Turbo-Torch

I went through all my disks and the closest I found was Cosmic Intruder. I then looked on the shelf and found my original cassette copy I bought new from Radio Shack. Finally a reason to use the cassette deck I spent hours recapping and putting new belts in. How cool is the load screen with the countdown timer! And my high score after playing it for the first time in probably 30 years.

I miss RGVC. The newsgroup auctions were especially fun. I scan it every so often and there are very few signs of life, spammers don't even bother. Although, the Kenneth Martin Dolan guy is still active!

Pac-Man and the 4 switcher didn't exist in '78 (not even the arcade game). It was a pack in but much later in the 2600's life.

Same with my Model III. I wasn't allowed to use it when my parents wanted to watch TV. I heard the Model I was far worse and I remember a magazine article which explained on how to build a Faraday cage for it. Your name sounds familiar...were you on RGVC many years ago?

I mainly use LDOS as it supports my double sided disk drives and has endless features. TRSDOS is very user friendly and probably the best overall choice for someone just wanting to run software. I also have NEWDOS 80 but that's for really advanced users.

Atari Super Pong system which my uncle gave to me in '76 I believe. Still have it in the original box with warranty card. First actual game cartridge would be Combat included with my Atari in '81. First game bought would be Night Driver from Zayre on sale for 19.99. My mom bought my next two games for me at the same time at Toys R US; Flag Capture for $9.99 and Bowling for $13.99. Next was the biggie...Space Invaders which was quite expensive at the time. A stereo store in the mall called PLAYBACK put it on sale for $26.99. Over the next 5 years I ended up with 72 games (I loved the crash) and oddly enough I can remember where most came from and how much they cost. Some notable ones were Popeye at Sears for 9.99 with a $10.00 rebate and MASH at Camelot Music for $2.50 packed with a free MASH T-Shirt and I got a $5.00 rebate...free game, free shirt and $2.50 profit. Anyone else remember PLAYBACK? That was one cool, very dark and mysterious high tech place. My brother-in-law bought his Odyssey 2 there.

That was the first Sears game I bought, they called it Outer Space. By far my favorite early game, even love the sound effects.

I bought an EX brand new and never felt it was seriously compromised other than needing to go aftermarket for a HD kit. It came standard with twice the memory of the coco3. Processor was 4X the speed of the coco3...damn near the same as the Amiga. It had a built in floppy drive on the right side just like the Amiga 500....where did RS hide the floppy drive on the coco3? It had a built in 90+ key keyboard similar to the Amiga. coco3 has a whopping 57. I had a choice of 16 color TGA output and built in composite. It had parallel, RS232 and a 2nd floppy drive port allowing another 5.25" or 3.5" external floppy. Joystick ports, volume control and headphone jack. It had one plus expansion port. I added the memory expansion card which brought me to 640K and added two additional ports; which weren't really needed as everything pretty much came standard on it. Also the plus expansion port was ISA and an adapter would allow a standard HD controller. An aftermarket 32mb RLL HD kit was only about $150 more than a disk drive 0 kit for the coco. If the EX and HX were seriously compromised and lacking technology, then the coco3 was the equivalent of a pet rock. This entire thread has been coulda, shoulda, woulda. The Aquarius could have blown away an A4000T had Mattel not taken so many shortcuts, shut down video when benchmarking and spread some chicken bones around it.

The TGA graphics displayed far more colors than CGA and the built in sound was much better than a standard PC. The processor speed was over 7 mhz, similar to an Amiga. It also had a real keyboard and included a floppy drive. Most importantly, look at what the software selection was like back then for an Amiga, PC compatible Tandy and then the unknown Coco3. Sorry, but the comparisons of a 1.7 mhz/128K Coco3 to something like an Amiga reminds me of the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon game.

