Discussion on:

Broken button (Dinosaur sightings: The Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo))

I had one of these when I was in college. Back when PCs had 2 large floppy drives, and cost a pretty penny. While its laughable now, the thing was pretty cool I had a D&D cartridge. every afternoon folks who on the street you would not think of as "geeks" were in my room, playing the games, drinking beer, and having fun with what was an inexpensive, durable little machine. I think I eventually bought a floppy drive that "cartridged" into the thing, mind you 16k was not a lot of memory, but it gave you a good "bang for your buck". I think I might have actually bought the thing for myself, on the minimum wages I earned in college. If I am not mistaken, I think its stored away at my parents house, along with a corona portable PC, and an old 8088 machine I have not heart to rid myself of. Maybe someday I might pull it out and show it to my now 5-yr old. He will probably get a kick out of what Dat had for a PC.

This was our first home computer and while I'm pretty sure I
now thrown it away, I think I still have the manual stashed
away somewhere.

I come at computers and IT from the graphic arts arena, serious geekery is not my forte. However, back when I was in high school in the late '70's, a friend of mine had probably one of the first TRS-80's I recall seeing. He was really proud of the little thing, and reveled in showing it off to his less 'geeky' friends, of which I was one. He said to me, hey, you're a smart guy, you should learn how to use one of these things.

I said to him, I'm going into graphic design, we'll *never* use anything like that...

Famous last words.

Duh.

I told my father those same words, and the response was the same. Then one day while visiting him, he was so excited to show me something that by hand would have taken several hours, while on his new computer, it took 20 minutes. That was almost 20 years ago. Now when he talks about art, it's all Wacom pads and Photoshop CS2

"Before Microsoft and Bill Gates took control of the personal computer market"

I remember my CoCo running on Microsoft Extended Color Basic

Correct me if I'm Wrong

No you are correct, I remember the CoCo with Microsoft Extended Color Basic.

Yes - MS wrote the basic, but the original comment was "Before MS TOOK OVER..." - MS was nothing but a couple of young dropouts back then... ANY of us could have started the next big thing - They hadn't yet become the giant they are now...

Just before MS took control of the market, i.e., before buying DOS and licensing it to IBM.

"So, Tandy is coming out with a microcomputer?? he said. It was around 1975 when one of the regular customers at my Radio Shack in Morrisville, PA uttered those words. "A what?? was my reply. He explained the concept. At that moment I was hooked. When the first Model 1 arrived, a two-piece with Basic and B&W screen, it took the company and our customers by a storm.

About a year later, another regular came in flaunting an Apple II. The color screen and graphics fell my crest. What could anyone use but platitudes about this machine? "One of these days, we'll get there.? I thought to myself. That day came in the form of a Color Computer. It was not exactly and Apple II, but for the price, it was an excellent machine.

My mark was made with Computers from Tandy and Radio Shack. I was extremely proud of the product line. So, when a person "in the know" would ask about a "Trash 80", I took it personally. Even after rising through the ranks of Management, I rankled when the nickname was spoken. Maybe after all these years, it has become a term of endearment.

"Maybe after all these years, it has become a term of endearment."

It was always a nickname filled with good natured kidding for me and remains so.

Just like calling the smallest guy in the group "Big Guy" and the biggest guy is always "Tiny".

Great times with the Trash 80. When Apple was just an unaffordable dream the Trash was there in my school (and a few friends with forward thinking and more financially extravagent parents) teaching me BASIC and guiding me on the way.

You should take it personally, but only in the best of ways.

Thanks for your comments. Your explanation puts things more in perspective.

Feeling a little nostalgic reading all the people who owned or had access to the little computer. I ended up getting one after 2 commodore 64's wouldn't work properly. I never looked back! The extended basic was so cool I remember getting the CoCo Magazine and typing by hand all the programs and games in the magazine.

Does anyone remember Indy 4K? Of all the games that one had me hooked for hours.

Cheers to all who saw the light with this little computer.

I remember typing in a machine code game that consisting of hex data statements.
In the end it was a side scrolling Smurf game where the only control was to jump over logs...

