EMMA 02

General Information

The RCA Studio IV is a console that was never released by RCA. Information here is based on the Studio IV Interpreter and prototype schematics for the video card.

The Studio IV Interpreter by Joe Weisbecker was extracted by Andy Modla from tape S.572.21B from The Sarnoff Collection, The College of New Jersey.

The prototype schematics part A and B were made available from the Hagley Museum and Library: Sarnoff/RCA Collection - Joseph A. Weisbecker's archived manuscripts and materials - M&A 875, Folder 19

The Studio IV is very similar to the Studio III and MPT-02 consoles. Differences include a more extensive pseudo code interpreter in a 2 KB ROM and an improved video chip.

The disassembled Studio IV Interpreter including the complete pseudo code instruction set can be found here, pseudo code syntax is also shown on ST4 Syntax

RCA developed a Tiny BASIC for the VIP and the Studio IV. These BASIC versions are very similar and both use a dedicated pseudo code which is a bit like Chip 8 and other pseudo codes for the 1802. Luck would have it that a printed version of both the VIP and Studio IV pseudo code parts were found, still missing is the original interpreter part for the Studio IV. However with a full version of the VIP and the pseudo code for the Studio IV I have managed to port the VIP interpreter back to the Studio IV and now have a Tiny BASIC version running on the Studio IV. Emma 02 includes a assembler and dissassembler for both pseudo code syntaxes which are more or less the same. See here: AM4KBAS for the Studio IV syntax and here: AMVBAS for the VIP syntax.

Technical specifications

Clock: 3.58 MHz
Memory:
    256 Bytes RAM, possibly more!
    1 KB Video RAM
    1 K 4 bit Colour RAM
    2 KB ROM
Video: 'Studio IV' chip, probably an improved 'CDP1864'
Sound: Same as the CDP1864
Keyboard

Screen shot

Studio IV running the build in demo / screen saver

Links

Some info about the Studio IV can be found on Andy's RCA Studio github page