page_title: Sony SMC-70
hierarchical_section_title: Sony SMC-70
caption_attribution_description: Sony SMC-70 Micro Computer. Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) East 6.0 , at the InfoAge Science Center
context_page_description: The SMC-70 is a microcomputer that was produced by Sony and released in 1982. The system was initially released for general office use in the United States, with the SMC-70G and SMC-70GP designed for professional video generation, for example in cable television applications, and digital video effect generation. It was the first computer that used the recently invented 3.5" micro floppy disk drive that was modified to become the industry standard. Like many home and office computers of the era, it had its own specially developed version of BASIC. Sony BASIC was designed to take advantage of a color Sony Trinitron display. The SMC-70 did not run Microsoft BASIC, despite the system being designed to compete in the US market. With optional expansion ROMs the system could display kanji characters.
  The system was expandable, allowing users to install a disk controller with one or two internal 3.5" disk drives. The floppy disk controller supported up to two additional 3.5" disk drives. The base system included the following external ports: I/O expansion, black and white monitor, RGB monitor, parallel printer, light pen, cassette deck, number pad, headphone, and RS-232C.
context_section_description: The SMC-70 is a microcomputer that was produced by Sony and released in 1982.  The system was initially released for general office use in the United States, with the SMC-70G and SMC-70GP (released in 1983) designed for professional video generation, for example in cable television applications, and digital video effect generation.  It was the first computer that used the recently invented (in 1981 - also by Sony) 3.5" micro floppy disk drive that was modified to become the industry standard. Like many home and office computers of the era, it had its own specially developed version of BASIC.  Sony BASIC was designed to take advantage of a color Sony Trinitron display.  The SMC-70 did not run Microsoft BASIC, despite the system being designed to compete in the US market. With optional expansion ROMs the system could display kanji characters.
  The system was expandable, allowing users to install a disk controller with one or two internal 3.5" disk drives (the base system did not include a floppy disk controller or disk drives).  The floppy disk controller supported up to two additional 3.5" disk drives (for a total of four).  The base system included the following external ports:  I/O expansion , black and white monitor, RGB monitor, parallel printer, light pen, cassette deck, number pad, headphone, and RS-232C.  
  The system could further be expanded by plug-in modules.  The SMC-70 had three externally available expansion ports (the unit split apart in the middle and expanded to accomodate one, two, or three modules).  Users were limited by the available power from the power supply (0.95A at 120V - 114 watts).   Released modules included:
  8-inch FDD control unit (Shugart interface)
  RS-232C serial interface (non-programmable)
  RS-232C serial interface (programmable)
  IEEE-488 interface
  256K RAM cache disk
  Kanji ROM
  Chinese character ROM
  RGB superimposer
  NTSC superimposer (occupied two expansion slots)
  PAL superimposer
  Battery backup
  Third parties also released expansion modules for the system.  Third party expansions included a joystick port and a hard drive controller.  
  The external I/O expansion port supported a self-powered enclosure that held an additional five modules, the Videotizer (a device that converted analog images to a digital format that could be manipulated), or the 16-bit Supercharger.  Internally the SMC-70 had two I/O expansion bus connectors, one of which was used by the 3.5" floppy drive controller.    
  With the use of the SMC-7086 Supercharger one could add a 5 MHz Intel 8086 16-bit CPU.  The Supercharger also supported the addition of an Intel 8087 numeric data processor, which provided about 100 times the performance of the 8086 alone for numeric processing.  The Supercharger came with a base 256 KB of RAM that was upgradable to 768K via 256K expansion boards.  With the Supercharger the SMC-70 could run CP/M-86.  Though Sony announced the add-on would run MS-DOS 2.11, the OS was never released outside of Sony.
caption: Sony SMC-70 Micro Computer at the Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) East 6.0, at the InfoAge Science Center
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S2 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:09:13 16:27:45", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6881", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/10", "EXIF FNumber": "27/10", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:09:13 16:27:45", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:09:13 16:27:45", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "53/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "79/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2592", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1944", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2174", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "11520", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "81000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}