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Period-Appropriate TV/Monitor for a TRS-80 Coco 2?

ignis-fatuus

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Oct 7, 2022
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So I recently picked up a couple vintage computers on the cheap--an Apple ][ Plus and lovely barely used TRS-80 Coco 2, still in box. Looking at the schematics for the Coco 2 I think I could easily enough bypass the RF unit and get a composite signal to use with modern equipment. Even more fun, however, would be to source an age-appropriate display. Any suggestions for a Coco 2 era tv/monitor that I might be able to hunt down with a little effort?
 
If you do the composite mod, it would be hard to beat a Commodore 1084s. It will also accept split luma/chroma (like s-video, but via two RCA jacks), analog RGB (compatible with Amiga and probably the CoCo 3), and digital RGB (compatible with CGA), as well as stereo sound. There's also a Magnavox-branded version of the monitor.

I'm not totally up on Tandy/TRS-80-branded monitors, but all the models I could find were either RGB or monochrome -- no color composite. There does seem to be an Apple-branded one, though, which should work with both of your new old machines.

If you don't do the composite mod, you're looking at a TV.* IMHO, there are too many possibilities there to recommend anything. I can tell you, back in the day, we had a 19" fake woodgrain TV (I don't remember the brand or anything) as the monitor for our CoCo 1, which was interesting.

* Or you could feed the RF into a tuner, like an old VCR, and connect that to a composite monitor.
 
If you look in the contemporary catalogs Radio Shack actually sold for a couple years a 13” color TV branded as if it were a “monitor” for the CoCo. But to be absolutely clear, it is just a TV. Pretty sure it doesn’t even have composite inputs. I guess that would be the ultimate period correct find.

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As already mentioned, the 1084 is next to unbeatable for a vintage monitor. I have the Magnavox version which I feel is the holy grail of that line.
It has better convergence, colors and contrast than most VGA monitors I've owned and puts the Radio Shack CM 4, 5 and 10 to shame. It'll also work with just about any pre VGA computer you may buy in the future.

Downside...they're sought after; therefore, expensive when broken and even more expensive when professionally gone through.
If you buy one that hasn't had repairs, it will have issues.

The power switch will not stay in.
1. Jam a toothpick in it and use a power strip to turn the monitor on/off.
2. Buy a new switch. Difficult to find in the US, not cheap and the plastic pin inside will eventually break again.
3. Disassemble the original switch and repair it with a tiny metal rod. Tricky, but free and will last forever. (what I did)

One day you'll be playing your favorite game, hear a pop followed by a loud skweeeeeee and a black screen.
That would be your flyback giving up the ghost and taking the HOT with it. If it hasn't been replaced, it WILL happen.
Many act like the monitor is total loss when this happens, which is plain stupid. The flyback and horizontal out transistor are very easy to replace and not that expensive. There were many versions of the "1084" and unfortunately the flyback for my Magnavox was difficult to find. Had to order it from a place in Ireland, but it was only like $65 including shipping.

If you're going to go with a TV, I like anything Zenith made back in they 80s. That would include the Montgomery Ward Signature 2000 series.
I still have the 19" Ward's set I bought when I was in high school back in the late 80s and it still looks as good as ever.
The TV is stereo, has a composite input, L/R stereo inputs and L/R outputs (switchable for ext. speakers or amp). Kind of a big deal back then.
I've had an Atari 130XE hooked up to it for the last 25 years and even the text output looks great. It's also the only set I've owned that can play Atari 2600 PAL games.

If you really want the ultimate in period correctness, Radio Shack made the CM-8 for the CoCo 3. I know next to nothing about the CoCo series, but you may be able to mod your 2 to work with that monitor. I'm sure someone will chime in if that's possible.
 
If you look in the contemporary catalogs Radio Shack actually sold for a couple years a 13” color TV branded as if it were a “monitor” for the CoCo. But to be absolutely clear, it is just a TV. Pretty sure it doesn’t even have composite inputs. I guess that would be the ultimate period correct find.

You're referring to the "TRS-80 Color Video Receiver", Radio Shack Catalog Number 26-3010, first appearing in the 1981 Radio Shack Computer Catalog #04 (RSC-04) and the 1981 main Radio Shack Catalog.