I also remember the 10 cls, 20 for I=1 to x, 30 print I, 40 next I. LOL, I too typed in those programs from the Coco mag and got flusterd for punctuation, comma vs semi-coln. I had a 4K machine then went to Trenton state computer fair and bought some RAM (16 chips) and piggy-backed them leaving only the chip select line out then running it through and inverter - wala - 64K checking it with my diag cartridge. lol Also built a 6 port cartridge extender then I was able to read my cartridges, and store them on tape and change things around like adding my name to the Chess game. lol. Good ol times.

I think it was good-natured usually, what else ya gonna come up with from T.R.S.?
Tandy Radio Shack?
(yes, what it stood for).
'The Tandy Radio Shack 80' sounds awful compared to the cute nickname of 'Trash 80.'
Yes a few Apple zealots used it in deragotory fashion, but in the end God smote them with ever increasing prices, more difficult licensing, less competitive software, and a smaller share of computer users then those that took the Trash-80 (with its Microsoft Extended Basic) then "PCs" & DOS to Windows route. Ah history. Makes one feel old and wise to remember it all so easily

God smote me with those (insert expletive) "PCs and DOS to
Windows" machines until I finally got old enough and wise
enough (read successful enough and smart enough) to get
the Apple. I miss my Trash 80 but my Macbook is my best
friend. The Trash 80's running of MS BASIC (the Apple II ran
BASIC, too--Applesoft BASIC) doesn't make Vista any better.

Note I never ever said MACs are not superior, in many respects they are. But I and obviously a LOT of other ppl consider it too much $$$ and hassle to switch, and the more difficult licensing (thus a comparitive lack of choices per each software type) is the key to a lot of us, we like choices, even being buried in an avalanche of them sometimes. Oh and nothing would make switch to Vista. Who mentioned Vista? I don't think it was even OUT when I wrote the post above. Happily using 2000 at work and XP at home, thank you.

I've got at least one example of every major release of the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer (except for the MC-10) in my basement or my living room. The only Apple I have is an SE/30 that I picked up for ten bucks at the Trenton Computer Festival several years back and fired up once to see if it booted -- it did. I bought it out of pity and because of a fondness for the old Motorola CPU line. (I also have a couple of Tandy Xenix machines which have 68k processors).

I don't do Windows except at at work. Yes, I have a machine that came with Vista. The minute I got it home, I disconnected that drive (rather than erasing it because La Esposa thinks she wants to play with it in future -- the cats taught her how to play)and put in a fresh drive running Ubuntu (that has some fine emulators for a number of old Tandy/Radio Shack systems now installed.

Yes, the initials for Tandy/Radio Shack got expanded into a lousy nickname for several lines of good machines. We dealt with it (I did training and tech support at several RSCCs for over five years during the 80s) by ignoring it mostly.

All of my Tandy computers I've acquired since I came to New Jersey (from California). None are the ones I actually bought with my 10% employee discount -- as Poor Richard said, three removes equal one fire, I've moved several times and the one computer I brought east (an AT&T 3B1) was destroyed by Amtrak baggage handlers.

The only machine I need to complete my collection is a Tandy 2000. But it's not a high priority since it runs MS-DOS (though it's not PC compatible -- 80186 CPU).

Nothing (except installing something else) could make Vista any better and it's hard to figure what could make it worse -- the mind of a long-time sysadmin kind of flatlines on that. (OS-9 on the TRS-80 Color Computer was a more secure multi-user operating system than Vista).

... but knowing how good the computers are (No, not 'were' - I still have several that work, including my first CoCo3 that the kids & myself still use - not to mention my Tandy 200 that's required 1 repair (memory backup NiCD) in 25 years and still going strong...) I regarded the term as a "badge of honor" and ignored how others may regard the term.

And to quote wdg3rd (Good seeing you again, friend!): "" (OS-9 on the TRS-80 Color Computer was a more secure multi-user operating system than Vista). ""

Vista is not progress... As I remind my cow-orkers - OS-9 Level 2 was a windowing, multi-user, multi-tasking operating system that fit in 64K RAM and booted faster on a 2MHz CPU from a 300RPM floppy drive than Vista can...

