[Coco] MC-10 mistakes was Re: [Color Computer] What's wrong with this Picture

[Charlie]

Count me as one of those 4 or 5 people, James. :-)

I love VMC-10. Every new version is better than the last.

Charlie



--- In ColorComputer at yahoogroups.com, "James the Animal Tamer" 
<emucompboy at y...> wrote:
> 
> > James and all,
> > IMHO the worst mistake Tandy made with the MC-10 was putting the 
> > hard-wired BASIC ROM system hooks between the video RAM and the 
> program 
> > RAM. This relegated medium res graphics to assembly only as BASIC 
> would 
> > crash if one tried to increase video RAM in BASIC. If they had put 
> the 
> > video RAM directly adjacent to the program RAM one could change 
the 
> > bottom or top of the BASIC program space to add RAM to the video 
as 
> one 
> > did on the big CoCos.
> 
> Yup, you're right about all that!
> 
> 
> > As far as I know the only way to increase the video RAM was to 
> actually 
> > add real 4K of physical RAM below the video RAM space; I've been 
> trying 
> > to find the instructions to do this for 20 years. I was in touch 
> with 
> > the Green Mountain Micro guy Dennis Kitz (sp?) for a time and he 
> > promised to look up the details for me. But I lost his email 
> address in 
> > a hard drive crash.
> 
> There was one fellow in the MC-10 club who did things like this... 
> don't remember his name.  But, with such a mod, the computer 
wouldn't 
> exactly be an MC-10 any more.
> 
> BTW, the Alice 32 and Alice 90 don't have this problem.  But then, 
> they're not MC-10 any more.
> 
> 
> > I loved the MC-10 in 1983 and still do. The MicroColor BASIC 1.0 
on 
> it 
> > ran at least 50% faster than on the big CoCos.
> 
> 'sides, the CoCos had the "double the clock speed" poke.
> 
> > It taught me most of what 
> > I know about hacking and assembly. I converted or wrote many 
> programs 
> > for it including a spreadsheet, word processor, 
> > graphics/drawing/printing program, educational and demo programs, 
> etc. 
> > in 1983-85 but no one seems to be interested in them even now...
> 
> I'm interested.  Digitize those tapes (WAV, stereo, 8-bit, 44100 
> samples/second), and mail 'em to me or use the casinlog program to 
> make them .CAS, and I'll have them on the next update of VMC-10.  
> Share your work with the world (well, actually, with the four or 
five 
> people who would download the next VMC-10)!





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