[Coco] RE: [Color Computer] Looking for a Coco I 64k?

[Arthur Flexser]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2005, Dave Dunfield wrote:
> 
> I'd guess that the 32k machine/upgrade actually uses 64k chips and could operate
> with 64k RAM (no ROM) however this capability was not acknowleged/advertised until
> software (OS-9) was available which could use them. Can anyone confirm this?
> 

Yep, that's correct.  The only actual 32K CoCos were those 16K machines that
were user-upgraded to 32K by the piggyback method.  (I had one for a while.)  
It was rumored that Tandy used 64K chips that had only one bank certified as
good, and that's why the early 64K machines were labeled as 32K, but this seems
much less likely to me than a couple of alternate explanations:  (1) They didn't
want to be bothered with users complaining that they could only access 32K under
BASIC, and (2) It is in line with Tandy's general marketing strategy of
promoting the CoCo as a kid's toy so as not to compete with their more expensive
models, so under-describing its capabilities would be seen as desirable, at
least until they were selling software that actually used 64K.  I never heard of
anyone having to replace the RAMs in order to get 64K operation in a machine
Tandy sold as 32K.

Art