[Coco] TRS-80 Color Computer: Wikipedia Article

[Frank Swygert]

I do recall the Motorola chips being a bit higher priced than many of 
the others. But I have to agree that the main concern at Tandy was not 
having the CoCo compete with their higher profit margin XT clones, the 
Tandy 1000 series. The CoCo was just about as capable, if you throw out 
MS-DOS compatibility as a requirement. That might be why the graphics 
were never more developed on the CoCo, the 1000 had slightly better 
graphics than the XT and clones. A few games even took advantage of the 
"Tandy 1000 Graphics Mode". I'm surprised Tandy marketed OS-9 at all. It 
was kept low key because it was obviously superior to anything but their 
Unix like 68K machines as far as multi-user/tasking. A simple point of 
sale program under OS-9 would have been a great seller for 2-3 register 
small retail businesses!

The only reference I found to the cost of a 6809 was a 1993 article that 
stated the 6809 CPU cost $1 more than a Z-80... in 1993. To Tandy $1 
would have made a significant difference -- $1 more profit for each 
machine x 10s of thousands... Even a few cents more would have made a 
difference. I run across things like this in the auto hobby all the 
time. "If (AMC/Ford/Chevy/Chrysler) had just spent a few more dollars on 
(whatever part broke) the car/truck would have been so much better...." 
A few CENTS on each and every part would make a noticeable difference in 
quality, but even 5 cents on each of 1,000 parts x 20,000 vehicles of 
just one model, for example, equals $1 million. And that would come out 
of profit. All manufacturers have to work on the same principal. just a 
penny or two on the CoCo's many parts takes a toll on the profits, and 
if it's not profitable there's no point in making it, not en mass anyway.


I think we CAN edit this part though:
"In spite of Tandy's apparent lack of concern for the CoCo market, there 
were rumors of the existence of a prototype CoCo 4 at Tandy's Fort Worth 
headquarters. Several first hand accounts of the prototype came from 
people like Mark Siegel of Tandy and Ken Kaplan of Microware, yet there 
exists no known physical evidence of such a machine."

Doesn't someone have the prototype boards, Allen Huffman or Brother 
Jeremy?? Anyone can edit the Wikipedia pages, but please register and 
login first. And make sure you can back up what you change! That's what 
keeps the Wikipedia honest. I've done some article editing, even did 
some on the CoCo page a long time ago. I don't really recognize anything 
I might have written though.



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-- 
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
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