Screenshot 2023-02-07 11.24.18 AM.png

At least from an external appearance perspective, it's a perfect match for the original Color Computer (retroactively known as the Color Computer 1) because of this display's TRS-80 Color branding (even the red, green, and blue dots) and the silver / gray case (although it also had the fake wood grain paneling that seems to have been standard at the time, apparently intended to blend with a desk or furniture). The last RSC it was mentioned or shown in was RSC-8 in 1983

Also in RSC-8 one CoCo photo featured a new (unnamed) Radio Shack TV.
Screenshot 2023-02-07 11.47.27 AM.png

It was shown in detail in the main 1983 Radio Shack Catalog as the Radio Shack TC-130, Catalog Number 16-230.

Screenshot 2023-02-07 11.51.36 AM.png

But this was a step back in terms of matching the CoCo. Although still Radio Shack branded, and with a red-green-blue badge, there was no longer any TRS-80 branding, the Radio Shack logo was smaller, and that color badge now featured vertical stripes instead of the dots featured on the Color Computer badge. And the wood grain was now more dominant, with the gray and silver in retreat. Finally, although there may have been some electronic improvements that could have given it a better picture than the 26-3010, its marketing makes no mention of being suitable or intended for computer display purposes, and the catalog number prefix of 16 (televisions) rather than 26 (computer products) bears that out.

Anyway, the OP has a Color Computer 2. All CoCo 2s had a white case instead of the CoCo 1's silver (with the exception of the very last CoCo 1 which also had a white case), and thus were not as good of a match with these silver displays. However, if the OP's CoCo 2 is a later model, it was Tandy rather than Radio Shack branded, and the tricolor emblem was diagonal stripes so that would arguably match a bit better with the vertical strips on the 16-230 -- see these replacement case badges from Retro8-BitShop to see what I mean:

IMG_8664-rotated.jpg
 
Anyway, the OP has a Color Computer 2. All CoCo 2s had a white case instead of the CoCo 1's silver (with the exception of the very last CoCo 1 which also had a white case), and thus were not as good of a match with these silver displays.

The OP was asking for "Period Appropriate", not a perfect aesthetic match. The exact wording was:

Even more fun, however, would be to source an age-appropriate display. Any suggestions for a Coco 2 era tv/monitor that I might be able to hunt down with a little effort?

And I responded with the only thing Radio Shack ever specifically branded as a "monitor" for use with the Color Computer line prior to the CoCo 3. As noted, it looks like it actually was gone by the 1983 catalog; it appears in some of the photos of the computers but isn't listed anywhere, and other pictures have that newer woodgrain-heavy set instead.

If we really want to look for the "holy grail" of matching TVs for a CoCo 2 specifically it's lurking in the 1985 catalog, last one before the CoCo 3:


Screen Shot 2023-02-07 at 10.22.16 AM.png

Here's its listing from the main catalog because, likewise, it's technically a "TV" and they never list it in the computer catalog, but of some interest is they do actually call it a "TV/Monitor" and say it has a "Video/TV" switch; this implies it may actually have a composite input on the back.

Screen Shot 2023-02-07 at 10.08.54 AM.png

So obviously this is the one you want if you really want the perfect "museum piece" Color Computer 2 setup. (Bonus: if it does actually have composite input then it would even look decent if you did a composite mod on the CoCo, and would also work well with the OP's Apple II plus.)

Although, really, aesthetically it's still wrong because that case looks a lot more silver than white to me. ;) You will have to look pretty hard to find a white-cased color TV, though; CRT TVs were pretty much black, silver, and woodgrained in the 80's. You might find some novelty mini-TVs in primary-color cases but ironically they'd often be black-and-white. Almost gotta go to the 90's before the cheap kids-room TVs were color.
 
I would say any Realistic brand color TV from the early to mid-80's will be fine. Radio Shack would of absolutely done store exclusive bundles or upselling of their own products, not specifically just their video displays advertised as compatible with the CoCo.
 
The perfect CoCo 2 display does not exist. If it did, it would have:
  • A white case with a black frame around the screen, to match the CoCo 2's white case with a black interior around the keys.
  • Either Radio Shack or Tandy branding (whichever your CoCo 2 is branded as).
  • "TRS-80 Color" branding like the original "TRS-80 Color Video Display" for the CoCo 1.
  • A built-in NTSC TV tuner so as to display artifact colors as intended, rather than as tiny black-and-white dots.
  • Analog RGB input so as to display non-artifact color input as crisply as possible in that era (requires modding the CoCo to output analog)
  • Built-in speakers
  • As small and even a bezel as possible on the right and left of the screen, instead of the clunky prominent buttons (let alone dials) on the right
  • A date of manufacture matching the CoCo 2's dates of manufacture and retail availability (from 1983 to 1988/9).
You can get a display that has some or many of these characteristics, but not all.

