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Coco?

billdeg

billdeg

Technician
Joined
Nov 18, 2003
Messages
3,885
Location
Landenberg, PA USA
I don't see much here written about the CoCo (I, II, or III). Anyone here a closet Color Computer fan? I have one or two of each model, but never really did much with them. I am looking through what I have now, including a few disk holders full of disks.
bd
 
I have a Coco II with a floppy drive I never did much with other then clean it up. When I got my first home computer my father said either get a Tandy Coco or a Timex 2068 (instead of what I realy wanted which was a c64 but it was more expensive) so I ended up with a Timex. Seeing the CoCo 2 at a recycler I figured why not get it and see if I made a bad choice back then only to let it collect dust (just like my still working 2068 which I snagged a big box of software for recently I have yet to try out).
 
Yep, I also have some CoCos, a CoCo 1 that was expanded to 64KB by me some time ago, a couple of CoCo 2 including a PAL version (pretty stupid as it becomes a clone of the welsh Dragon) and a CoCo 3 heavily expanded. Being the Dragon my first computer experience (although it doesn't long last) I love these machines.
As a curiosity I also have a Prologica CP-400, a weird Brazilian CoCo clone built using the Timex 2068 case :)
 
I've got some cocos also, multiples of each, the mailing list is where all the action for the coco collectors is.

http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco

Drivewire is a great disk drive alternative, and I think some people have been succeeded running it on a Raspberry Pi.
I've got it running on my pc, and also have a self built coconet sd card disk drive alternative.

Later,
dabone
 
They were really popular/common at VCF SW. Most folks had current hardware on their CoCo3 and were having a great time. Brendan was working on a composite to VGA converter for it too. I think it looked pretty good this last VCF. I believe another developer who made an sd or cf hard drive for it also lives here in Austin or Round Rock.
 
Over the next week I will be putting my CoCo's through the testing paces, and see what kinds of interesting add-ons I have. One thing that caught my eye is an 80-column cart. Have not tested yet. I have two or three CoCo I's, two or three 2's, and one 3. About 5 disk holders of software, disk drive carts, and some add-on hardware all to be investigated. As I mentioned before I never did much with the CoCo except to test to see if the systems worked before I stored them.

The Glenside Color Computer Club http://www.glensideccc.com/ has been at all three past VCF MW events. I subscribe to their newsletter. Not as much on the East Coast. Most of the East Coast activity is with the TRS 80 1..4.
 
You can see a few of the vendors that did CoCo stuff at the VCF SW. Not sure how many were local and perhaps I mistook the drive for the FPGA system? It may have been the Cloud9 guys with the drive in that case. Brendan isn't mentioned but he was working on his little adapter the last two years and VCFs heh but this last one it definitely looked ready.
 
I have a coco and a coco 2 and a couple of floppy drives. I've done absolutely nothing with them, not even tested. Too much stuff on my plate. Most of my retrocomputing is driven by a desire to play classic cRPGs and adventure games on real hardware, so I'll get to Dungeons of Daggorath eventually. Are there any other notable RPGs or adventure games? I see a lot of arcade style games.

It seems like the coco missed out on a lot of games that got a lot of ports in the 80s. They didn't even get a port of The Bard's Tale.
 
I have a coco3 and a coco2.The coco2 was upgraded by me to 64K (it was a 16k model with extended color basic).I also have the Fd 500 disk drive cartridge and one drive.Cocos are nice machines..and with a good basic.

@dabone:How did you make the coconet sd card disk drive?Do you have the schematics?
 
@dabone:How did you make the coconet sd card disk drive?Do you have the schematics?
Click to expand...

The designer posted them, you need the parts, and the coconet rom.

http://www.coco3.com/community/wp-content/files/CoCo_MicroSD_Pak.pdf

I modified a Direct Connect Modem Pak, Model 26-2228.

Here's the run down of the conversion I posted in the cocolist.

Code: 
To do the basic conversion you will need. 
 

1 28 Pin socket. 
1 udrive 
1 microsd card. 
1 27128 thru 27512 (your choice) eprom with coconet. If using a larger 
rom, just repeat the image till the rom is filled. 



Cut the rom from the modem pack and install the 28 pin socket. 
Run a jumper wire from pin 2 of ic3 (74ls133) to pin 26 of the rom 
socket. 

(This enables A13 on the socket, thus giving us 16k eprom capability) 

Go ahead and install your eprom and make sure coconet comes up. 
Now turn over the board and solder a jumper wire between pins 16 and 17 of 
the 6551 uart (IC2) 

Next up, cut out the modem chip located at IC5 (74HC943n) (Yes this chip 
is a 300 baud modem) 

Now from the empty socket The pins you will need are as follows. 

Pin 5 RXD 
Pin 6 VCC (+5) 
Pin 11 TXD 
Pin 14 GND 

Socket Udrive 

5	4 
6	5 
11	3 
14	2 



Please double check and triple check your connections here. 



From the Udrive check for continuity to the following. 

Udrive card edge pins 

2	33 
5	9 

Udrive 6551 Uart (IC2) 

3	10 
4	12 



Now throw in your microsd card that you have written the distribution 
image to using Cocopak and turn on the coco.

You could also just get a udrive and externally power it and use a max232 to interface it to a rs232 serial pak, thats all the sd pak is.
It's just rx,tx, and gnd for io, and a copy of the coconet rom.