Also, mein Frau's lappy came with Vista as well - but I didn't give her the choice of saving the install, and when I asked her about it she stated I'd have been wasting my breath anyway if I'd had asked her...

It did boot Vista once, tho - I couldn't hit F8/F2/Del/anything to stop the boot process in time... so I had to reboot once.

I think I need to play some Rogue tonite...

Laterz!
"Merch"

I entered computing in the late 70,s and got my first PC when the Apple ][e was new. At the time I was also an avid Amateur Radio hobbiest. As far as I know the term Trash 80 was not because of the quality of the build of the unit, but because of the RFI it generated when running causing interference with other amateur RF receivers. The TRS80 was a fairly popular system for the day. As were systems by Atari and Comador.

The points are all well taken about the meaning of "Trash". As far as the RFI goes, it was used to good advantage. The only sound the first TRS had was generated by holding an AM radio close to the CPU. The RFI could be programmed for such classical favorites as Beethoven?s "Flur Elise."

A little known fact is that Bill Gates wrote the L3 Basic for the TRS 80 DOS. The CEO used to say, " In those days the contract was a few pages long. Now it is a large as a phone book."

Thanks for all the reassuring comments.

I had one and, trust me, it is a term of endearment. Not that
I didn't want the Apple II, the school had those and I loved
them, too, but I'd never trade the time I spent with my
beloved "Trash 80." Don't rankle, many of us geeks who are
"of that age" speak fondly of our "Trash 80's."

Bill Gates wrote/stole/was inspired (depending on who you talk to by BASIC on the KIM1, which he didn't write, and eventually met with and sold it to the fledgling Commodore. That was how he got his start, making enough money there to keep going. However his BASIC didn't have I/O for each machine, the computer company had to provide that, plus everyone put in their own little extensions. Microsoft never made one red cent on the BASIC in the Commodore 64 (which makes me smile every time I turn mine on) but he did get Microsoft's name in front of the 17 million plus people who bought the 64. Either that was his plan, or, more likely, this young kid fresh out of college was stoked to sell his program for probably enough money to buy a car in 1977. Right place, right time-and then some!

BASIC was invented in the late 1960s, but I can't remember which University it was. Anyone?

The point is though, back then, Microsoft was a voice in the crowd as was Apple, Atari, Commodore, Radio Shack, and so on. No one owned the whole market like today, there was real choice. I miss those days too, and I was just a kid!

BASIC originated at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Kemeny and Kurtz invented it.

Bill Gates' first sale was for the Altair a couple of years before pre-assembled microcomputers became available.

Bill was never "fresh out of college". He dropped out of Harvard. Me (I'm the same age he is), I had to drop out of Georgia Tech and join the USAF. I couldn't afford to drop out of Harvard. (Bill's story is not "rags-to-riches". It's "well-off-to-swimming -in-the-stuff").

BASIC was invented at Dartmouth by John Kemeny and
Thomas Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC

I have a picture in the tech notes monthly newspaper of Bill Gates and Paul Allen at a sales meeting aht MITS -- this company made the Altair computer including a DOS (forerunner to MS-DOS, I'll bet and a Basic to run with it) -- the Altair was a kit computer using the 8085 processor -- you could purhcase a' 8" floppy drive kit for it also -- I wrote and used (in our small consulting and manufacturing company) a word processor, a payroll program , and an accounting program. It was a gret computer.

I have a picture in the tech notes monthly newspaper of Bill Gates and Paul Allen at a sales meeting at MITS in the mid 70's -- this company made the Altair computer including a DOS (forerunner to MS-DOS, I'll bet and a Basic to run with it) -- the Altair was a kit computer using the 8085 processor -- you could purhcase a' 8" floppy drive kit for it also -- I wrote and used (in our small consulting and manufacturing company) a word processor, a payroll program , and an accounting program. It was a gret computer.

