[Coco] RE: [Color Computer] History of Tandy Computers (somewhat off topic)

Fri Apr 7 17:41:32 EDT 2006

Hallo,

I'm not even going to start to number the technical and historical
errors in the text below...

Greetings from the TyRannoSaurus
Jan-80 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ColorComputer at yahoogroups.com 
> [mailto:ColorComputer at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of James the 
> Animal Tamer
> Sent: 07 April 2006 21:55
> To: ColorComputer at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Color Computer] History of Tandy Computers 
> (somewhat off topic)
> 
> 
> Wow.  That's a big one.  Radio Shack had plenty of exclusive 
> computers, 
> and rebranded a few others.  Let my memory fly back to the past, when 
> home computers were wonderful and new, because, for the first time, 
> your TV set wasn't just a passive medium -- you could 
> interact with the 
> image in a way other than changing the channel.
> 
> TRS-80.  Your big brother called it the "Trash 80."  He 
> bought himself 
> a TI 99/4 instead, then later a TI 99/4a system.  The TI 
> 99/4a expanded 
> by way of things hooking on to a port on the right side of the 
> computer, and most of these things had pass-throughs.  Your brother's 
> TI 99/4a system ended up being nearly five feet wide as a result.
> 
> Various forms of TRS-80 appeared, some running CP/M, and some running 
> Tandy's own clone of CP/M.
> 
> Radio Shack rebranded a few little handhelds, which looked like cheap 
> knock-offs of programmable calculators.
> 
> The Color Computer was cool... but had a blurry display on 
> the TV set, 
> even on the one that they'd set up at Radio Shack.  The colors didn't 
> look great either.  You bought yourself a VIC-20 instead (it 
> was cheap).
> 
> IBM had made its PC with off-the-shelf parts, and others made 
> clones.  
> Does it run Lotus 1-2-3?  Does it run Flight Simulator II?  
> If so, then 
> it was called a "100% compatible."  Peter N. came out with books 
> telling you to poke the screen directly instead of using BIOS 
> calls to 
> do graphics.  This pretty much killed the MS-DOS computers which 
> weren't 100% compatible.  Tandy came out with a 100% 
> compatible fairly 
> early.
> 
> A funny thing happened...  IBM came out with the PCjr.  It 
> had several 
> new and different 16-color modes.  Tandy came out with 
> superior clones 
> that also supported these new 16-color modes.  There was also a new 
> Color Computer, the CoCo II.  You checked the price of a CoCo II with 
> disk system.  $$$.  Display still looked like cr*p on the TV set at 
> Radio Shack.  You bought a Commodore 64 instead -- looked better on a 
> TV, and with disk drive was much MUCH less expensive than the CoCo II.
> 
> Something else funny happened.  Your big brother had bought a 
> computer 
> kit called the ZX80, and, a year later, another kit called the ZX81.  
> Thrifty's Drug and Discount near where you lived started selling the 
> ZX81 with a new name on it, Timex-Sinclair 1000, for under $100.
> 
> Tandy came out with the MC-10 Microcolor Computer.  Its 
> display looked 
> like, you guessed it, cr*p on a TV.  But then, the 
> Timex-Sinclair 1000 
> also looked like cr*p.  You stuck with your VIC-20.  Your big brother 
> bought an MC-10 and stuck it in the closet.
> 
> Tandy marketed a notebook computer that was a clone of a NEC 
> computer.  
> Rumor has it that it was for this computer that Bill Gates 
> did his last 
> stint of programming.
> 
> A successor to the Color Computer line came out, based on the 68000 
> microprocessor, but Tandy didn't make it or market it.  It had four 
> channels of digital 8-bit sound, 32 colors on-screen from a 
> palette of 
> 4096, ability to put different graphics modes on the screens 
> on a scan-
> line basis, a multitasking operating system... and built-in 
> support for 
> mouse.  It was an awesome computer.  It was also the successor to the 
> Atari 8-bit line of computers, since the graphics chips were logical 
> successors to the Atari graphics chips.  It was marketed by 
> Commodore... the Amiga 1000.  It was several years before you 
> got one.  
> You were still having fun with your brand new Commodore 128.
> 
> Tandy finally came out with its CoCo III.  It was too little 
> too late --
>  everyone else had already gone over to 68000-based computers and the 
> brand new VGA-clone-equipped PC-AT clones.  (Funny thing about VGA -- 
> the PCjr's graphics were called VGA standing for Video Gating Array.  
> The PC-AT's graphics were called VGA standing for Video Graphics 
> Array).  You went to Radio Shack to buy one at $99 closeout, but they 
> were all sold out already.
> 
> Tandy, in its MS-DOS computers, supported the funny PCjr 
> graphics for a 
> long long time.  They also came out with a built-in digital sound 
> output that, unfortunately, wasn't compatible with the Sound Blaster 
> that was then becoming popular for the PC clones.
> 
> Eventually, PCs became more standardized and generic, and 
> then with the 
> advent of Windows95's Plug 'n' Play hardware drivers, it 
> didn't really 
> matter whether Tandy's computers were different from anyone else's.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 

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