Expander System
Unitronics showed this at the 1983 Winter CES. An unreleased add-on peripheral similar to the Supercharger, except that it includes a built-in tape deck, and the entire unit plugged into the VCS's cartridge slot. Games specifically developed for the Expander were to take advantage of the additional memory (16K) to produce better graphics and enhanced game play, and were to be sold in cassette format and retail for under $15. High scores could be saved via a feature called Gamescore. The system had a cartridge slot on the top for use either with standard VCS carts or an optional 16K memory expansion. Other options included special Gamealbum cassettes which contained four 4K games. The screenshot in the first picture appears similar to that of Radio Shacks' Color Computer - same color scheme and maximum of 32 characters per line. Btw, the man holding the joystick in the second photo is Paul Walters. Unitronics was a division of Unitoys, Inc.
The Expander II had all the features of the Expander I and included its own 8K BASIC cassette program, Expander BASIC (though one press release stated it was built-in to the keyboard...), but allowed for optional devices to be connected (Expander Keyboard, Expander Printer, and Expander Modem). In addition, they had plans for optional equipment like a Speech Program, which turned the system into a Speech Text Synthesizer, along with a Home Improvement program, plus VideoComp Command joysticks. Note that the literature mentions a 64-key keyboard, but a 55-key keyboard is shown.
Several of Unitronics' cassette games were to be developed in a joint venture with ET Marketing, which was a coin-op manufacturer in Arizona. Some of the tentative titles were:
Dazzler
Desert Race
educational programs
Expander BASIC
Home Improvement
Kaleidosketch
Leprechaun
Pirate's Treasure
"Space Invaders clone"
Speech Program
Those Little Buggers (AKA Buggers)
Treasure Hunt
Tugboat
Uni-Calc