This Radio Shack TV from 1985 is a possibility. (Oddly, the ad copy says the brand is Realistic - one of Tandy's in-house brands used for TVs, radios, and audio components like turntables - but the picture c/early shows that the branding is Radio Shack.) Anyway, like many of the other Radio Shack displays that follow, it seems to have a silver or gray case. Maybe you could cover that (except for the vent slots) with white contact paper.

Screenshot 2023-02-07 1.42.30 PM.png

This Radio Shack TV (Cat. No. 16-232) from 1986 is below.

Screenshot 2023-02-07 1.34.22 PM.png

Also from 1986, the TC-1000 (Cat. No. 16-250) is, at 19", maybe too big to be practical for this purpose, but is otherwise similar.

Screenshot 2023-02-07 1.38.13 PM.png

1988 saw an update to the TC-1000:

Screenshot 2023-02-07 1.55.14 PM.png

As well as this TV:

Screenshot 2023-02-07 1.57.17 PM.png
In the 1989 main catalog, Radio Shack shows this set with a Color Computer 3 (see the left side of the photo below), perhaps to show the CoCo 3's built-in ability to output either to a TV set or a monitor (as shown on the right side of the photo). And perhaps that's why this TV is gray, to match the gray accents of the CoCo 3 (a change from the black contrast accents in the CoCo 2):

Screenshot 2023-02-07 2.09.08 PM.png

1988 also saw the start of monitor-suitable Radio Shack TVs that are uniform black, which I don't think is as good a match for the CoCo, but they're Radio Shack branded:

Screenshot 2023-02-07 1.58.01 PM.png

Although the brands Archer, Realistic, Memorex, and Optimus all were under the Tandy umbrella and sold via Radio Shack stores, and thus you can find some TVs under those brands, I don't find them to be a compelling match, especially since most had cases that were only black and/or were too big or too small for convenient desktop use.

1993 saw a revival of Radio Shack branding for TVs. Again, the black cases make them less than ideal in my opinion, although, again, you could use white contact paper on the top and sides. I include the 5" model only because it could not be easily excluded here.

Screenshot 2023-02-07 2.37.20 PM.png

I also think the use of gold coloring on the case badges for the upper end TVs is a detriment for CoCo display match purposes.

Screenshot 2023-02-07 2.40.23 PM.pngScreenshot 2023-02-07 2.40.48 PM.png

And so on. 1997 saw some more Radio Shack TVs (I'm ignoring TV/VCR combos, tiny TVs, etc.), but you get the idea and I've bumped up against a ten-picture limit per post anyway.

Other brands and devices in another post.
 
This White Westinghouse is on eBay right now, item number 134345484053:

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The RCA E13253KW:

s-l225.jpg

Many of the Sony CRTs with the model number "KV-13***" (the stars are placeholders for a variety of numbers and letters, such as KV-1311CR)

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check many of the "boxes" I laid out in my previous post. White front, sometimes with a black frame inside, sometimes three color dots next to the Trinitron branding, TV tuner, and various inputs including analog RGB (Sony, being Sony, often had its own specific version of analog RGB though) and S-Video as well as composite and RF. The PVM-1390 is similar.

Of course if you fall down the PVM / BVM rabbit hole, you may never come out. Those were ultra high quality monitors meant for TV and movie studios, production houses, etc., with a vast array of input ports. They were not offered to consumers, and I think cost thousands even in the 80s, which adjusted for inflation meant eye-watering prices. Along with the implausible scenarios of getting your hands on one back in that day (auctioned off from a failed TV station perhaps) the notion of attaching a Color Computer that cost $500, and usually $200 or less later in its life, to one of these Rolls Royce level displays is rather absurd, but it could have been done. Note that many of these CRT monitors are not meant to look good sitting on a desk, with harsh metal sides, no gently tapered rear (just flat backs), because they were often stacked.

