Editing Exidy Sorcerer (section)

===Design===
From his days at RepCo, Terrell knew H.R. "Pete" Kauffman and Howell Ivy of [[Exidy]], a successful coin-operated [[arcade game]] manufacturer. Terrell noted "Their graphic designs with a computer were so good they would take quarters out of my pocket." Howell, VP of Engineering, was a computer enthusiast and was interested in Terrell's concept. From its outset, the Sorcerer design was aimed as a small business computer. The wish list of design improvements over existing designs went like this:

* A keyboard computer that could plug into a television set like the Apple II and TRS-80, but also plug into a computer monitor to display high resolution graphics.
* An easily programmable graphics [[character set]] like the Commodore PET, so aspiring programmers could write [[BASIC]] language programs with graphical user interfaces, like word processors and spreadsheets. The Sorcerer design was eloquent with the highest resolution in the marketplace, and innovative because the graphic characters could be reprogrammed to represent any kind of 8x8 character the programmer wanted, unlike the fixed graphic character set on the Commodore PET. Howell did such a good job in this area of the design that it was to achieve a “Most Innovative” award at the [[Consumer Electronics Show]] after its introduction.
* The fastest [[microcomputer]] chip with the most software compatibility in the marketplace. The Exidy Sorcerer used the Z80 Processor from Zilog Corp. (the same as the TRS-80 from Tandy, while the Apple II and Commodore PET used the [[MOS 6502|6502]] processor from [[MOS Technology]]) which allowed it to run the same BASIC language software that was becoming one of the first standards in the personal computer industry, Micro-Soft BASIC. Exidy was one of the first companies to license software from Micro-Soft after they parted ways from MITS, Inc. and before they moved from New Mexico to Seattle to become Microsoft.
* Plug-In software cartridges so the computer user could immediately begin using the computer at power-on. The user would not have to load a program from tape or disk to start operating the computer. Exidy would provide three program cartridges under license: Microsoft 8K BASIC, Word Processor Cartridge (which was seen as the “Killer App“ for Exidy, as the Spreadsheet was to Apple), and an Assembler Cartridge (for programmers to write their own custom software for proprietary applications). Blank EEPROM cartridges were provided for custom applications, for which design possibly had in mind foreign language character sets that would have helped to make the Exidy Sorcerer more internationally popular.
* An expansion unit designed to the industry standard [[S-100 bus]] so that all of the low cost peripheral products then currently available could be attached to expand the computer system. This would allow a Sorcerer system to expand as its small business user grew.