I have the main unit, tape drive MH683, power adapter and cables.
type computer
country France
year 1983
os Basic Microsoft 1.0
cpu Motorola 6803
speed 0.89 MHz
ram 4 KB
rom 8 KB
graphic 64 x 32
colors 9
sound 1 channel
ports Expansion port, Tape-recorder,TV, I/O serial
The Matra-Hachette Alice — The French Home Computer
The Matra-Hachette Alice was a French home computer released in 1983, produced through a partnership between Matra (a French aerospace and defence company) and Hachette (France’s largest publishing group). Using a Motorola MC6803 processor at 1 MHz, the Alice was positioned as an affordable educational computer for French families and schools, priced to compete with the Sinclair ZX81 and early Spectrum. Its name — evoking Alice in Wonderland — reflected its educational and child-friendly positioning.
French Computing Industry
France had an unusually active domestic computer industry in the early 1980s, driven partly by government policy encouraging French technological independence. The Matra-Hachette collaboration was a natural pairing: Matra’s electronics manufacturing capability with Hachette’s educational publishing expertise and distribution network. The Alice was designed to be both a programming tool and an educational platform, with Hachette providing software and educational materials through its publishing channels.
The Plan Informatique pour Tous
The Alice arrived just before France’s ambitious ”Informatique pour Tous” (Computing for All) programme of 1985 — a government initiative that placed computers in every French school. This programme ultimately favoured Thomson machines rather than the Alice, but the broader context of French government investment in educational computing helped create the market conditions that briefly made machines like the Alice commercially viable.