I think the some of the Magnavox RGB-80s, such as the CM-8562 are a good match, too (never mind the little apple sticker the owner stuck on).


mag8562-2.jpg

In fact the one above is currently being offered by Apple Rescue of Denver as an Apple monitor.

Now if your CoCo is Tandy branded, then it's pretty easy: just get the Tandy CM-8 that was made for the Color Computer 3. Or maybe the CM-2 which was meant for the Tandy TRS-80 2000, a device whose branding was in transition between Radio Shack TRS-80 on the one hand, and Tandy on the other; but the CM-2 was not made for any CoCo so you probably really need to know what you're doing to get the two to work together.

But when you start getting into computer monitors, keep in mind that if the display lacks a TV tuner (as most devices sold purely as monitors do) then the majority of CoCo games, especially third-party games, may look black-and-white since they took advantage of a quirk in that era's color TVs (those using the NTSC standard used in North America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, much of Latin America, etc) which would render tiny black-and-white dots as either blue or orange-red. In this way, CoCo programmers would keep their cake and eat it too - get the maximum possible graphic resolution, but not be stuck with black-and-white but rather add blue and red to that palette. So again if you're using a pure monitor with no TV capability, and if your CoCo video mod doesn't "translate" artifact color images into colors, I think you'll need an external analog NTSC TV tuner or external analog capable RF Modulator to turn that signal into a color one. I don't know for sure if that would work though. Does anyone else know?

Finally, there are a whole slew of 1990s CRT TVs from Magnavox, Sharp, Sony, Panasonic and others that have a white case (with no black interior frame), accept composite or even S-video in (as well as RF / antenna in of course).
 
But when you start getting into computer monitors, keep in mind that if the display lacks a TV tuner (as most devices sold purely as monitors do) then the majority of CoCo games, especially third-party games, may look black-and-white since they took advantage of a quirk in that era's color TVs (those using the NTSC standard used in North America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, much of Latin America, etc) which would render tiny black-and-white dots as either blue or orange-red. In this way, CoCo programmers would keep their cake and eat it too - get the maximum possible graphic resolution, but not be stuck with black-and-white but rather add blue and red to that palette. So again if you're using a pure monitor with no TV capability, and if your CoCo video mod doesn't "translate" artifact color images into colors, I think you'll need an external analog NTSC TV tuner or external analog capable RF Modulator to turn that signal into a color one. I don't know for sure if that would work though. Does anyone else know?

Without modification you can't run a tuner-less monitor on a Coco 2 at all, obviously hooking the modulated output up to a composite input is a no-go.

If you have a modified CoCo/CoCo2 or a CoCo 3 with a monitor connected via composite then as long as it's an NTSC CoCo artifact colors should still work, they don't depend on anything the RF modulator does. This is actually why many of the third-party Color Computer magazines of the time actually recommended that CoCo3 buyers should strongly consider buying their monitor from someone else than Radio Shack; the CM-8 is kind of unusual in that it *only* supports analog RGB input, while many competing monitors (like that aforementioned Magnavox) supported multiple input formats. (Usually composite, analog RGB, and digital RGB.) These monitors would let you hook your CoCo 3 up to both the RGB and Composite ports, allowing you to switch at will to properly view older software using artifact colors. (And they also have the advantage of also working on your IBM PC clone, your Amiga, whatever.)

Anyway, it seems pretty silly to go to some ridiculous length to find a white TV to go with a CoCo 2 (or to paste white veneer onto an existing TV) if your goal is to have a "period accurate" setup. In the real world CoCo 2s ended up either on the family TV in the living room or on the cheapest (possibly secondhand) small TV someone could find to stick on their desk. When I was a kid my CoCo 2 was connected to a 12" black-and-white TV for the first year or so I had it, and then eventually I was able to lay hands on a chunky 9" "portable" color TV that was old enough to still have a tube in it in addition to the picture tube and weighed a million bazillion pounds. And considering the low resolution of the CoCo 2 there really isn't that much to be gained doing better than that, alas.
 
As a side note, i cruise government auction sites. I recently saw a lot with about 15-20 tv/monitors. All were powered on with snow or some type test data on screen (meaning they powered on). They have these pretty regular I suppose coming out of many state offices/universities etc.

State had put on tag, *working great for old games, computers and more*.

I think 15-20 sets in one lot and they could not even get a $1 bid. They keep relisting until sold.
 
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