[Coco] [Color Computer] The CoCo is alive!!?! Who knew?

[Joel Ewy]

Brian Sumpter wrote:
> Hello all ...
>
> I just found this list today while researching my old CoCo II to show 
> my wife my first computer. Needless to say I'm a little surprised 
> (and very happy) to find the CoCo is still alive and kicking after 
> all these years. So happy, in fact, that I just pulled my old CoCo II 
> out of storage and set it up in my office.
>
>   
Glad you've found our list.  I think you'll find it helpful and
informative.  The CoCo is still (again?) fun. 

Did you ever have a CoCo 3 back in the day?  (came out in '86)  That's
when the CoCo really got fun.  You can get a CoCo 3 from Cloud 9 for a
very reasonable price.  Then you can try out Roger Taylor's Projector 3,
and Sockmaster's Hi-Color program (both of which produce amazingly high
quality high-color image displays on the CoCo 3), and Sockmaster's
fantastic new Donkey Kong conversion, among many other great programs. 
(You've got to see this program -- it is an actual conversion of the
original DK code to the CoCo.  I think it's very cool, and I'm not
really that crazy about Donkey Kong.)

http://www.axess.com/twilight/sock/hicolor/hicolor.html
http://www.axess.com/twilight/sock/dk/
> Now I'm on a software hunt! When I was a kid using the CoCo, software 
> was rare and hard to come by. I programmed most of my own games and 
> utilities, and although these are long gone now, it taught me the 
> basics (pun intended) of programming and began what whould turn into 
> a computer career for me.
>
> Now that most of this stuff would be considered public domain, where 
> could I find some of the old software I lusted after in the RS 
> catalogs as a kid? 
Technically, of course, most of it is still copyrighted material. 
Increasingly however, the authors are giving permission for these
programs to be distributed for free, and L. Curtis Boyle's web site
(which is really great, and was referenced in Brian Blake's reply) has
many of these permission-given programs available for download.  Like
you, I lusted after lots of games and other CoCo programs I couldn't
afford when I was a kid.  I've been able to download and try out a
number of these because of Boyle's good work.

There are also places on the Web where you can find other CoCo software
that is available, uh, shall we say, pending permission.

There is still an archive of CoCo and OS-9 stuff at
ftp://os9archive.rtsi.com  Despite the name, it also has DECB/RS-DOS
stuff.  Most of this is freeware/shareware/otherwise freely available
stuff from the good ol' days.  And there is an FTP site run by Dennis
Kitsz, associated with this list, at ftp://maltedmedia.com/coco/  It has
mostly documentation, but a little software as well.  Also Ira
Goldklang's http://www.trs-80.com/ , while dominated by Model 1/III
stuff, has some CoCo stuff in the mix -- again, mostly documentation.

Finally, be sure to check out the Wiki at
http://www.coco25.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page .  This is run by Allen
Huffman of Sub-Etha software fame.  He will gladly set you up an account
so you can edit pages on the Wiki and help us preserve info on the Color
Computer.
> Another minor point is I'm wondering how I 
> transfer this software from my PC to the CoCo 5.25" floppies? I 
> *think* I have an old 5.25" floppy drive somewhere in a box for the 
> PC. 
>
>   
I find it more convenient to use a 3.5" drive on my CoCo.  I've been
using 720K disks in high-density drives for years.  Under RS-DOS there
is a lot of wasted space, but you can use a patched DOS to access the
second side.  Under (Nitr)OS-9 you can format the disk to 720K.  Even
with the wasted space, I like the 3.5" disks better, and find it easier
to copy data to and from modern PCs.  (Not that I don't also have plenty
of old PCs around...)

JCE
> Also, if anyone has a box of old CoCo II software on either 5.25" 
> floppies or cassettes they would be willing to sell, I'd be willing 
> to entertain an offer.
>
> Any information would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Brian
>
>
>
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