Picked up a CoCo 3 on a whim... now what?

[Laner]

I found a very clean CoCo 3 locally as part of a lot. Works fine as far as I can tell, but what do I need to kit it out proper?

 

From the brief amount of research I've done, there appears to be an SD/cart adapter of some sort (CoCo SDC), but I can't seem to find where to buy it.

 

What about better video than composite? Any component/RGB/VGA mods?

 

Anything else that are must-haves? I suppose my interest is primarily in games, but simply tinkering with them, seeing how far they can be upgraded is fun in and of itself.

[+arcadeshopper]

You can use drivewire to emu floppies with a pc I am using a Windows tablet as both drives with a drivewire cable and cassette with vlc and a cassette cable.. You load the disk rom from cassette and away you go.

The sdc isn't available he's building more and they go fast when announced.

Greg

from the facebook group:

I'm pinning this post here since there seems to be a pattern developing of CoCoNutz not knowing who to contact for certain things. Maybe it'll help. Feel free to add more info to the comments, and I'll edit this post as time permits.

CoCo Hardware:

CoCoSDC, Mini-MPI, CoCoPSG (and a lot more) - Ed Snider

CoCoFlash - Jim Brain (Check the CoCo Mailing List to buy) and Barry Nelson (for support)

Memory upgrades, VGA video, etc... - Cloud 9 (Mark Marlette )

Sega Joypad adapter - Neil Blanchard

__________________________________________________

CoCo Software:

Fahrfall - John W. Linville

Bomb Squad - John Strong

Pop*Star Pilot - Nick Marentes

___________________________________________________

Coding help:

Simon Jonassen - is the madman in the asylum

https://sites.google.com/site/drivewire4/

http://cocowares.com/

http://www.cloud9tech.com/

http://store.go4retro.com/

Edited March 15, 2017 by arcadeshopper

[+arcadeshopper]

ymmv i ordered the flash cart from go4retro in feb, still haven't seen it yet regret not getting the one from cloud9tech they are responsive bought the 512k exp for the coco3 from them and drivewire cable..

 

http://www.frontiernet.net/~mmarlette/Cloud-9/Hardware/DriveWire3.html

[Nebulon]

This emulator allows you to use a 5.25" DS/DD diskette drive on a PC as a Color Computer drive.

 

Under Windows 98, you can create actual Color Computer diskettes that can be read on your CoCo 3.

 

http://www.classiccmp.org/cpmarchives/trs80/mirrors/www.discover-net.net/~dmkeil/coco/index.htm

 

 

If you can find the cable to go from the CoCo 3 to a Magnavox CM-8 monitor (or the equivalent Commodore Magnavox 1084), you could use the digital out from your Color Computer 3. The only down side is that there's no color artifacting in that mode. So it is nice to still have a TV or composite display for all the games that use artifacting. You can actually send the display to both a CM-8 monitor and a TV at the same time.

 

And in case you wanted a quick refresher on Color Computer commands:

http://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/coco.html

[Nebulon]

Oh, and if you find any modern places that make DIN to 9-pin joystick adapters for the CoCo, let me know.

 

The one I have is on its last leg.

[+arcadeshopper]

ymmv i ordered the flash cart from go4retro in feb, still haven't seen it yet regret not getting the one from cloud9tech they are responsive bought the 512k exp for the coco3 from them and drivewire cable..

 

http://www.frontiernet.net/~mmarlette/Cloud-9/Hardware/DriveWire3.html

 

it arrived today! (flash cart) will report back when i have a chance to try it out

 

Greg

[Nebulon]

I suppose you could run out and get the 512K upgrade and play the near-arcade-perfect versions of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNzgMeFsj5Y

 

 

There are some cool games that work fine on the 128K configuration too (Xenion, Gantelet II, Rougue,...).

[+Gemintronic]

I always wanted a CoCo 3 to play Super Pitfall. You could tell me if it's worth the cost

[BassGuitari]

I always wanted a CoCo 3 to play Super Pitfall. You could tell me if it's worth the cost

It isn't.