JamesD

Epic games just put up 3 more freebies. Don't remember the names, wasn't anything I recognized.

Not sure, but I think one of the Z80 based Laser machines did the same thing.

https://twitter.com/ApplesauceFlux?fbclid=IwAR3XJuL66BQAyFTSNcHM3Ax2lAgsCKMDRplF_AxPMYsI-gFy52jfYPCsZRE

I've always wanted a Model III, but I'm not in the neighborhood. I'll pass it on to friends on discord though.

Didn't it also have a 6502, and could run a lot of the BASIC programs?

The 68008 may run 68000 code, but it's slower, and the QL lacked the GUI which was the real appeal of the Macintosh. You can bet Atari received decent pricing on the 68000. Jack was a shrewd negotiator. Motorola's management was out of touch at best if the stories people have told are true. If Motorola had listened to employees, they might have had a product somewhat like the 6502, that could have been cheaper to produce than the 6800. For that matter, if they had been on the ball, they could have released a version of the 6803 with a built in DRAM controller specifically targeting the personal computer market in 1978. Someone could have sold a machine with hi-res color graphics, sound, cassette, and a serial port for less than what a TRS-80 Model I with Level I BASIC was going for.

I just looked at some 68000 code for the first time in years, the instructions even have different mnemonics. Geeze... I probably spent more time on 68000 assembly than anything else for a decade, and didn't remember that until I saw some code.

The instructions on the 68000 are similar to the 6809, but that's about where the similarity ends.

The CoCo came with the chicklet keyboard until the intro of the white version. That's when they introduced the "melted" keyboard. 1983? That keyboard is pretty good. The chicklet keyboard was okay, but you had to clean it to keep keys from sticking after a while. The VIC has more colorful graphics than the CoCo, but the CoCo has bitmapped graphics. Resolution, and number of characters per line favor the CoCo. By 1982, 64K CoCo upgrades were becoming common by 1982, and I think Tandy was selling 64K units in 1983. That's also when the CoCo 2 came out. The CoCo had a large number of peripherals, though a lot were 3rd party. Disk drives, digitizers, expansion boxes, sound & speech upgrades, printers, modems, plotters, ... One category you left out is BASIC. EXTENDED COLOR BASIC was the best out there at the time. Speed wise, the CoCo was pretty fast once you used the high speed POKE. Too bad they didn't take advantage of the 6809's hardware multiply in the floating point math library. Productivity software favors the CoCo. The bitmapped graphics were commonly used to display upper and lower case text. Gould was a disaster for the company, and the Amiga.

I can't remember when it happened, but Tramiel lowered peripheral prices to run TI out of the personal computer business in revenge of what they did to him with calculator parts. That's why he was forced out. 1983? 1984?

2 new freebies on EPIC GoNNER Offworld Trading Company

The PET with a 6809 would be interesting. Super PET?

Several of the machines released in 83 would have been good machines in 1977, but they were a bit lacking by 1983. The Aquarius was one of those. It didn't have a built in sound chip, built in game controllers, programmable characters, or a regular keyboard. The expansion unit added two of those, but it added to the price. There was an Aquarius II with better specs, and a real keyboard, but that didn't make it to market. The glut of low end machines did force Commodore to lower the price of the VIC, and they made money on the peripherals. Many of the competitors didn't have much in the way of peripherals when they were introduced.

Pretty sure it wasn't just competition with the VIC-20 almightytodd. There was a glut of machines on the market by the time the Spectrum could have been introduced in the US. The VIC-20, and Tandy Color Computer were introduced in the US in 1980, but they were priced higher than the ZX/TS machines at first, but the rapidly dropped in price. There's also the Atari 400 that was dropping in price. The TS-1000 was a huge seller for Timex, but people in the US were looking for a cheaper TRS-80 Model 1, and the TS-1000 isn't even close. The number of defective machines, slightly odd BASIC entry system/slow BASIC, and low end everything about the machine pretty much destroyed Timex's chances in the computer market even though some people loved the machine. If their first machine had been the TS-1500 in 1982, I think they would have fared better in the long run, but it wouldn't have hit the same price point due to the amount of RAM. Maybe with 4K it could have been $150 in 82? In Europe, the Oric was a pretty decent machine, and price competitive with the Spectrum. 1983 The US never saw these. And then there were a bunch of low to mid priced machines like the Aquarius, JR-200, TREK, VZ/Laser, MC-10, etc... in 1983. I think chicklet & membrane keyboards were being shunned by US consumers by that time, largely due to the TS-1000. If the MC-10 had come out in 1982 with some minor improvements (better keyboard, more RAM, etc...), it might have done well in the $99-$150 price range. It certainly compares favorably to the TS-1000 with color graphics, sound, Microsoft BASIC, more RAM, a built in serial port, and a power switch. Pretty sad when you have to list a power switch as a feature. It also could have been sold as a cheap terminal with a different ROM. As far as that last item goes, it's probably what the project Green Thumb should have been in 1978 (ish). The CoCo based design was too expensive. Had Tandy & Motorola gone that route, an MC-10 ish computer would have been possible before 1980. Tandy certainly could have had it ready shortly after the TS-1000 was announced. All they would have needed was BASIC.

An Apple II is more valuable than a IIe, but some software doesn't run on the II. The Pet is cool from a collector standpoint, but the C64 has a crapload more software. I would have to go with more usable.

I build my own machines, they are easier to fix or upgrade. Free trial weekend coming up https://www.pcgamer.com/play-predator-hunting-grounds-early-in-the-upcoming-free-trial-weekend/

https://www.pcgamer.com/dying-light-is-free-to-play-this-weekend-for-the-first-time-ever/

They always have something for free. Odds are, that achievements are in the works

https://www.pcgamer.com/assassins-creed-syndicate-is-free-on-the-epic-games-store-this-week/

https://www.pcgamer.com/dishonored-and-wolfenstein-games-go-drm-free-on-gog-and-theyre-very-cheap/

FWIW, the worst game store/client is Microsoft's. Really buggy.

The Model III has the same Level II BASIC as the Model I with some small exceptions. The CPU is a little faster, so things like timing loops are different (cassette). The hardware supports lower case, and some hardware was moved from memory mapped to the Z80 IO space if I remember right, so it was modded to support that. Seems to me there were a couple other differences, but I can't remember what they are. It should be able to go to BASIC without booting the DOS (hit the reset button?), but I haven't touched one since 1983, so... I think there is a torrent with software for the model III, there are a few pages dedicated to the TRS-80s with software, but I don't frequent them so I don't know where to send you. There is a discord server here: https://discord.gg/mWYezW

If I remember right, EPIC offers game publishers a better deal than Steam, so companies have been pulling their games from Steam in favor of EPIC. Guess that means we'd better get used to EPIC.

I love Ticket to Ride. Fun game

https://www.pcgamer.com/kingdom-come-deliverance-is-going-free-on-the-epic-games-store-next-week/