The Story of the Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer, A Legendary System- Tech Retrospective

[@Moldyvort]

My father decided to get us a TRS-80 for Christmas one year as a gift for the whole family. My dad was frugal, and when the salesman explained to my dad that a monitor would be good, but you COULD use a TV but it wouldn't be as good. My dad decided to just use our TV. Then he explained that we would definitely need some sort of disk drive in order to load or save files and he declined and said "No, we only need the computer thank you." So. We got this computer. It had a manual that contained Basic programs. We could type them out and execute them and enjoy watching the graphics and sound that the programs would create. Then we would turn the machine off and they would be gone forever. We never bought any software (because there was no way to load them) and so we had this computer which was essentially a terminal for typing basic programs and enjoying them until you turned it off. Eventually that novelty wore off and we threw it under a coffee table for years and then it was eventually sold at a yard sale for around $20

[@billb6283]

I didn't have disk drives either, but a cassette recorder was cheap and you could save your programs that way. It least your father exposed you to a computer.

[@speedbird737]

I was 11 or 12 years old and wanted a computer for Christmas - we had a Tandy store near us in my home town of Lincoln in the UK. I used to look inside and asked my parents for a TRS80 - my dad called the store and priced it up - for 1980s the price for a MODEL I was very high - and the Model I had no separate keypad either! My dad suggested the VIC20 which was superior in comparison - best suggestion ever! So glad I went with Commodore - had every model, VIC20, C64, Amiga, CD32, etc

[@popzct]

Thank you for this channel video! I wrote 37 video games for Tandy Corporation in my much earlier years and this video brings back memories. I was recently inducted into the Oklahoma Historical Society / OKPOP museum for my video games that I wrote for the Tandy Corporation Color Computer 1, 2, 3 and 4 (the 4 never made it to market). Greg

[@alfrfr2662]

Congrats Grag. I'm Brazilian and Began to program in Basic and assembly for msx computer. I was 11 years old.

[@PeterReefman]

This was my first computer, while most of my friends had Commodore 64s. I loved that mine was so great to learn BASIC, even though I was jealous of all the games my friends could play on their C64s. Years later I had a programming career while none of my friends did anything more with computers than play games.

[@jackeldogo3952]

I "voided" the warranty on my TRS-80 Model III often. I added an Atari joystick port that was hardwired to the arrow keys and spacebar of the keyboard, added a speaker with an audio jack so that I could connect it to the cassette player using the monitor out trick to get decent sound that actually came out of the computer, etc. Surprise, it still works today. Though I lost the cassette player many many years ago, but I can still program it from the keyboard.

[@James_Hough]

This was my family's first home computer in '81 or '82. I still have it.

[@digitalnomad9985]

I still have one, but not my first.

[@jarekstorm6331]

I still have my Grey, 16k color computer with the chiclet keys from 1981 in its original box and styrofoam. My very first home computer. I’ll keep it until I die.

[@imagesbyraphael]

*Gurgles with nostalgic excitement* 30 seconds in and the box package already brought back memories - I used the box of my TRS-80 color computer as my computer desk along with a stool. So the box is very familiar....

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

As a kid who was constantly ridiculed by Commodore kids in elementary and middle school in the 80s for playing knock off games on a " trash80", I can't tell you what satisfaction it brings me to hear you say that this computer gets more requests 4 coverage and information.

[@DevsLikeUs]

Great history here, thank you for sharing .

[@NewsmakersTech]

Thank you for watching!

[@DevsLikeUs]

Newsmakers Tech np!

[@ed056]

Thanks for the flashback! I had the 16k version. Incidentally, the 6809 ran rings around the 8088. Fond memories of waiting for the next edition of The Rainbow Magazine and finally making it to a Rainbowfest when it came it Atlanta. RIP Lonnie Falk.

[@jeremycatches9766]

I was around 12 or 13 when I got access to this computer. It was the perfect time for me and the "learn basic" book was amazing and kept me entertained from the beginning all the way till the end. The chapters were laid out nice and had lots of exercises to do.

[@CarnorJast1138]

This was my very first computer. I had the Model 1 with the chiclet keyboard, and a whopping 4k of RAM! Loved it! Got me started into computers! Thank you Tandy!

[@sideburn]

Me too. Later upgraded to 16k and then tore it apart and made it into something else and went down the Atari 8-bit rabbit hole of software piracy 😂

[@derek8564]

old coco 3 owner here, with the orchestra 90 pack and some other goodies.

[@NewsmakersTech]

We hope you guys enjoy this years #septandy coverage!

[@JohnSmith-te5oo]

Hey if you type Poke 65495,0 you can DOUBLE THE CLOCK SPEED!! (throttle it back down for I/o stuff). I can't believe I remember that.

[@YoungtimersPubz-ks4qp]

Hi ! This computer has been imported in France as an "Alice", An amazing joint-venture including MATRA, former car maker which won the 24 le Mans hours, and building air-to-air missiles carried by french jets, with Hachette, a major book editor in France, combined with Moebius, designer of the film "Tron" and several other artworks of this era !

[@michh9806]

Tandy Mc-10 Color Computer is the Alice, not the Color Computer 1.

[@HildegardActual]

Very interesting. I was just gifted one of these by my grandmother. She had it in the box with a lot of software and expansions too. Definitely gonna play with it at least and see what it can do.

