It includes a 10" CRT amber screen with a wide aspect ratio (i.e. more than 4:3), a black and white thermal transfer printer, a 3.5" floppy drive for saving documents, and dedicated computing hardware, all enclosed in a single case.

Notable users included Portuguese Nobel Prize Winner José Saramago and American poet Lucille Clifton.

According to PHIS president Lou Arpino, referring to game consoles and PCs: "It's just a Cabbage-Patch Doll phenomenon"—and thus dropping all products except the VideoWriter.

Based on a 1984 motherboard design by PHIS engineer Dan Murphy, that was elegantly simple and able to be manufactured for $25, the VideoWriter used the Hitachi HD64180 or National Semiconductor NSC800N[4] CPU, clones of the Zilog Z80 with a unique pinout, along with an NCR 7250 video controller.

The application and thus keyboard layout was designed by Greg L. Weinstein, inspired by the Ashton-Tate MultiMate Advantage software for the IBM PC.

It was manufactured at the Philips factory in Vienna, originally at the rate of 11 systems/hour, although some of the inventory was remanufactured at the master Magnavox North American warehouse in Jefferson City, Tennessee (an hour away from the PHIS offices).

Although never released, an accessory, named the VideoWriter Smart Keyboard, was well under design at the time of PHIS's shut-down in 1988, principally by Greg Weinstein.