The PENCIL II

[ChickenMan]

I had my Pencil II on display at last weekend Computer Market.  It was made by Soundic Electronics in Hong Kong in 83/84 and sold here by Hanimex.

Its a Z80 based, has 256x192 16 colour display, 4 independent sound synthesisers, VHF (Ch 1) and Composite Video, Cassette IN/OUT and Printer interface.  Not a lot about it on the internet either.  No one at the Market had ever hear or seen a Pencil II.  I forget to bring the Cassette unit so borrowed a VZ200 one which worked great.

   

[Robert]

Looking good. For those who don't know, most Pencil II computers broke down within the warranty period and were returned to the store (Grace Bros). The problem was caused by bad soldering on the cartridge port (where the SD-BASIC cart is).

The result then, is that working Pencil II's are incredibly rare now. I've seen 2 others, both not working. One was in pieces and the other had bitrotted roms.

The one is the picture was donated to me many years ago, in order to create a driver for MAME. After that it just sat around in its box for years, until it was recently sent off to Chickenman so that it could live again.