TRS-80 Color Computer

[BassGuitari]

Lately the TRS-80 Color Computer has roused my interest. I'd like to get one (probably a CoCo 1, just because they look the coolest to me), but I want to learn a bit more about it first.

 

How hard are disk drives to come by? Most of the software appears to be on cassette or disk (which would make sense), and I don't want to be limited to cartridges. Also, is the CoCo compatible with older TRS-80 software?

 

Can other joysticks be used with the TRS-80 C.C.? I'm particularly thinking of the Tandy Deluxe Joystick (I think that's what it's called...it's analog, in a squarish white case with a black stick and a square red button on top and a square black button on the front).

 

Also, I noticed the cassette port is a 5-pin. Is there a special connecter/cable I'd need to hook up a tape drive, or would I need a particular tape drive?

 

Finally, what are some good games you guys could recommend? I'm more interested in the earlier stuff (I'd just get a TRS-80 Model 1 if they weren't so damn expensive), but I'll play anything good...and even some bad.

[Tempest]

Lately the TRS-80 Color Computer has roused my interest.

 

Keep that sort of thing to yourself buddy...

 

Tempest

[brendan]

Personally, I think floppy drives are quite hard to come by. Your best bet will probably be to look on eBay.

 

That said, though, there are plenty of cartridge-based games that would get you started. A few memorable ones include Dungeons of Daggorath (3-D 1st person dungeon crawler - think simplified Bard's Tale) and Mega Bug (think Pac-Man). Personally, I grew up with Popcorn (think Kaboom), and played alot of it. Note that even though the CoCo 1 and 2 are compatible, CoCo 3-specific cartridges (such as Thexder) and disk software won't run on your earlier version CoCo. CoCo 3 graphics on an RGB monitor were sweet for their time.

 

Once you find your level of interest with a few cartridge games, you might then want to move on to disk-based games. I don't remember the tape-based games being that great, myself, a text adventure or various kids learning games come to mind.

 

Yes, you can use the Tandy Deluxe Joystick with the CoCo. I never had the original black free-floating-only type, just the Deluxe ones.

 

Yes, there is a special 5-pin DIN to triple headphone jack cable. There are a few online sellers of these. For reliability's sake, use a computer-quality tape deck. Occasionally a CCR-81 goes up for sale on eBay along with the cable.

 

As far as disk-based games go, my favorite was Robot Odyssey from the Learning Company, but then again, I like dinking with digital logic. To be honest, I played more games on consoles and used my CoCo for programming, music, etc.

[Video]

TRS 80's drives (at least mine) are built in, and probably hard to come by. The stick you're talking about is IBM, I think, I've got one out in the camper, I'll go check it out (weird square plug with 8 pins or something) I was thinking of modding it to use on my 5200, as it's an awesome feeling stick IMO.

[JamesD]

First of all... the Coco drives are not built in. Perhaps someone was thinking of a Model III.

Here is a Coco drive unit on ebay.

 

ebay is one place to find stuff or you can get stuff from Cloud9.

They make an IDE/Compact Flash interface and a product called DriveWire that lets you treat a PC like a hard drive over a high speed serial connection. There are several places you can download software from.

 

I'd go with the Coco3. While I like the looks of the Coco1 the best, it's missing features that even later Coco2's had like lower case letters. The Coco3 also has a 40 and 80 column text modes, 16 color hi-res 320x192 graphics and more RAM.

Most software for the older machines runs on it and most of the new software requires a Coco3.

 

There was actually a lot of cassette software available since the Coco has a 1500 baud interface. I just rarely see much of it on ebay. In spite of a small number of cartridges to chose from, they seem to be the most common.

 

The Deluxe Joysticks work both the Coco and Tandy 1000 machines.

 

For game downloads start here and then check here and a few more here.

There are others.

Edited March 20, 2007 by JamesD

[+evg2000]

You can check out some coco hardware here:

Coco Hardware

and some coco carts here:

coco carts

 

later,

Charles

www.evg2000.com

[ComputerCollector]

Ive got a set of external disk drives just for the COCO, but I cant use them because they require a special cab/e and adapter thats hard to come by.

So basically, if you have the money, you can get anything you want. but if you dont, expect to be limited to cartridges only, bud.

Ive got a COCO 1, COCO2, and 2 COCO 3s. Let me know if you want to buy one. There is a certain software cart I have that only works on the COCO1, though. What it is, you hook uo the COCO to your sterio and this software makes the screen light up to the music. But it does such a poor job of it that you cant even tell of its going to the music or not.

[elliott]

The drives can't be that hard to come by, I have a FD-500 and FD-501, both with controllers and I think working. They spin up when I use the DIR command, I don't have any disks though. I need to throw a 5-1/4 drive in one of my old computers and see what kind of disk based games are out there.

 

I have:

1- 64k CoCo 2

1- 16k CoCo 2 in box with manuals and cassette cable

2- Deluxe sticks

2- Standard sticks

1- FD-500

1- FD-501

and a couple cartridge games

 

All of this was found at thrift stores, I don't really want to get rid of any of this, but the right price may convince me. Its definitely an interesting machine with some interesting games, especially ones like Popcorn.

Edited March 20, 2007 by elliott