
- **developer**: Tomy
- **manufacturer**: Panasonic, Matsushita
- **price**: ¥59,800
¥29,800 (Pyūta Jr.)
¥19,800 (Pyūta mk2)
- **discontinued**: 1985
- **media**: ROM cartridge, Cassette tape#Data recording, cassette
- **os**: BASIC
- **cpu**: TMS9995
- **memory**: 20 Kilobyte, KB Read only memory, ROM
16 KB random access memory, RAM
- **graphics**: TMS9918
- **sound**: SN76489AN