The Matra & Hachette Ordinateur Alice was a home computer

Home computer

Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...

 sold in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 beginning in 1983. It was a clone of the TRS-80 MC-10

TRS-80 MC-10

thumb|right|The TRS-80 MC-10The TRS-80 MC-10 microcomputer is a lesser-known member of the TRS-80 line of home computers, produced by Tandy Corporation in the early 1980s and sold through their RadioShack chain of electronics stores...

, produced through a collaboration between Matra

Matra

Mécanique Aviation Traction or Matra was a French company covering a wide range of activities mainly related to automobile, bicycles, aeronautics and weaponry. In 1994, it became a subsidiary of the Lagardère Group and now operates under that name.Matra was owned by the Floirat family...

 and Hachette

Hachette (publishing)

Hachette Livre, , is a French publisher, the flagship imprint of Lagardère Publishing. It was founded in 1826 by Louis Hachette as a bookshop and publishing company. Hachette has its headquarters in the 15th arrondissement of Paris....

 in France and Tandy Corporation

Tandy Corporation

Tandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas. Tandy was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store, and acquired RadioShack in 1963. The Tandy name was dropped in May 2000, when RadioShack Corporation was made the official name.-History:Tandy began in 1919...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

The Alice is distinguished by its unique, bright red casing. Functionally, it is equivalent to the MC-10, with a Péritel (SCART

SCART

SCART is a French-originated standard and associated 21-pin connector for connecting audio-visual equipment together...

) connector replacing the RF modulator

RF modulator

An RF modulator is a device that takes a baseband input signal and outputs a radio frequency-modulated signal....

 for video output.

Unlike its progenitor, the Alice became a popular computer in its home country, aided by its presence in schools as part of the country's Informatique pour tous ("Information technology for everyone") programme.

Matra later released two successor models:

• The Matra Alice 32, which shared the case style of the original, but was a different computer inside, due to using the EF9345 video chip in place of the MC-10's 6847. The Alice 32 had 8 kibibyte
  Kibibyte
  The kibibyte is a multiple of the unit byte for quantities of digital information. The binary prefix kibi means 1024; therefore, 1 kibibyte is . The unit symbol for the kibibyte is KiB. The unit was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 1999 and has been accepted for use...
  
  s of main RAM
  Ram
  -Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
  
  , 8 kibibytes of dedicated video RAM
  Ram
  -Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
  
  , and 16 kibibytes ROM
  Read-only memory
  Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...
  
   (the ROM incorporated an assembler).
• The Matra Alice 90, an upgrade to the Alice 32, which featured 32 kibibytes of RAM and a full-size case and keyboard. Its video cable included video-in, so EF9345 graphics could be overlaid onto the input video.

Specifications

• CPU: Motorola 6803
  Motorola 6800
  The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips...
  
  
• RAM: 4 KiB
  Kibibyte
  The kibibyte is a multiple of the unit byte for quantities of digital information. The binary prefix kibi means 1024; therefore, 1 kibibyte is . The unit symbol for the kibibyte is KiB. The unit was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 1999 and has been accepted for use...
  
   on-board
• ROM: 8 KiB (Microsoft
  Microsoft
  Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
  
   BASIC)
• I/O Ports:
  • RS-232
    RS-232
    In telecommunications, RS-232 is the traditional name for a series of standards for serial binary single-ended data and control signals connecting between a DTE and a DCE . It is commonly used in computer serial ports...
    
    C serial interface
  • Cassette interface
  • Péritel video output
  • Expansion interface
• AZERTY
  AZERTY
  AZERTY is a specific layout for the characters of the Latin alphabet on typewriter keys and computer keyboards. The layout takes its name from the first six letters to appear on the first row of alphabetical keys...
  
   keyboard layout

All other specifications should be comparable to those of the TRS-80 MC-10

TRS-80 MC-10

thumb|right|The TRS-80 MC-10The TRS-80 MC-10 microcomputer is a lesser-known member of the TRS-80 line of home computers, produced by Tandy Corporation in the early 1980s and sold through their RadioShack chain of electronics stores...

, but have not been confirmed.

External links

• Le wiki d'Alice - Everything about Alice (in french)
• Matra Alice — information from The Machine Room
• Matra Alice32 — Alice 32 information complete (in French)
• DCAlice — Alice 32 emulator and information site
• My First Alice32 — Alice 32 emulator
• FAQ on Alice32 — comprehensive FAQ regarding Alice