The Socrates is a home video game console released by VTech in 1988.
Specs
The following ICs are on my Socrates board:
- a Z80 CPU clocked at 3.58Mhz (TMP Z84C00AP-6)
- two 32KB DRAM chips (Sharp LH2464-12)
- a custom ROM containing 6 built-in games (VTech 27-00817-002-000)
- a Toshiba A/V controller (VTEL 27-0769 TC17G032AF 0248)
- an I/O controller (TMP 42C40P 1844)
Details
There are slight differences between versions of this board, such as compatible Z80 clones used for the CPU. A different graphics chip is used in the German Prof. Weis-Alles and the French Professeur Saitout, which use PAL and SECAM video respectively. The speech synthesizer module appears to have used a Toshiba TC88802AF.
The Socrates uses an RF modulator for video output, but this can be easily bypassed to composite A/V, as documented by modelrail.otenko.
Preservationist Team Europe has developed a flash cartridge that fits all 8 separate Socrates games on an 8MB eprom. The above article also links to Team Europe’s post selling a kit for the video mod, and the files to 3D print a case Socrates cartridges.
Sources
- source code for the MAME implementation - includes some useful documentation about the Socrates’ hardware, as well as the I.Q. Unlimited and Video Painter which shared a similar architecture.
- modelrail.otenko’s Composite mod
- Team Europe’s flash cartridge
- play the Socrates on the Internet Archive