[Coco] MC-10 mistakes was Re: [Color Computer] What's wrong with this Picture

[James the Animal Tamer]

> James and all,
> IMHO the worst mistake Tandy made with the MC-10 was putting the 
> hard-wired BASIC ROM system hooks between the video RAM and the 
program 
> RAM. This relegated medium res graphics to assembly only as BASIC 
would 
> crash if one tried to increase video RAM in BASIC. If they had put 
the 
> video RAM directly adjacent to the program RAM one could change the 
> bottom or top of the BASIC program space to add RAM to the video as 
one 
> did on the big CoCos.

Yup, you're right about all that!


> As far as I know the only way to increase the video RAM was to 
actually 
> add real 4K of physical RAM below the video RAM space; I've been 
trying 
> to find the instructions to do this for 20 years. I was in touch 
with 
> the Green Mountain Micro guy Dennis Kitz (sp?) for a time and he 
> promised to look up the details for me. But I lost his email 
address in 
> a hard drive crash.

There was one fellow in the MC-10 club who did things like this... 
don't remember his name.  But, with such a mod, the computer wouldn't 
exactly be an MC-10 any more.

BTW, the Alice 32 and Alice 90 don't have this problem.  But then, 
they're not MC-10 any more.


> I loved the MC-10 in 1983 and still do. The MicroColor BASIC 1.0 on 
it 
> ran at least 50% faster than on the big CoCos.

'sides, the CoCos had the "double the clock speed" poke.

> It taught me most of what 
> I know about hacking and assembly. I converted or wrote many 
programs 
> for it including a spreadsheet, word processor, 
> graphics/drawing/printing program, educational and demo programs, 
etc. 
> in 1983-85 but no one seems to be interested in them even now...

I'm interested.  Digitize those tapes (WAV, stereo, 8-bit, 44100 
samples/second), and mail 'em to me or use the casinlog program to 
make them .CAS, and I'll have them on the next update of VMC-10.  
Share your work with the world (well, actually, with the four or five 
people who would download the next VMC-10)!








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