This 4041 byte file will describe some of the differences and similarities between the Radio Shack Model 100 and the Olivetti M10 computers. The innards of both computers were designed by Microsoft and Kyo- cera in Japan. The major physical difference is case design, with the Olivetti having a screen which can be positioned at various angles as well as having an adjustable contrast knob. The M10 also has a more pronounced typing angle. The M10 has more keys on the keyboard. The entire printable ASCII character set is available, including { } | ~ and `. M10 presently is available in 5 national versions, US, UK, French, Italian, and German. The international versions have specialized keyboards and different character sets. Only the US version, sold in the US, Canada, and Mexico, has the internal 300 baud modem. The M10 case is designed with an easily opened sliding cover for access to expansion RAM and ROM. The system bus is accessible via a hinged door and the connector is a strong male 40 pin con- nector similar to the parallel printer connector. Available M10 peripherals include a four color printer/plotter similar to the CGP-115 called the PL10. The PL10 is much small- er, lighter, and operates on rechargeable internal batteries. Olivetti has also announced a battery operated thermal printer, a 3 1/2" battery powered microfloppy disk drive, and a color graph- ic TV/monitor interface. Several software packages are available from Olivetti and from various third-party sources including Traveling Software, PCSG, Skyline Marketing, The Covington Group, and AMPI. Third-party hardware is also available, including memory expansion from vari- ous sources and the 'Bullet' wafer tape drive from Holmes En- gineering. Olivetti has also announced a major option ROM offering, M10/Multiplan from Microsoft. This spreadsheet is nearly the full featured Multiplan found on the desktops, including features that make it a 'second-generation spreadsheet'. As the software is in ROM, very little valuable user RAM area is required except for the 'model' sheets that you develop. The built-in software of the M10 is nearly identical to that of the Model 100. One difference in the operating system is the IPL function. On the Model 100, the IPL (Initial Program Load) exe- cutes only if the machine is turned off while in BASIC. On the M10, IPL executes on power up regardless of the state of the machine on turn-off. Certain software written for one of the machines is fully tran- sportable to the other. These are BASIC programs that do not utilize the graphics character set, do not CALL, PEEK or POKE into the ROM or system RAM areas, and do not depend on the specific key layouts of either of the machines. Nearly all BASIC programs can be transported to the other machine with minor changes to statements which utilize graphics charac- ters or make ROM calls. A list of common ROM calls and system RAM addresses is available in XA4 under the file name M10ROM.DIF. The corresponding Model 100, M10 US and M10 international addresses are given in hex and decimal. Machine language programs can be converted as well, although a little more knowledge of machine/assembler programming is re- quired. The best method is to use a disassembler on the program (if source code is not available) and the ROMs of both machines if available for a full comprehension of the required transla- tions. The list of calls mentioned above is very valuable for this process, as is one of the disassemblers available elsewhere on this SIG. I will be happy to try and answer any questions pertaining to the M10 that you have. Please direct them to me at the PPN below. Don Herrick Product Planner, Olivetti [70526,471]