Later,
dabone
 
I have a CoCo 2 from my uncle and I use the HxC floppy emulator through a disk controller. I just bought a CoCo 3 from Cloud 9 and am getting a Tano Dragon 64 as well.
 
I have a CoCo and soon to have a CoCo 2 again. They were very underrated machines back in the day. I have a bunch of software and harder to find add ons that I have yet to find on any other system. Great for experimenting with the A-bus system.
 
well alrighty then, glad to see the Coco community is active. I remember a conversation I had with a fellow collector about how the coco had more new tech mods than any 8-bit platform except for the Commodore 64.
 
billdeg said:
well alrighty then, glad to see the Coco community is active. I remember a conversation I had with a fellow collector about how the coco had more new tech mods than any 8-bit platform except for the Commodore 64.
Click to expand...
When I got my 512kb CoCo3 (my only CoCo), I came to that same conclusion. The amount of actively-developed end-user hardware and software available today absolutely astounded me! That said, I never have done too much with my CoCo3. I have a floppy drive system, but no MultiPak, nor a modem card. Though that mod looks quite cool to add SD functionality... which would be nice.

Eventually I'll spend some time with it... After all, Sierra released Silpheed, Thexder, and King's Quest III for it :)

(I have all of those - I've yet to determine if they released other sw for the CoCo)
 
I have a couple 128k CoCo 3's picked up from a flea market for cheap that I've done very little with, mostly because I have *zero* peripherals for them. I had a CoCo/TDP-100 disk system when I was a kid, but... I dunno, I don't find the nostalgic draw of the CoCos as strong as that of the B&W TRS-80s. (I mostly was stuck doing BASIC programming on the CoCo while my Model I/4 collection was vast and diversified, having been acquired very cheaply at garage sales when I was somewhat older.)

Again, it would probably help if I had some peripherals to play with. I've vaguely entertained ideas of homebuilding some hardware, like a Compact Flash/IDE drive, but there's a lot of inertia starting from zero. Whether I ever do anything with the systems may well depend on whether I stumble across a more complete system for cheap or not before I get tired of having them lying around.
 
well alrighty then, glad to see the Coco community is active. I remember a conversation I had with a fellow collector about how the coco had more new tech mods than any 8-bit platform except for the Commodore 64.
Click to expand...

Not agree, the MSX platform tech mods library is bigger than the CoCo one...and also probably bigger than the C64 ;)
 
Tandy_Coco3_System.jpg

After messing around with the CoCo 1,2,3 and settled on this system for testing diskettes. I have four or five disk carriers of Rainbow and various software disks, and two large cassette holders full of RAINBOW Mag software cassettes. Using Percom DD drives. I also have RadioShack drives, but not pictured here.

thm_PRI_CC-BUS_bd.JPG

A PRI Corp CoCo Bus cart extender (cover removed) with a 502 drive controller and a CoCo MAX II cart. The extender does not work properly, only carts in slot 1 work. I checked out components of the extender, but did not spend too much time on it. There was 4.8 volts on the 5V line. Something is sorting the voltage down. The 7805 seems ok. I would not mind having a better extender when I can find one, rather than fix this one.

Overall, nothing too exciting to report without a working cart extender.

More pics
http://vintagecomputer.net/tandy/trs80_coco3/
 
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I have a couple Cocos - my first "real" comp so to speak was actually a Coco II my dad found for sale locally. I sold that one but in the past *several?* years found another one (either a II or a III) in the box. I also have a mini version.

Back in the day I type many a program in (prob why I type so well now) and remember using Cocomax and others on it.

PS - One of my earliest memories of going to the mall back in the 80s was going into Radio Shack to play the adventure game that had a robot in it on the TSR-80 they still had on display. Of course you also had to drive the guy at the counter nuts by messing with the "armatron" while he rang you up for your FREE "red" batteries.
 
CoCo has been the ones I've always had, and will never get rid of. I started out on a ZX-81, and got a CoCo2 very early on - still have it.

I have a huge collection, using up about 4-5 of the huge plastic storage bins you'd buy at Walmart with stuff like:
(5) 512K CoCo3's
(3) CoCo 2's
2-3 multipaks
Untold numbers of FDD controllers, from the big -3122 to the FD501 and FD502, as well as Distos, and Sardis, J&M, etc...
Cloud 9 SuperIDE, and TC^3 SCSI paks (The SuperIDE is about the BEST thing for a CoCo!)
multiples of the SS/Pak, Orch90 paks, Serial paks, modem paks
(3) Burke & Burke CoCo XT controllers (uses PC ISA MFM controller and HDD) with the autobooting roms
My only CM-8 monitor died, so I bought Roy Justus' CoCo3-to-VGA adapter box

And there's just box upon box of software, manuals, books, cables, joysticks, etc... I have probably pushing 300-400 disks for the coco.

And for EMU, I have a USB drive dedicated solely to CoCo stuff, encompassing about 160GB of stuff.

As the saying goes, you never really get past your first true love!


If you want a nice setup, get a 512k CoCo3, with a SuperIDE cartridge from Cloud9tech.com, and drivewire for transfers,HDBDOS to share the 256MB CF for RSDOS and OS-9, and then Roy Justus' CC3-to-VGA adapter, and you're good to go.
There's tools for reading/writing to the CF card in the SuperIDE (no HDD even needed!) from a PC (sIDEWalk I think it's called?), so a floppy is not even required!
 
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