[Coco] First MC-10 game cart ever?

[Francis Swygert]

Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2016 16:15:40 -0400
From: Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu>

  What did Tandy see as the MC-10's niche, if not as a game machine?  Did Tandy release any non-game
cartridges for the machine?
===================================
IIRC the only thing Tandy made for it was the 16K expansion. It was intended to be an inexpensive beginner/learning machine, in competition with the little Sinclair ZX-81/Timex-Sinclair 1000. The ZX-81 only had 1K RAM, the TS-1000 2K. The MC-10 doubled that to 4K. The problem was no aftermarket support. That is what made the Sinclair and Timex computers longer lasting. According to a Wikipedia entry on the TS-1000:
"A shortage of the memory expansions coupled with a lack of software that would run within 2 KB meant that the system had little use for anything other than an introduction to programming. ...  Over time, the TS1000 spawned a cottage industry of third-party add-ons designed to help remedy its limitations."
Since the TS-1000 could use ZX-81 soft and hard ware directly with few (if any) software mods, and Europeans had less money to work with, it was more popular "over there". Here the CoCo2 and C64 wasn't that much more than the MC-10, especially after the home computer price wars started!. 
  Frank Swygert
 Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service
 803-604-6548