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'''Thomson''' is a French High tech -Tech corporation who produce Weapons or HI-FI Electronic devices.
It used to produce 8-bit home computers in the 80's though sub-companies : '''SIMMIV''' (Société Internationale de Micro-Informatique et de Vidéo) also known as '''Thomson Micro.''' (1983-1989)
Despite those machines were litteraly literally whipped out by Amstrad in the French market, they remains a well known fail in France, and is still quite beloved in this country by those who knew them at school.
As we say : '''Proudly Merde in France.'''
=History : a French phenomenon=
Despite this they were quite common because in the 80's, the french governement government started a program "'''Plan informatique pour tous'''" (computering for all plan) which consisted of equipping schools with computers networks. As a result, a lot of Thomson computers were almost only sold to schools, apart from the few infortunates who got one instead of an Amstrad CPC. While Nationnal education had to choose those french computer (hastily developped in a rush) the general public rarely got those as they were not as well rounded a an Amstrad CPC per exemple. A notable flaw was the '''lack of a proper Soundchip''', as only a poor '''beeper''' was put on those. Also most earlier models had very poor keyboards (just see pictures). While the second generation (MO6/TO8) fixed a lot of issues such as lack of Memory and poor video modes, it was too late for them to take a good home-market share : AmstradCPC and AtariST were here
=Range and products=
They were released in a lot of models variations (mostly concerning the keyboard or colour of the casing) from 1983 to 1989.
While MO and TO models are uncompatible incompatible in software, most of the peripherals and Hardware were compatible.
2nd generation was almost fully retro-compatible with 1st generation but specific 2nd generation softwares couldn't run on 1st generation computers.
Those compatibilities issues were fatal to the range alongside the success of the Amstrad CPC in France.
*'''MO5'''
*'''MO6''' : 128K Ram and built in Tape driver.
*'''MO5NR''' was actually a MO6 with in-built NanoReseaux all cased in a MO5E casing, hence no in-built Tape Driver as it was supposed to be in network with a TO model as netserver..
*'''TO8''' and '''TO8D''' : 256K Ram and Built-in 3"1/2 Disk drive for the TO8D version (D=Disk)
*'''TO9''' and '''TO9+''' : professional casing with separate Keyboard and Central unit. The "+" version has an in-built Modem.
*'''Olivetti :''' Some Thomson '''MO6''' were sold in Italy, branded as '''Olivetti prodest PC128'''
<gallery caption="Thomson MO/TO second generation range of computers">
*TO16 : it was an IBM compatible PC that was to be used as network server alongside NanoReseaux.
*NanoReseau (Nano-Network) was a Network solution very "popular" as it was largely used in France's Schools.