Atari released the 130XE around the same time. Commodore also released the 64C in '87 (well after the Coco3). Nothing odd about Radio Shack producing the Coco3 in '86. They were all inexpensive computers in the $250 range. The Amiga was a $700 computer vs. the Coco3 @ $219.00. Compare the Tandy 1000EX to the Amiga 500. Look at the price, specs and physical appearance. If Radio Shack was trying to compete with the Amiga and ST, that was their answer. Lastly...back in the day, did you look at a Coco3 and seriously see anything remotely comparable to the Amiga?

The Tandy 1000EX (at nearly 4X the price of a coco3) would be a better comparison.

I have the same cassette version of Scriptsit. I love those leather like binders. I have 99% of everything from '81 and on including such things as the RS game manuals still in bags, Micro magazines, catalogs, etc. Only thing that really pissed me off was that my cassette cable and Orchestra 90 disappeared (yet I still have the manuals). Spent a week searching every inch of my house and they never turned up. Seem to be missing a storage tub of vintage stuff. Found replacements on eBay and it's complete again. Never really thought of it as a collection but I guess it is. I'll have to take some pics. I even have the books from the Radio Shack training courses that I took in 1983 @ 12 years old.

Damn. What's your location and what was taken? The community can keep a look out for your items on places like CL and eBay.

How did you make a transistor radio work with a Model I? Did the I make so much RF noise that it would bleed through on a certain frequency?

70s were a strange time. My parents remodeled the downstairs rec room and covered up all the nice drywall with that paneling...while the entire upstairs got shag carpet over all the the beautiful hardwood floors. Funny thing, I even have some pics of the remodel. I think most of my allowance went for film and processing back then.

Same guys who made the incredible version of Zaxxon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgKGZwfPma4

Nope, Donkey Kong. From what I read, it never made it to market but was eventually released to the public domain. First barrel lights the oil drum on fire and produces a fireball, you can fall to your death, barrels are thrown every so often, fireballs climb ladders, all bonus items are there, animation after the rivet level, springs in the elevator level, etc. It also gets very challenging, I've yet to find out if it has the mud pie factory.

Meteor Mission 2 is great, bought that one new back in the day. I just started playing Donkey Kong and it's by far the best port I've ever played from that generation. Of course it lacks in graphics but I would have never thought my Model III was capable of that kind of gameplay. The programmer(s) really caught the essence of the original down to the smallest details.

As in electrified. http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=280792 Pay no attention to what the OP thought it was for. Read a few posts down.

If it's powered off the isolation transformer you're fine. The multitap stepdown would be for the old powersupply. Without an isolation transformer, the monitor chasis can end up hot. Nice set of classics. MC was the first game I bought back in '98 and my all time favorite.

What model monitor are you running? If it requires an isolation transformer and you're not using one, you have a potential death trap.

I bought the Encore with regular SD slot. With the way homebrews are going, I wanted the extra capacity. It would suck if a 64K version of DK VCS came out and I couldn't play it! I can use a stardard SD or a micro-SD left permanently in an adapter. All my PCs have standard SD slots so I would need the adapter anyway. Micro-SDs have their place in really small devices but they are almost always a pain in the ass to insert or remove...plus they have a tendency to disappear if dropped. I'm using a 16GB mirco with adapter which was about $12 at Staples.

So you're implying that Combat is stereo as long as each player stays on their side of the playfield...once they cross that center point and it's no longer accurate to the image on a TV screen, it becomes two channels of mono? Seriously, what does "onscreen" or video have to do with the true definition of stereo? If I listen to a Beatles album, it's still stereo with no video reference attached to it. Stereo was around long before it became a feature on TVs in the early 80s.

Wouldn't that would be a game feature and not the definition of stereo?

I never knew this until a read a description of Medieval Mayhem the other day. I always suspected the round cut-outs on my old six switcher were for speakers. Back in usenet days, many seemed to think it was for venting. I know this is a revived thread from years ago, but can someone explain this to me? Isn't that like saying the 2600 wasn't necessarily meant to be in color but it was designed to be in color? What does how many sounds something can play simultaneously have to do with stereo? If you have separate sounds coming from a left channel and right channel, it's stereo.