[Coco] [Color Computer] Re: Let me introduce myself

[James the Animal Tamer]

> I've found nerd heaven!

Welcome to Heaven.  I must be an angel.  *laughs*

> I've always avoided groups/boards in the past, but the Coco is so 
> much fun and has such fond memories for me

*chuckles* I had a Tano Dragon -- but mainly I POKEd around the 
Commodore 64.

> Not sure what the protocol is for discussing "past life" 
>experiences

Jump right in and post 'em!  I like reading them.

> I bought my Coco 1 in '82 that I paid close to $1000 for, with all 
> of my summer job money in between years in college. It came with 4K 
> RAM, but the weekend I bought it, there was a "special" with a free 
> upgrade to 16K. It came with Cassette drive, 300 baud modem, and 
> joysticks. My primary draw to the Coco was the Extended BASIC - 
> being able to use commands like CIRCLE, PAINT, LINE, etc.

I liked the Extended BASIC too, and fiddled around with it some.  My 
big problem with the Dragon was that the colors appeared to be 
inconsistent.  A magazine published a method for seeing "27 different 
colors on the hi-res screen" but I could never figure out how/why it 
worked, or how I could use it in any useful fashion, and why orange 
and blue sometimes swapped places.  Then, in 1985, I chucked the TV 
and started using a 1902 monitor, and then that program started 
showing 27 different hashed  buff/dark gray patterns.

> just blew 
> away the PEEK/POKE graphics of Commodore and Atari.

Those two computers had their compensations -- colors that were the 
same from run to run, nicer text mode, real sound chips, line-based 
raster interrupts for changing graphics mode mid-screen.  Add-on 
BASIC packages were offered for both, which included the missing 
graphic commands (Hes Graphics BASIC for the Commodore 64, later 
marketed by Epyx was a good C-64 package).  I like all the old 
computers.  Each had some advantages and some disadvantages.

> Since then, I've 
> always been a big fan of high level languages and predefined
> library 
> methods

Can't beat the speed of assembly language for those old 8-bitters, 
though.  O' course, mix and match.  My last 8-bit project, for the 
Gameboy Color, used the Musyx sound library.

> I also wrote alot of games, 
> including text based adventure games, a Battleship game, a Lunar 
> Lander clone

Do you still have the cassettes?  If so, digitize them and convert 
them for use with the emulators!  If they'd run on the MC-10, I'd 
love to grab 'em to include with the MC-10 emulator archive.

> Recently I bought a Coco 2 on eBay, 64K, with Floppy disk drive, 
> manuals, joystick, for $25.

Pretty good deal for a system with the floppy drive!

> My main motivation for this is to teach my 7 year old son how to 
> program.

...Well, here, I'd say the Commodore 64 would be good.  Nicer text 
mode, with colors.  Print your name in 15 different colors.  I'm 
biased.  Or there's the Commodore 128 or Plus/4, with some graphics 
commands built into the BASIC.  The Commodore Plus/4 has, like, 121 
different colors (it would be 128, but eight of them just look like 
black).
  There was a nice series of books, called "Kids and the [fill in the 
blank] computer."  These were written by Edward H. Carlson (check 
Amazon for his name).  Nice tutorials into the BASIC language, for 
several of the 1983-1984 era computers.

> yet the Coco fascinates him

Home computers fascinated *us* too, because we're old enough to 
remember a time when television was a passive medium:  you could 
change the channel and volume, but beyond that, you'd sit and watch.  
Home videogame consoles presented a means of moving video images on 
the television!  Wonderful!  and more wonderful still were the home 
computers, which would do what you wanted and put your graphics on 
the screen!
    When you first got your computer, did you have it calculate e and 
pi, and do base conversions between base 25 and base 3?  Did you 
print out a list of prime numbers longer than your arm?  Did you have 
it sit all night searching for perfect numbers that didn't conform to 
the mersenne format?

> .  He's an avid reader and I'm anxious to 
> get a hold of Bedlam, Madness and Minotaur, Pyramid, Raaka-Tu and 
> The Sands of Egypt.

Look for the emulator downloads -- you can probably find those.  My 
personal holy grail would be "Slay the Nereis."  I remember seeing 
ads for it... but I've never seen the game itself, and have always 
had intense curiosity about it.  Wow, those must have been some ads, 
huh?

> Anyway I've babbled enough. I hope those of you that got this far 
> enjoyed reading this.

Yup, sure did!






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