Ira Goldklang's TRS-80 Revived Site

TRS-80 Revived Site by Ira Goldklang's is an archive of everything related to the Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 microcomputer lines. Site contains emulators, programs, manuals, books, patches, games, hints, discussions, questions, forums, and tons more.

TRS-80 Computers: TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo)

by @ 5:57 pm on March 11, 2009.
TRS-80 Color Computer (“CoCo”)



Color Computer I

Pictures

CoCo 1 CoCo 1 Alt

Features

   
Introduced on July 31st, 1980 for $399.00
   
Motorola MC6809E 8-bit CPU running at .89MHz
   
4K RAM
   
8K ROM – Microsoft Color Basic v1.0
   
53 Key Keyboard
   
32 Column Display Ability (32 x 16 with 4 Colors / 256 x 192 with 2 Colors / 128 x 96 at 8 Colors / 128 x 192 with 4 Colors)
   
8 Colors (selectable from 2 preset 4 color palettes)
   
RGB Modulator (to connect to color TV)
   
RS-232 Interface (Serial Port)
   
1500 Baud Cassette Interface
   
Two (2) Joystick Connectors
   
Optional: ROM-PAK Cartrdige (Chess, Checkers, Quasar Commander, Personal Finance, CoCo Diagnostics)
   
Optional (12/1980): 16K RAM Upgrade
   
Optional: 32K RAM Upgrade
   
Optional: 64K RAM Upgrade
   
Optional (12/1980): 16K RAM Upgrade
   
Optional (07/1981): Extended Color Basic Upgrade



Color Computer II

Pictures

CoCo 2

Features

   
Same as the Color Computer I except
   
16-64K RAM
   
8K BASIC ROM or 16K EXTENDED BASIC ROM
   
Smaller Case
   
53 Key QWERTY Keyboard (First COCO appearance of a BREAK Key)
   
Lowercase Letters
   
6-Bit DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter), allowing for 64 different volume levels
   
Could be POKEd to 1.78Mhz, which had been enabled to allow for DMA access by external peripherals. The CPU was halted during these periods, as it could not handle this speed and would overheat if not halted.
   
OS-9 Level II multi-tasking operating system
   
Optional Equipment: MultiPak Interface



Color Computer III

Picture

CoCo 3

Features

   
Introduced on July 30th, 1986 for $219.95
   
Motorola MC68b09 8-bit CPU running at 1.788MHz
   
128K RAM (Upgradable to 512K)
   
640 X 192 (BASIC) and 640 x 225 (Other)
   
Colors: 4 at 640 x 192/225, 16 at 320 x 192, and 64 at 160 x 192.
   
80 Column Display Ability
   
4 analog inputs and 1 analog output
   
Digital Input and Output
   
OS-9 Level II multi-tasking operating system
   
Optional Equipment: MultiPak Interface
   
Optional Equipment: 5.25″ floppy drive



Emulators
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
Windows 98/Direct X 1.42 August 13, 2010 Joseph Forgione Home Site
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
Windows ’9x 2.10 April 8, 2005 David Keil Home Site
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
DOS 1.29 Jan. 6th, 2008 MESS Development Team Home Site
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
Windows ’9x CoCo III Emulator 2.10 Apr. 8, 2005 David Keil Home Site
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
Windows ’9x MC-10 Emulator 0.73c May, 2008 Emucompboy Home Site
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
Windows ’9x 1.6B Nov. 6, 2001 Jeff Vavasour Home Site
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
DOS 1.6 Jan. 15, 2001 Jeff Vavasour Home Site
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
DOS Dragon/CoCo Emulator 0.10 Nov. 22, 1997 Email Home Site
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
Amiga DREaM v1.02 Jul. 16, 1997 Sean Siford Unknown
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
DOS PC-Dragon II Unknown Unknown Jun. 8, 1997 Unknown
Platform   Description   Version   Date   Author Home Site  
WEB Mocha Unknown N/A N/A Unknown



Sites of Interest / Links
The CoCo Super Site
CoCo-centric page
Forum dedicated to CoCo talk about all subjects, but, also have a section for other popular Tandy/Radio Shack computers
Bill Yakowenko’s Excellent Color Computer stuff page
CoCoZilla
Color Computer History
Dragon & Tandy CoCo Resources
Mark Schoenberger’s CoCo stuff
MC-10 Site
Neil Morrison’s COCO Documentation Page
Nickolas Marentes Homepage (Commercial)
Product Which Allows File Transfer to IBM
Sock Master’s CoCo Web Page

One Response to “TRS-80 Computers: TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo)”

  1. Brian Blake says:

    Thought I’d shoot an update your way about what’s been going on in the CoCo world.

    Vcc Emulator update – It’s now at version 1.42 and supports Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7. New home page for it: http://vcc.20x.cc/

    In the last few years we’ve had a MicroSD Drive Pak, 6551ACIA Pak and Wireless Pak created by Roger Taylor over at coco3.com. They use a heavily modified version a DECB called CoCoNet to add all sorts of drive configurations once only dreamed about.

    A fellow named Aaron Wolfe took Cloud9′s DriveWire3 pack and created a 4th version in Java that is cross platform for Win32, Mac, Linux and virtually any platform capable of running Java. It’s opened the CoCo to Internet BBS’s via telent thru the PC host machine and even acts a webserver. More info is available here: http://sites.google.com/site/drivewire4/ (Aaron, Boisy Pitre and a couple other guys teamed up to win the 2010 Retrochallenge Winter Warmup)

    Several people have worked on an FPGA CoCo3 on an Altera DE1 board that is as close to the much talked about CoCo4 as one can get. It can even run at 25MHz. There’s not a dedicated webpage for it yet, but, it’s in the works.

    A couple websites you might want to add:

    http://www.coco3.com – The CoCo Super Site

    coco.randomrodder.com (my CoCo-centric page)

    coco.randomrodder.com/forum – dedicated to CoCo talk about all subjects, but, also have a section for other popular Tandy/Radio Shack computers.

    Keep up the great work on the TRS-80 site!!

    Brian

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