I swear I go in cycles with stuff. In fact I KNOW I do. For sheer lack of space (and general disinterest from my kids) I had parted with my Tandy Color Computer and games years back. I thought I'd never get back into it. The nag was still there as I have a program listing from my Dad's adventure game that I don't have on tape or disk (as I backed up my tapes and disks about 20 years ago) on top of, well, it was a part of my childhood I never really DOVE into. I didn't have the patience then to really whip up programs as I was the kind of kid who built plastic models quick to play with them while the glue was still drying. Just last year I dumped some Rainbow and Hot CoCo magazines. Oh I'd still look at eBay listings but always steered clear. Too expensive, even for a CoCo 2. More than I would spend anyway.

Last month on Atari Age, someone posted a sale on Atari Age a sale for a 64K CoCo 2 with a bunch of cartridges and 4 of the black non-centering joysticks. I think in America money (as the sale was from a Canadian) it was a total of maybe $100, most of which went to shipping. So I got the following:

Tandy 64K Color Computer 2 (made in the USA!)
Cartridge storage case
4 black joysticks (non center kind-which I grew up with)
Chess (w/ manual)
Color File (w/manual)
Dungeons of Dagorath
Galactic AttackMath Bingo
Mega-Bug
Skiing (w/ manual)Typing Tutor
Videotex
Canyon Climber
Dino Wars (w/ manual)
Gomoku/Renju
Microbes
Reactiod
Spidercide
Temple of Rom

I've also been itching to get back into making videos so this is my fire in which to light my butt to do it. To kick this along more, I did get some essentials:

Communication cable for tape recorders $15 (brand new-modern made)
CoCo SDC $76 (had to get from the UK)
Tandy Deluxe Joystick $15
Downland (cart only-my first ever CoCo cart I ever bought as a kid) $5

I tested the system out and my young boys went absolutely NUTS for Dino Wars! I never played it but it's a simple dinosaur fighting game where you have to essentially bite the butt of your opponent. You can go left and right but also can go back towards the background and forward up to the screen-so an early 3D brawler (biter?). It pauses when you bite/roar but that didn't deter them. They just giggled like idiots. The fight goes on until one's health is low and then the loser wanders automatically into the background, whimpering.

I can't wait to try Dungeons of Daggorath again BUT I don't have a tape recorder. My Walkman will suffice for loading but I can't save my game in DoD (unless I have a hacked version on disk somewhere). I did load up my SDC with ALL my virtual disks (my own and what I've acquired) so hopefully this weekend I'll be able to try it out.