[Coco] OT - Wahoo, I finally found - about the Vertibird

[Rogelio Perea]

"Jim Cox"

> If this is the Vertibird that I am thinking of, you could
> have made this an on topic post by telling us you hooked
> it up to a CoCo :)  It would be interesting to hook up
> some of the simpler toys that had controls to a CoCo.

I do remember the Vertibird. As memory serves, the Vertibird had only two 
levers for control, this is in fuzzy BRAM (Brain Random Access Memory) but 
apparently the thing was controlled mechanically with cables, one lever 
tensioned or released one wire to tilt the chopper forward or back, the 
second lever did work on the throtle so you could elevate or take down the 
chopper...

Interfacing such a toy to the CoCo probably would not be as daunting as 
putting the non-mobile Armatron under computer control (the mobile Armatron 
with its true electronic control pad was another story).

I have seen Vertibirds in outlet type stores, the last sighting of a 
sizeable batch of brand new units (not the original 70's make, more of a 
close to original spin-off) was in the Big Lots stores (www.biglots.com)... 
in Tucson Arizona. I deeply regret not buying at least two of those babys at 
that time, ever since I have been on the look out with not much success, and 
am trying to stay away from Ebay.

All in all, it'd be a nice interfacing project for the CoCo.


-=[ Rogelio ]=-