I have a picture in the MITS tech notes monthly newspaper of Bill Gates and Paul Allen at a sales meeting at MITS in the mid 70's -- this company made the Altair computer including a DOS (forerunner to MS-DOS, I'll bet) and a Basic to run with it -- the Altair was a kit computer using the 8085 processor -- you could purchase an 8" floppy drive kit for it also -- I wrote and used (in our small consulting and manufacturing company) a word processor, a payroll program , and an accounting program. It was a great computer.

http://sys64738.net/ shows the power on prompt.
The C64 didn't mentioned Microsoft anywhere. Perhaps if you ran a hex editor over the ROM you might find it. I never did, and I practically disassembled the whole ROM...

I remember I had a book for mine and I would spend hours writing code that was in the book and save it to the cassette tape. Pages and pages of code just to get a picture to come up. Thanks for the memories.

I got on board with a CoCoII. It was a perfect fit, since when I was in college the first thing they taught you was Basic. I still have the flowchart template you had to buy for the class. As recently as the early 90's I hooked it up to the cassette 'drive' and a serial printer to make shelf labels on demand for the small parts room at a company I worked for- a task the companies' small IBM System 36(?? I think) was incapable of performing. Worked beautifully. And I still have the technical reference manuals for those old Tandy 'compatibles'(1000 and several others) I still have a Tandy 1000 around here somewhere that would probably work if I spent some time on it, but I still wish that I had that CoCoII.

That was a great little computer. I even modified it with a kit so that I could use it with an amber monitor instead of a TV. I learned the FAT file system on it, too. That came in handy in later years.

Oooooh, the good ole days!!!

I haven't fired her up in years. Mine was the early version of the Co-Co II however, and I had to have a chip burnt so it would recognize "both" sides of a floppy...memories And yes, I still have the cassette drive too.

"If you can't open it, it isn't yours...."

and from there I jumped to COBOL, RPG II, and Assembly.

The machine is powerful enough for a simple home security controller, etc. I will have a few uses for it and my Commodore 128 when I get my own home.

Oops, sorry about the double tap and post....

"If you can't open it, it isn't yours...."

good for your own grid
and local area network coprocessor

Yes: I too had a Coco (Model III). I used OS9, OS9 Basic, the C and Pascal Compilers. I learned a lot of programming techniques on that machine. I added a "massive" 128K auxiliary memory board. The extra heat caused the keyboard to repeat at lighting speed, so I added a 120v doughnut fan in a home-made housing to solve that problem. I've still got the fan but the CoCo died years ago.

Two best memories of the Coco. The first is playing a game (name forgotten) which in part was set in and around Pike Place market in Seattle. The graphics (static pictures) were, for that time excellent. Years later, during my first visit to Seattle, I went to Pike Place Market. Talk about deja-vu!

The second (and probably the best) concerned my daughter who was an "Apple II freak" because her school had two of those units. She referred to the CoCo as a Trash-80". Her rotten ******* of a math teacher (me!) had just handed her class 50 quadratics to solve over the weekend. I got home, after a TGIF with my colleagues, just in time to catch her using a self written programme to solve the equations and dump the results to the printer. She's now a highly qualified engineer.

The Coco was certainly a great machine for its day.

I inhereted one of these dinosaurs in 1990 from my Brother in law. My kids(then 4&5)thought they were pretty cool. Bought the second at a garage sale a year later when unit one died. Woot! Modern Technology!

From the feedback, I see there are lots of us who owned a CoCo or two, and still remember. For a couple of years, I wrote a monthly magazine column for Micro, the 6809 Journal, a long gone publication. The column was called CoCo Bits and mostly contained hardware and assembly programming information about the 6809 and it's configuration inside the CoCo. I still correspond with Phil Daley, who was my editor at the time.
Those were fun times, and I had a bulletin board system running on a CoCo in Fargo, ND for several years.
I met a lot of friends in the CoCo community. How many of you attended RainbowFest, a gathering of CoCo fanatics each year in Chicago?
A few years back, I got a phone call from someone who I'd met at a Rainbow Fest. We had a long catch up chat. With all that goes in today's high power, large storage computing environment, somehow I think those days were really the 'good ol' days' of computing. Maybe I'm just getting old. -grin-

My dad bought one of these for me when I was in graduate
school to help me do my papers; it replaced an older SWTPC
6800 that had a primitive text editor and 40K(!) of RAM with
2 70K(!!) floppy disk drives. Suffice it to say the CoCo lasted
long enough until I purchased my first PC three years later.

