View Full Version : RadioShack Color Computers...
Tupin
05-16-2009, 07:02 PM
So, I'm pretty close to getting a TRS-80 CoCo (Model 1) and I was wondering what exactly was good on the thing. Oddly enough, I've tried Popcorn and it wasn't that bad. Any other must have games on it? Did Atarisoft make games for it? I swear they did.....
Steve W
05-16-2009, 07:48 PM
I could swear I saw an Atarisoft ad that had TRS-80 Co-Co games in it. Never seen any myself, though.
I've got a model 1 and 2, neither of which I've ever fired up. I can't seem to find too much in the way of games around me. Which is strange, considering that Tandy is headquartered nearby. I've found Memorex/Radio Shack VIS software several times before, but almost no Co-Co. Come to think of it, the only time I ever found carts was when I was out of town. Odd.
Thexder always looked cool, but I don't have a model III to play my cart on. Dungeons of Daggaroth (SP?) is supposed to be decent. That's all I can think of at the moment, sadly.
ccovell
05-16-2009, 07:51 PM
Be sure to try to find Mega-Bug and Downland. Those were my favourites on the Coco2.
Ed Oscuro
05-16-2009, 08:15 PM
Wow, I had completely forgotten that I've got a Model 3 around somewhere. I guess I'd better think about using it or sending it to somebody who will.
Tupin
05-16-2009, 09:35 PM
I could swear I saw an Atarisoft ad that had TRS-80 Co-Co games in it. Never seen any myself, though.
I've got a model 1 and 2, neither of which I've ever fired up. I can't seem to find too much in the way of games around me. Which is strange, considering that Tandy is headquartered nearby. I've found Memorex/Radio Shack VIS software several times before, but almost no Co-Co. Come to think of it, the only time I ever found carts was when I was out of town. Odd.
Thexder always looked cool, but I don't have a model III to play my cart on. Dungeons of Daggaroth (SP?) is supposed to be decent. That's all I can think of at the moment, sadly.
I remember seeing TRS-80 Atarisoft stuff somewhere too, but no place shows that they ever made stuff for it. :?
skaar
05-16-2009, 11:33 PM
Thexder!
icbrkr
05-17-2009, 09:18 AM
Be sure to try to find Mega-Bug and Downland. Those were my favourites on the Coco2.
Seconded. These were my favs as well.
You can add Canyon Climber in there too.
Pete Rittwage
05-17-2009, 09:36 AM
I don't think Atarisoft made anything for those. There are lots of games out there for it, a lot of them renamed clones of arcade titles. Some are pretty good, some very bad.
swlovinist
05-17-2009, 10:53 AM
No atarisoft games for the CoCo. The system gets panned alot, but there are actually some decent versions of games and some great knock offs on the system. I enjoy the versions of demon attack and dragonfire. The Rampage that was done for the CoCo 3 was pretty good as well. If you cant get a CoCo 3, Then Download is a pretty good game that is challenging.
YoshiM
05-17-2009, 10:18 PM
The CoCo does get shunned quite a bit. For a system whose origins were based on a computer designed around gathering crop reports and such for farmers, you can't knock what programmers were able to do with it.
For a tough first-person action-adventure, I recommend Dungeons of Daggorath. Only downside is that you need a tape drive to save your game.
Tupin
05-17-2009, 10:53 PM
The CoCo does get shunned quite a bit. For a system whose origins were based on a computer designed around gathering crop reports and such for farmers, you can't knock what programmers were able to do with it.
For a tough first-person action-adventure, I recommend Dungeons of Daggorath. Only downside is that you need a tape drive to save your game.
Seriously? I thought it was pretty advanced because it was running on a Motorola 6809 rather than the usual Z80.
You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find just a normal shoebox type cassette deck around here, but I'm getting the Disk drive for the CoCo. :-D
Steve W
05-17-2009, 10:55 PM
The CoCo does get shunned quite a bit. For a system whose origins were based on a computer designed around gathering crop reports and such for farmers, you can't knock what programmers were able to do with it.
I have one of those models, the Tandy Videotex. This kind of technology was in other countries, like the UK and France, but you don't hear much about it here. (Do you know how hard it is to explain to kids today what online services were like before the internet? They just stare in disbelief!)
tomaitheous
05-17-2009, 11:06 PM
The CoCo does get shunned quite a bit. For a system whose origins were based on a computer designed around gathering crop reports and such for farmers, you can't knock what programmers were able to do with it.
For a tough first-person action-adventure, I recommend Dungeons of Daggorath. Only downside is that you need a tape drive to save your game.
I beat Dungeons of Daggorath on my CoCo 2 back in the day. What an awesome game :love:
obesolete
05-18-2009, 12:27 AM
I'm not sure which model I had as a kid, but the only game i can remember teh name of is Canyon Climber =(
icbrkr
05-18-2009, 06:52 PM
Seriously? I thought it was pretty advanced because it was running on a Motorola 6809 rather than the usual Z80.
You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find just a normal shoebox type cassette deck around here, but I'm getting the Disk drive for the CoCo. :-D
You can also get this: http://www.frontiernet.net/~mmarlette/Cloud-9/Hardware/SuperIDE.html
I was looking at it, but I'm not sure if it can use disk images.
Tupin
05-18-2009, 06:57 PM
You can also get this: http://www.frontiernet.net/~mmarlette/Cloud-9/Hardware/SuperIDE.html
I was looking at it, but I'm not sure if it can use disk images.
Interesting, but I think my solution can be found in a shoebox-type tape drive, as I am already getting a disk drive.
YoshiM
05-18-2009, 07:42 PM
Seriously? I thought it was pretty advanced because it was running on a Motorola 6809 rather than the usual Z80.
Yep, seriously.
In 1977, a year after starting talks with Motorola about the possibility of designing a low-cost home computer that could be hooked up to a regular TV set, Tandy is invited to participate in an agricultural experiment.
Project "Green Thumb", as it was called, would employ information retrieval to give farmers data, updated hourly by computer. Terminals used in this project are developed by Radio Shack in conjunction with Motorola.
By late 1977, Motorola's MC6847 Video Display Generator chip is developed. Although it's unclear if the VDG came about because of project "Green Thumb" or Tandy's search for the "low-cost" home computer, in 1978, when it is married to the MC6808 CPU, the Color Computer is born.
For more on the little green machine, you can check out the CoCo Chronicles (http://www.cs.unc.edu/~yakowenk/coco/text/history.html)