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New acquisition: TRS-80 Coco 1

That looks like a nice CoCo 1. Actually you have an early version since the name badge is placed to the left of center and not directly in the center position like on the later models. Being 32K means that yours was the "top shelf" version. ;)
 
Haha...Cute little thing, very clean too. A very nice aquisition I must say. Oh, and it's color for me, colour for you.;):D
 
It is a pretty fun computer. I saw on your website that you are looking for a joystick for it -- just to let you know, you will probably HATE the original ones that Radio Shack put out, they are non-centering types. Much like the Atari 5200 controllers in that sense, only worse. I'm sure there are third party controllers for the CoCo which are better, I just never found any out here.
 
willowmoon93 said:
It is a pretty fun computer. I saw on your website that you are looking for a joystick for it -- just to let you know, you will probably HATE the original ones that Radio Shack put out, they are non-centering types. Much like the Atari 5200 controllers in that sense, only worse. I'm sure there are third party controllers for the CoCo which are better, I just never found any out here.
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Yes, I do want at least one joystick (horrible or not :)) and a manual to complete the package. As the machines were rare here I'm not expecting to find anything much locally. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for anyone selling one elsewhere.

Alternatively, did anyone ever build/sell a plug-in adaptor which allowed the machine to take more standard joysticks?

One thing that surprised me is neither of the programs in the cartridges has the option of using the keyboard instead of joysticks! Is this typical for TRS CoCo games or have I just hit a couple of unusual examples?

Tez
 
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Well, NZ doesn't appear on the list of countries but it's $24.50 to Australia so it will be around that.

That's about what I would expect to pay for shipping of that kind of item. Yea, expensive but unfortunately it's just a fact of life. They are rare here and if you want 'em you just have to pay it.

Actually, that is about the same price shipping small items cost from Australia to here, believe it or not.

Anything large from the US (like a TRS-80 Model III, or a Kaypro) is about $190 US.

That's why I still haven't got either of those models :)

Tez
 
tezza said:
Well, NZ doesn't appear on the list of countries but it's $24.50 to Australia so it will be around that.

That's about what I would expect to pay for shipping of that kind of item. Yea, expensive but unfortunately it's just a fact of life. They are rare here and if you want 'em you just have to pay it.

Actually, that is about the same price shipping small items cost from Australia to here, believe it or not.

Anything large from the US (like a TRS-80 Model III, or a Kaypro) is about $190 US.

That's why I still haven't got either of those models :)

Tez
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Wow. Those are some painful shipping rates. I'm shocked that they would be so high between Aus and NZ, being that they are relatively close.
On the subject of international shipping I see that Ebay has enacted yet another rule claiming that all sellers shipping to the US must now offer a $15 or less shipping option. This, obviously, is wonderful for the buyer but I fear it's just going to make foreign sellers stop seller to US buyers. It officially starts on Oct 1st. I've seen one Japanese seller already implement it, offering "surface/sea" shipping option for $15. Granted this takes from 3 to 4 months, which isn't great but at least you get it. The sellers are still going to be losing cash on it though with heavy items like computers.
 
As far as rates, It costs about that much (minimum) to ship a package from here (MI, USA) to Canada, and it doesn't even have to cross any water. As for Europe, (& points east), I can't imagine being able to send anything for less than $15 bucks???

--T
 
tezza said:
Well, NZ doesn't appear on the list of countries but it's $24.50 to Australia so it will be around that.

That's about what I would expect to pay for shipping of that kind of item. Yea, expensive but unfortunately it's just a fact of life. They are rare here and if you want 'em you just have to pay it.

Actually, that is about the same price shipping small items cost from Australia to here, believe it or not.

Anything large from the US (like a TRS-80 Model III, or a Kaypro) is about $190 US.

That's why I still haven't got either of those models :)

Tez
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Has overseas shipping gone up that much?:eek: It seems like it wasn't all that long ago I bought a box of printer ribbons for a Star NX- 1000 from a guy in Australia and IIRC the shipping was somewhere around $9.00 U.S. currency.
 
tezza said:
Well, NZ doesn't appear on the list of countries but it's $24.50 to Australia so it will be around that.
Click to expand...

You're getting off lucky, Tez, it's over 20 bucks just to Canada.

The smaller and lighter original JS has shipping of 19 bucks and a Model I monitor shipping is a whopping 50 bucks.
 
Deluxe Joysticks

Deluxe Joysticks

Back on topic, congrats on the acquisition of your CoCo. I grew up with a CoCo 2 and my friend with a CoCo 1. We wrote many BASIC programs together and even dabbled in assembly programming on it. Nothing beats a 6809 for a nice orthogonal machine instruction set.

Perhaps more importantly, I'd like to second the motion that Deluxe Joysticks are the way to go. They do a full free floating mode, or you can switch to or from self-centering by holding the stick up to the corner and flipping a few switches on the underside. All arcade-style cartridge games I can recall used the joysticks and analog ones at that.
 
Hmm. It's amazing the info one can get on VGF. The early response sent me scampering(more or less) up the stairs to check my CoCo 1. Yep on the left side. The later response sent me more slowly up the stairs to find the boxed joystick was indeed a Deluxe "Pistol Grip" joystick. Ok that's reserved for my CoCo 3. 6-pin DINs as on all my CoCos.

A search of my stash turned up 2 other RS joysticks, but with a 5-pin DIN. So what-n-hell are these for ? Also in the same J-S box was a cable with the same 5-pin DIN on one end and 3 micro-plugs on the other: 2 with grey leads, one black. They look like sterio plugs.
Was this cable some great RS find that I'd forgotten about ?

Another off-topic but both the CoCo 1 and 2 CoCo 2s (one of them ddn't respond but I didn't explore further) are up for sale.

Lawrence
 
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I believe that the extra pin on the 6 pin DIN cables are for the extra button. Many of the original joysticks, including the black free-floating style with the red button on top and many of the deluxe joysticks only had a single button, and therefore required one fewer pin - a 5 pin DIN. You should be able to plug all of the same joysticks into the 6 pin DIN socketed joystick ports of the various CoCos you have...at least that has been my experience.

The other cable you describe sounds like a tape deck cable. That brings a DIN connector out to a microphone jack (in to tape), headphone jack (out from tape), and remote control jack (pause tape motor). Sorry, I can't remember which one is which, but this can be found online if you search a little.
 
Err.. excuse me, but 5-pin and 6-pin DINs tend to have quite different pinouts. I know there are at least three or four variations of 5-pin DINs and perhaps one of them is pin compatible with a 6-pin DIN, but then again I wouldn't understand why any 3rd party manufacturer would choose a such odd connector if 6-pins were readily available.
 
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