[Coco] TRS-80 Color Video Receiver

[Mark J. Blair]

On Jul 5, 2014, at 15:21 , Bill Pierce via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
> Mark, I actually had that TV for my Coco. It sold brand new for $499 and they were phasing it out for a new model. I saw one hooked up to a Coco in the store and commented to the salesman that I would love to have that for a monitor. He said "make me an offer". I had $10 in my pocket so I said "all I got is $10", and he said "I'll tell you what, you put that $10 down, and I'll let you have it for $99". I took me 3 paychecks to pay the rest of it off, but I bought it. It was mine and my wife's 1st color TV (all we had was a 13 B&W portable), and I hooked it to a Coco LMAO. I shared though... :-)

Cool!

Our silver CoCo was just hooked up to the family TV, which was a solid-state Magnovox color TV with pushbutton tuning, a tuner subassembly that looked complicated enough to be a missile guidance system, and a huge backplane with a dozen or so plug-in boards for the TV electronics. I think it was too far ahead of its time, and I recall my dad cussing into its innards many a time.

I think our CoCo started out with 16k, but dad upgraded it to 64k. I seem to recall that it involved piggybacking chips and some lifted pins. I think  ours had the "E" PCB rev if my memory is correct, and it had the memory size badge at the top left side. When we eventually upgraded to a floppy drive, it was an FD-55B with a J&M controller.

I don't have my original CoCo any more. I now have a CoCo 2 that I may trade away, and a CoCo 3 with a CM8 monitor. If I can find a retro color TV that strikes my fancy just the right way, maybe I'll get an old CoCo 1 to go with it.

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/