Thanks for that correction!
I’ve gotten my restored POLY-88 setup to start investigating features. But wow, the case really is poor on the POLY88 - poor airflow. Each of those S-100 cards gets hot. And seems to me the front fan is useless, it has nowhere to draw any air in.
Always seems to me that the 1974-1976 era of microcomputers was sort of like the 1880-1910 era of cars – fairly rough experience, had to really know what you were doing to operate them.
I better train up using the emulator, since hard to say how much longer this POLY88 hardware will last. We had to replace the RAM card, but everything else is fairly original.
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Minor update… I’ve learned this “tiny BASIC” wasn’t provided by Polymorphic (company making the POLY-88). Their version of BASIC was either called “11K BASIC” or “A00 BASIC” (not quite sure yet on what the difference is, but one of those had a “PLOT” command). The only thing Tiny BASIC can do is: FOR loop, GOTO/GOSUB, and a RND function (along with standard arithmetic + - * and integer divide, and limited logic – no OR AND, but it can do > < and for not equal it uses # ). However, tinyBASIC fits in 2K of ROM.
An earlier version of it is described here:
092-108.pdf
That PDF mentions a Version 2.0. Looking at the raw BIN dump of the 4.0P that my system here boots to, I’m not really seeing any major difference in capability. One thought is that “4.0” isn’t really the TinyBASIC version, but just stating that it depends on the presence of the “MONITOR 4.0” ROM that POLY-88’s generally had. And the P might just mean “POLY” variant. So it’s not really a TP version 4.0, but a classic 2K PATB (PaloAlto Tiny BASIC) that depends on “4.0P” stuff.
I’ve not had any luck using my Tandy CCR cassette decks with this system - so I’ve ordered a period correct deck with both Tone and Volume controls, and hopefully will get better luck at loading some of the old tapes (like the actual A00 BASIC).
I’ve gotten a working tape deck (a period correct C-103A still in good condition). I can LOAD, but haven’t yet tried saving anything new. Through VCF contacts, I also found someone whose worked through imaging the casettes to a CAS format, and a script to convert the CAS back to WAV. I’ve done before with the TRS-80 and IBM PC (5150), described here < 5150: Setting up Tape Deck Connection (because the 5150 can) — xiphod >. But neat to see all that groundwork also done for this POLY88 system (its normal Byte is 300 baud, still learning about its PolyPhase mode that claims is 2-3x faster).
“Stress Testing” the system - letting it run for awhile, it was about 8 minutes loading BASIC A00 on this system. Then did a sample program, since I wanted to see how its PLOT keyword works (semigraphics, not a true graphics mode).
So here’s a preview of that. This is “real time speed” at its factory 1.8MHz CPU speed.
1976 POLY-88 Intel 8080 CPU BASIC A00 “PLOT” Command Example - YouTube
Emulator demo of a sample program included in the PolyMorphic manual for the original VTI video card manual. Confirming that it works first and practicing entering it to the CTRL+Z Monitor before trying it out on real hardware.
PolyMorphic Systems POLY-88 Game of Life Emulator Demo (1976) - hardware demo coming soon!
Reference info on background of the POLY-88 and some usage notes:
Polymorphic Systems (1976) — xiphod
Part of the above notes ended up used in the April 2026 issue of Compute! Gazette article.
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