Nebulon

Here's an ad for that joystick adapter I mentioned: https://archive.org/stream/198304Rainbow/198304-Rainbow#page/n69/mode/2up https://archive.org/search.php?query=rainbow%20magazine (index) Plus a few links to reference material for your new computers: https://archive.org/details/Color_Computer_3_Exended_Basic_1986_Tandy https://archive.org/details/Color_Computer_Assembly_Language_Programming_1983_William_Barden_Jr

Congrats! If you need to invert colors on the CoCo 3, hold ALT and press Reset. http://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/coco.html As for the CoCo 2, you might end up having to press reset 5 or 6 times before it switches colors (luck of the draw). The bulk of the CoCo 2 software out there is 32K, so no rush on adding more RAM to it (plus, BASIC only accesses 32K anyway). If you can find them, try to locate an adapter to allow you to use DB9 joysticks (like the classic Atari stick) on the CoCo. There were a number of brands available back in the day. And if you're tech-savvy, it's apparently really easy to just make your own adapter. I had one custom made, and the guy that did it said it was simple to do. Not sure about high scores on Sailor Man. Is the diskette write-protected?

That reminds me. I have a 1040 STe with a flakey internal disk drive. Can I just swap that drive out for a 720K PC drive?

You might be surprised at just how much of it still works fine. Those machines are actually really rugged.

Thanks very much for creating a document for this. I read the entire thing. But because my brain is too feeble to understand all of it, I guess I need an example for my particular case. I have a 128K CoCo 3, a disk drive, and the CoCo Flash unit. Sadly, I don't have DriveWire and I also don't have a Y-cable or a MultiPak. How would I add two 32K games to the flash unit. For example Cashman and Time Bandit (you could pick any two 32K .bin files for your example).

In hindsight, they could have kept an ear to the ground for what the Japanese were doing and released a machine in the summer of 1983 to match the spec of the SEGA SC-3000. And if that brought in enough cash, then they could have offered MSX compatibility.

Hmmm.... Looks like they did have a machine with a Z80 4MHz option for sale in 1978: (the XiTAN): https://archive.org/stream/Tandy_Computers_1978_Catalog_1978_Tandy_Partial#page/n3/mode/2up How would you like to drop the equivalent of $22,000.00 in today's dollars on a micro-computer? ($7495.00 in 1978 for a XiTAN Alpha).

Wow. That's quite the CPU ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog_Z280

Back when Tandy was synonymous with Technical: https://archive.org/stream/Tandy_Computers_1978_Catalog_1978_Tandy_Partial#page/n0/mode/2up I especially like the detailed descriptions of exactly what each computer includes.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=18 http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=206 http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=90 Has anyone successfully put a 3.58 MHz Z80 into a Model III ?

Couple that with the Z80 CPU already in the computer and the CHROMAtrs is awfully close the ColecoVision, MSX1, or SC-3000. I wonder if there's any possibility of ports of games.... Again, like the article mentioned, very niche. Neat niche, yet niche nonetheless (there's a tongue-twister).

It powers on by itself ??? Tell me more about this DF0: selector. What does it do?

Your statement is a pretty strange one. First, why should the vendor be expected to give an answer to your impatient and unrealistic attitude to a niche hobby business? Do you actually think he's just raking in the cash and has tons of money to hire support staff? And the idea that people who have no financial, business, or legal ties to him being supporters of his work is totally normal. They're called customers. Satisfied customers.

What machine is this running on?

Well if that was the golden rule of business, then that would cancel out three-quarters of the homebrew/retro-hardware business out there. Is that what you want? This is a 'hobby' for people with a certain amount of patience. Perhaps a dose of realism is required when critiquing people who make stuff like the AtariMax products. Have you sat down and done the calculations for how much product a person would have to manufacture and sell to just barely pay the bills and have you considered the size of the customer-base? This is a niche market so you're lucky to even have products like this available at all. Speaking from my own experience as a customer, the AtariMax cartridges revolutionized the way I use my Atari 800 and 800XL machines. I use it very often and I'm certainly glad it exists.

Very cool! I know I'd like to view those sometime. Feel free to post links

For years now I've been hoping to see a series like this for various retro computing platforms (Atari 800, Apple II, TRS-80 Model III, Fujitsu FM7, C64, VIC-20, Atari ST, TI-99, SG-3000, X68000, Acorn, BBC Micro, Color Computer, PC-88, Spectrum, Adam, etc...). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOT5j3ELi5BaSrb24fJEKvTqlRK4fg9wS In this case, it's for the Amiga. If others decide to make YouTube tutorial series' like this, please let me know. There are a bunch of platforms that I'd like to learn. And if someone can recommend a free video screen-capture utility that is Windows Vista compatible (and doesn't contain viruses), I may actually do more of these. Oh, and maybe an app that can add captions since YouTube is no longer offering annotation and captioning services as part of their site tools.

Wow! Pretty phenomenal. There are apps in MorphOS that do the kinds of things that I've been nagging M$ for over 20 years to include in Windows. Things like being able to click on a DLL and see all the apps that use it. Amazing to see that some of the old Amiga productivity apps run natively inside MorphOS.

I'm glad you got a refund. The seller sounds like a real schmuck.

As long as you've got your Sunblock 5000, you're good! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCTSCAQzY9k

If anyone has an old manual for the PC app CADKEY version 3.0 (or even 2.x) and you decide to scan it into a PDF, please let me know! Thanks in advance: https://archive.org/stream/PC-Mag-1988-08-01#page/n145/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/PC-Mag-1988-08-01#page/n133/mode/2up

"It was an A1200 before it turned to the dark side." http://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-Amiga-1200-Customised-Tower-System-T12-Gen-II-/282428598340?hash=item41c20e6844:g:SykAAOSwax5YxFKh

Wow! I totally remember driving across town to a computer store with my dad to purchase Hall of the King III. That whole series is amazing.

I really like 'em both. But vertical edges horizontal shooters out. I still love me some R-Type though.

The closest thing I can think of that happened to me was when I purchased a physical modeling synthesizer from eBay and had it shipped by UPS. UPS left it on-end at my door in the middle of the winter and didn't bother to ring the doorbell or notify me that it was there. From what I could tell, it looked like they must have slammed it down onto the ground pretty hard because when I opened the box the end of the board that was on the ground was shattered with a nice crack extending up toward the LCD screen. Having said that, I've never seen anything so thoroughly destroyed in transit as that poor STE.