Funny how nobody has mentioned the Multi-pack interface which could be stuck in the cartridge slot and had four slots for extra cartridges. I also remember amazing friends with the speech synthesizer. The CoCo was the first instance of Tetris I ever saw.

Another thing I remember was never having a bit of trouble with the machine itself, but I went through three monitors for it. The only real software problems I had were self-induced from copying programs out of magazines incorrectly or trying to write programs for the new OS9 operating system and even simple Basic programs. I was beginning to think I had a defective keyboard. I found out it was a simple PEBKAC. For those of you not familiar with that term: Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.

This was my first computer. What a blast it was. I would drool over the thoughts of having a floppy drive for it, as I loaded and saved all of my programs on cassetts. I remember typing in programs that they had in a magazine called Hot COCO, specific for the color computer. I spent days playing a game called Dungeons of Daggorath, running around those halls, trying to keep my heart rate down. I never solved it, and it bothered me all these years. I killed all the monsters, and retrieved all the treasures and rings and such, but there was one final command that the played needed to type in, and I never was able to figure it out. I remember looking up various names used in the game in the dictionary and encyclopedia trying to find some clue, but never got it right. I miss those days. I had the Live Aid concert on my parents TV across the hall, and I infront of my "monitor" TV in my bedroom, slaying snakes and cyclopses.

Ah C'mon guys, I can't be the only person who owned one of these things.

Great little machine, at the time. Anyone remember "stacking the RAM" for a whopping 32K of memory? Ah, yes, the joys of soldering ...

I had the original Trash80, then the CoCo, then the CocoII. Wish I still had those, to show my kids where the industry used to be.

I had not only one but two!. I upgraded one from the 16k it came with to 64k for a measly $75. Over $1 per k!, but wow. I then upgraded to a cassette and ultimately added two floppy drives, a touch pad, a 300 baud modem, and a color printer. cost me over $1200 at the time, but I had the most advanced home setup an anyone I knew.
It was a great system to learn on, Pokes, peeks and all the hacks. Those were the days!

I sold a dinged-up 1969 Chevy Malibu and walked to Radio Shack to purchase my first computer th first version of the CoCo. The case was different in all gray and not stylish but the logo plate was the same. The case included the infamous chiclet keyboard which I pulled to replace with a used model 1 TRS-80 keyboard. I cut off the number pad and remapped the ribbon cable from the TRS-80 to the CoCo as my first project. I added a disk drive expansion after the cassette based file storage became a bother. I bought my first hard disk of 10MB at a trade show which included OS-9 instead of DOS. While in college, I used Microsoft Basic available, MS DOS and OS-9 for most of my computer classes to do programming. I had a full text editor for writing papers and spreadsheet called Multiplan for math. I then bought Pascal for OS-9. I later switched to a Tandy 1000. Since those years, I still fondly recall many hours of fun, learning and hobby projects on the CoCo.

Hello! I work in a budget office and was just discussing with the youngin's back in the day when we first used PCs rather than ledger books to do our budgets. I was lucky to learn Multiplan! I've NEVER found anyone who knows what I'm talking about. Even the other's that worked with me then don't remember it! I remember being pretty excited at the prospect of using ANY PC application, rather than paper and pencils. Sad thing is, it wasn't that long ago...1990 I believe. After Multiplan we went to Lotus 1-2-3 and WISYWIG, which I thought was a pretty stupid creation. Anyhow, I just had to reach out to someone who didn't think I was crazy about the Multiplan thing. Have a great day!

Cynthia

I bought the first model with the cricket style keyboard. Added disk drive. I also had TRS80 Model 1 and III. When I had the old machines I thought they were pretty powerfull, anyway got the bug that kept me employed ever since in IT.