[Coco] Novel Commercial Uses of the Coco

[mcnd96 at aol.com]

Hello,

I know that Canobie Lake park in Salem, NH used to have a video game room.  In a large area was a game where there were about 20 lanes where you roll a ball down the lane and try to get it into one of the holes to score points.  It was very similar to those you see at arcades or midways today.  In the center of the room was a control booth that would turn all the games on at once.  The person who scored the highest in a certian time would win.  I know they uses a CoCo to run the system.  I think it was a CoCo 2 but not sure.  It was connected to the game system via the serial (cassette) port.  I remember this as I was facinated as to how they got it all to work using a CoCo at the time.

David McNally



-----Original Message-----
From: John Donaldson <johnadonaldson at sbcglobal.net>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 9:58 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] Novel Commercial Uses of the Coco


There use to be an aviation unit that went into a plane that would 
isplay weather radar using semigraphic mode. I got a chance to look 
nto the electronics and found it really was a repackaged COCO2. It was 
epackaged into two boards, stacked one on top of the other. The reason 
 knew it was a repackaged COCO2 was the VDG chip was the one with 
owercase built in and it had the Advance Basic ROM, alone with another 
OM. It would listen to a sub channel of FM broadcast stations. The sub 
hannel broadcasted a signal similar to a SSTV signal. The signal was 
ecoded and displayed onto a 3" color screen using SemiGraphics. I 
ooked up the codes that were printed on the Advance ROM chip and the 
umber matched the number that Tandy used for the Basic ROM chip.
John Donaldson
On 9/30/2011 4:52 PM, Steve Ostrom wrote:
 Today I received a box containing a Coco3 relabeled as a Thermopatch 
 Label Writer 401.  It came with a RomPack labeled the same, and a 
 cable, which probably connected the computer to an actual label maker 
 of some sort.  The RomPack shows a 1987 copyright by Thermopatch, but 
 no other citations as for author, etc.  The RomPack uses gold plated 
 connectors, and is a snug fit into the RomPack slot.

 This unit is really cool to an all-things-Coco collector like me, but 
 I was wondering how many different non-Coco commercial uses were made 
 of the Coco? I can think of two others - the VideoTex unit and the 
 blue Agrivision unit both made from a Coco1, sort of.  Have there been 
 quite a few others?  I wonder how much of a market was there for the 
 Thermopatch Label Writer, and who actually wrote the software and 
 burned it into a RomPack.

 -Steve-


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