Remember the TRS-80 MC-10?

[JamesD]

This seems like an opportunity to resurrect an old iPod Nanite to act as a cassette loading device. Is there a repo for MC-10 program audio files?

Start here:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TRS80MC10Club/info

[towmater]

Thanks for the tip. This being my first trip to Yahoo in years, I was delighted to see the groups I had subscribed to in 1999, but then noticed they all had trickled down to 0-1 messages per month, though MC10 has kept up a pretty good pace. I will pop the question once I have the MC10 up and running again.

 

Meanwhile, after finding I have a twitter account and a bunch of dodgy things linked to my Yahoo address, I set up a few email filters. Now anything with a vowel in it goes straight to the trash folder. I was intrigued to find that I've been applying for jobs driving a flatbed. It's clear now that someone out there is far cooler than me.

Edited January 2, 2017 by towmater

[jhd]

I've tried to track down some info on a coded game for this, and I have no idea why I remember the name of it some THIRTY YEARS later, but...it was called "Broken-Field Nightmare". I believe it ran off a cassette tape and that his Dad typed it in. It was a very simple game where you used the keys to navigate a two-pixel thing across a screen to the other side. We loved that damn thing! Years later I found out it was supposed to be a FOOTBALL game of sorts, lol...me don't know sports

 

Does anybody remember that 'game'?

 

Hot Coco, February 1984 -- from the Elmer's Arcade column, p. 17

http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Documents/Magazines/Hot%20CoCo%20(Searchable%20image)/Hot%20Coco%20Vol.%201%20No.%209%20-%20February%201984.pdf

 

-- Due to a printing error, the listing was originally published in the January issue, but the accompanying article did not appear until the following month (wherein the game was reprinted)

[atarilovesyou]

Can't wait to read the above!...but my computer takes a shit while trying to open it for some reason...I'll need to try on my phone. Thanks, though!!!

[Stormtrooper of Death]

Wow, I never heard about the "Hot Coco" magazine. In the Netherlands I was only able to buy "Rainbow" magazine. Thanks for posting the link, JHD.

 

And talking about the MC-10....

 

As a teen, my father bought me a MC-10 from the local Tandy (Radio Shack) store in Helmond (The Netherlands). I was the only kid that had an MC-10. Most other kids had a Commodore 64, MSX or Atari homecomputer. Lack of games made me program my own games and utilities on the MC-10. One year later I bought the 16K expansion pack at that same Tandy store. Now it was 20K of BASIC happiness for me. I converted many adventure games from other systems to the MC-10. Also a lot of games that were originally for the TRS-80 model III.

 

Concerning utilities, i wrote my own wordprocessor (including save/load option), paint program, music editor/player and even SUPERBASIC (a basic interpreter that didnt use line numbers and had more powerfull commands).

 

But after some years I got a bit depressed , because I couldnt share all my programs with other kids... so i swapped my MC-10 for an Atari 600XL computer.... Anyhow, the MC-10 was the one computer, that teached me how to program in BASIC. (I also had the Pinball game for the MC-10 on tape, and loved it when the vulcano would explode)

 

I still use Atari 8bit computers and maybe I will buy a 2nd hand MC-10 if the time is right.

 

greetings from Richard Vermeulen from the Netherlands.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Stormtrooper of Death

[jhd]

Concerning utilities, i wrote my own wordprocessor (including save/load option), paint program, music editor/player and even SUPERBASIC (a basic interpreter that didnt use line numbers and had more powerfull commands).

 

Wow! I could barely stand to use a wordprocessor on the Coco, between the limited screen and the chicklet keyboard; I could not imagine trying to do any significant amount of writing on what passed for a keyboard on the MC-10.

 

Did you write everything in BASIC, or did you use assembly language too? I do not recall having seen a commercial 6803 editor/assembler advertised anywhere in magazines, but I vaguely remember a simple monitor program (much like what the Apple II had built-in ROM).

 

The inability to "share" software was frustrating; even the Coco was not directly compatible with the MC-10 (the cassette tape format was the same, but the encoding was different). My classmate and I were disappointed to discover this -- he wrote a great game on his MC-10 that would not work on my Coco.

[Stormtrooper of Death]

jhd, i programmed everything in BASIC. even Superbasic was made with the MC-10 basic. so... Superbasic was very,very slow. If I was able to do assembly, then things would have be better for superbasic.

 

I did use some POKE and PEEK instructions in my Basic programs. My paint program used the 64x48 res screen in green/black dots. and my paint program for the MC-10 was also able to save/load pictures that i made with it. It was rather simple. Moving the cursor , press space to plot/unplot. S for Save and L for load.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Stormtrooper of Death

[linville]

Haven't read the thread above -- sorry if this has been mentioned already...

 

There is an MC-10 version of Xmas Rush, available here:

 

http://www.tuxdriver.com/download/xmasrush/

 

The MC-10 version is a little further down. Gameplay is awkward, due to placement of the arrow keys. Still, you might find it enjoyable... :-)