New CoCo book available!

Long time CoCo enthusiast Boisy Pitre and author Bill Loguidice have collaborated on a new book entitled "CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer" which is now available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and CRC Press.

I received my copy the day before Christmas, and I am really enjoying the read. Members of Facebook group for the book are also giving high praise to the book and it's authors. You can find the Facebook group by searching for the title.

There are also several posts about the book on this blog's G+ page, and in the Color Computer G+ community.

(Image used with permission by Boisy Pitre)

Though the book chronicles the history of the Tandy Color Computer I believe many retro-computing enthusiasts will enjoy reading the book and appreciate the historical information it provides so check it out. Cheers ~ Jim

Cool CoCo videos!

Allen Huffman put together this great video of the 18th "Last" CoCoFest that took place last weekend. I have never been to a CoCoFest, so for me this is a great treat because I finally get to see some of the people who I have only known via email or chat.

So check out Al's great "CoCoFest 2009 Teaser" video, and be sure to read his "2009 CoCoFest Report"!



Allen also let me know (and the entire CoCo News Group) about this video montage from shubibinman titled "Tandy CoCo Tribute" If you are an CoCoNut or an 8-Bit Retro gamer then you should get a blast out of this!

Amazing video of a large vintage computer collection

Update 05/18/09: Steve just left a comment stating that the Color Computer 1 is not actually black, but it just looks that way due to the lighting ~ Jim

Original Post:

This is just an incredible video of a very large collection of vintage computers and gaming systems. For all you Radio Shack Color Computer collectors take a look at the black Color Computer 1.



Here is the URL for Steve Benway's site: http://www.benwaysworld.co.uk/

If you have any news or links to add for this blog just drop me a line. Thanks! ~ Jim

New CoCo links, and some cool CoCo videos

A friend of mine suggested some CoCo links for me to add to the CoCo Links ( Tandy Color Computer ) list, so I have gone ahead and added them. Check them out when you have the time.

My friend also sent me some cool looking CoCo vidoes; two are Radio Shack Commercials, and the other is a video of the Boink Bouncing Ball demo. Here they are:

• Radio Shack Tandy CoCo 3 Commercial: Merry Christmas HQ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3dtQ01MFlg
• 80's Radio Shack Color Computer Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2jRuh1bAxw
• Boink Bouncing Ball demo on CoCo 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eonlhPhv01s

I rcouldn't find much in the way of retro computing news except the Slashdot article below:

• Slashdot: Apple IIe Emulator Released For the Wii

This blog could use a lot more links, especially for the Apple II, Commodore, and Atari links lists. Feel free to leave a comment with your link suggestions or any leads for articles. You can also send me an email by clicking the "here" link in the "Welcome" section on the left-hand side.

PS: I just found this great CoCo posting! Check it out: The Color Computer (a.k.a. CoCo).

Shots of my CoCo 3 system

Here are some shots of my "CoCo" (Radio Shack Color Computer Model 3) that I finally got set up again for the n-teenth time. It's been a while since I have really used the CoCo, but now that I have a dedicated spot for it, I am going to dive in and have fun with it.

Here's a shot of the complete system. Note the rats nest of cables from some other systems.
















This isn't the intended use for a monitor stand, but I didn't feel safe given the weight of the monitor so I decided to use it to get the disk drives, speakers, and VGA Converter Box out of the way.
















And if you are a CoCo enthusiast you may appreciate the "CoCo Cat" in the picture! :-)
















Feel free to leave a comment! Cheers ~ Jim