Download CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer by Boisy G Pitre PDF

By Boisy G Pitre

CoCo: the colourful background of Tandy's Underdog Computer is the 1st ebook to record the whole heritage of the Tandy colour computing device (CoCo), a well-liked 8-bit computer sequence from the Eighties that competed opposed to the era's largest names, together with the Apple II, IBM computer, and Commodore sixty four. The e-book takes you contained in the fascinating tales and other people in the back of this distinct, underdog computer.

Both famous computing device technological know-how and know-how advocates, authors Pitre and Loguidice display the tale of a pivotal interval in the house computing revolution from the viewpoint of Tandy's CoCo. As those pcs have been bought in Radio Shack shops through the usa and different international locations, they supply a serious element of reference for key occasions within the extraordinary evolutionary interval for the computer within the Eighties. The booklet additionally positive aspects first-hand money owed from the folks who created and promoted the CoCo, from the unique Tandy executives and engineers to latest lively product creators and knowledge keepers.
The CoCo impacted many lives, and this e-book leaves no stone unturned in recounting this attention-grabbing slice of the computer revolution that remains in play this day. From early telecommunications experiments to engineering and budgetary demanding situations, it covers the entire points that made the CoCo a very own, invaluable computing adventure in as small and cheap a package deal as attainable.

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Additional info for CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer

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Commodore, in a situation that would serve it well for many years to come, now controlled most of its own manufacturing and supply services, so it was able to provide relatively high-power systems at a lower cost than possible for most of their competitors. In addition, a version of the popular BASIC language from Microsoft, redubbed COMMODORE BASIC, was purchased for a one-time fee and licensed in such a way that it could be extended and reused without restriction in future Commodore machines with the same processor type, even within those from a different product line, such as the VIC-20, Commodore 64, and Plus/4.

Colorful Computing 37 maximum resolution of 256 × 192, though most software was limited to four colors: black, blue, red, and buff, and a resolution of 128 × 192. Text display was similarly limited to only uppercase characters, though this was a fairly common restriction for the time. 7). Alternatives were available, from software that used the more resource-intensive technique of using graphics to simulate upper- and lowercase character sets, like Nelson Software Systems’ Super “Color” Writer II (1983) word processor, to internal hardware add-ons and modifications, like the MSB Electronics lowercase board.

It was a given that Tandy was also a high priority for Katz’s group because of the tremendous reach the thousands of Radio Shack stores provided for their semiconductors. It was no surprise then when Motorola produced a successful proposal in April 1979 for what would become the Color Computer. Steve Tainsky, who worked as a systems engineering manager at Motorola and reported to Katz, led the group that came up with the Color Computer reference design. Tainsky’s group did the architecture and logic design of the video display generator, synchronous address multiplexer, digital analog converter, and the supply and level translator chips.

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