[Coco] Hidden 256-color mode

[Nickolas Marentes]

*jdaggett wrote....*

It may have started out to go into the Coco3 but got pushed out to
say a COCO 4 that got axed. I have seen that done before on other
products that I have worked on. Several features had delayed
introduction due to time constraints to market.

This could have been a issue with the COCO3. Microware did SEC
and to add support for 8 bit color in the software could have delayed
the release and therefore the feature canceled for another later
release.




Nick replies....

I think the decision to axe/conceal/disable the 256 color mode was 
purely political.
The chip designer for the GIME had planned to have the mode as part of 
the design but the powers in Tower Radio Shack didn't want the CoCo3 to 
have more capabilities than the Tandy 1000 range which was becoming the 
primary focus of Tandy's computer marketing strategy.

They didn't want the Tandy 1000 range to have only 16 colors while the 
lower cost "toy" computer could display 256. It was all about market 
positioning.

A prominant Tandy executive who was one of the main driving forces for 
the CoCo3 told me that at Tandy's request, the mode must be removed. 
What the designer did, was to conceal it's access in such a way that 
several things had to be done at a specific time (machine state as he 
put it) in order to access a hidden register. Even then, once the mode 
was activated, the only way out was a reset of the machine. This person 
claims to have turned the mode on with a production CoCo3 but has lost 
the notes he had that explained it.

For anyone who hasn't read my full "research" into this possible mode, 
check out my web page at

http://members.optusnet.com.au/nickma/ProjectArchive/256mode.html


Has Alan Huffman released clearer and more detailed photos (with the red 
stickers removed) of the CoCo3 prototype boards yet?

I'm still keen to know if the prototype was designed to support 256 
colors at the RGB output stages. This would at least tell us if the mode 
can be seen with an RGB monitor or if it could possibly only be visible 
with a composite output (which may explain why it's been hard to find 
since most CoCo3 users nowadays are running RGB monitors).

Nickolas Marentes