[@JohnSmith-te5oo]

I had a C compiler for it when I got the floppy drive!

[@fonebonedon]

I believe the warranty was only 90 days, So many people punched through the sticker and voided the warranty because there were so many modifications you could do. Upgrade memory, put in a better keyboard etc. Rainbow Magazine was one source for lots of programs and mods. I modded mine to use a Commodore Monitor. You could also install the lower case kit and get true lower case, not just inverse capitals. What a great machine for its time!

[@slowneutron6163]

I enjoyed mine immensely. Ran a BBS off of it for a couple of years in the mid to late 80s. Presence BBS. Yeah, they called 'em TRSH-80s. And the Commie , ASSpple, and Fartari users had a point. But the coco was a lot more capable than people who never owned one thought. Played my very first 3D-ish dungeon crawler on it...Dungeons Of Dagorath. Not bad for the time. Anyway, yeah, I was jealous of all of the kids who had better computers. But the Coco was a lot of fun nonetheless.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

I have two coco 2s and a non functioning coco 3, which I hope to get working in the future. Very cool piece of historical tech.

[@waltschannel7465]

The coco was GREAT for learning programming, and even the UNIX operating system. There was a version of Xenix written for it.

[@EddieSheffield]

Great video! I had one of the earliest models with the badge on the left side - my first computer. I upgraded it to 64K and replaced the keyboard with the same one as on the first Coco 2s - I think some call it the "melted" keyboard. I remember the old "Videotex" terminals that looked almost exactly like the Coco, but I never knew about the blue AgVision ones. Very cool!

[@AlexEvans1]

Yes, the last CoCo 1s had the half height melted keyboard that he early CoCo 2s had.

[@uncaringbear]

That chicalet keyboard was way better than people gave it credit for. I upgraded my keyboard with a third party replacement, but the original keyboard was fantastic once you got used to it. I'll also say that the manuals for BASIC and Extended Color BASIC were some of the best written and designed computer manuals that I've ever read.

[@johnknight9150]

Your videos are well structured and of consistent quality.

[@ragsixracing]

I was a kid, I had a friend that sold me his plus 300 items of software. Had a blast for a few years with it.

[@HerrinSchadenfreude]

I played with this one (and the Model II on display) at the Radio Shack where I learned Level I BASIC back in '80. But I got the Model III because it had the built-in monitor so my dad wouldn't have to buy another TV just for the computer.

[@BerniesBastelBude]

very interesting! I reside in Germany and neve have seen such a device. Nevertheles, the TRS-80 is known as a major player in the Homecomputer area.

[@NewsmakersTech]

Next up, The Color Computer 2!

[@Roxasofmalice]

FINALLY! WE GET TO SEE YOUR UPDATED STEAM COLLECTIONS!

[@TheSulross]

No one every mentions the really cool memory management hardware built into it's GIME video chip of the CoCo 3. It was 8K page mapping that was more akin to how more sophisticated CPUs do page mapped memory management. It's how it used more than 64K of memory. It was more sophisticated than the bank switching MMUs built in other 8-bit computers like, say, the Commodore 128. The OS-9 operating system was enhanced to make good use of then. And the Motorola 6809 CPU gets a lot of fan fair - between the 6502, 8080 or 8085, or the Z80, the 6809 was the most sophisticated of the 8-bit class of CPUs.

[@MikeDancy]

who else is watching this on their TRS-80 model 100? In real ASCII motion !!

[@BigRonRN18]

I remember the original TRS-80 CoCo as our family's first home computer. My best friend's family already had the Commodore PET which was monochrome but we were able to use an RF modulator to output our TRS-80 to channel 3 on a 13" color television. I remember writing many stupid/useless programs, such as one that would continuously change the screen color between all the different colors... because I could. Many of these useless programs were written in infinite loops and served no use other than to amuse myself. We had a dual-diskette drive that plugged into the cartridge slot. Another odd memory was that something wasn't grounded/shielded well on the diskette drive housing, as I would feel an electrical tingle when touching it with something like my forearm. While the computer itself had a plastic housing, the diskette drive housing was made out of metal. We had this until we upgraded to an 8088-based PC in 1985. This boosted our RAM from 32 KB to a monstrous 640KB and boosted our CPU's clock to 16 MHz!. My father splurged on our first hard drive. originally, he spec'd out a 10 MB hard drive but it was only $200 more for 20 MB hard drive.. no way that would ever fill up. I started delivering newspapers that year and kept track of all my customers in MS Multiplan; keeping tabs on who paid and who hadn't yet paid. That 8088 also had MS Word 1.0, which I used to add my own newsletter to my newspaper subscribers, letting them know how to reach me if they had any issues. I would also let my customers know when I was taking a short break and had an alternate deliverer for me, in case THEY screwed up... i wanted to make sure they understood it wasn't me. I still had fond memories of the Trash-80 CoCo, as we generally called it.

[@LarryRobinsonintothefog]

Didn't know about the University Of Kentucky agricultural connection but that explain seeing Agritext. Games kept the Coco going.

[@CyBeRTRoNFLuX]

aswome !! my first computer was a trs-80 coco 64k pal version

[@mheermance]

I was a teenager when these were new to the market, and hearing about them now is nostalgic. It's good to see interest in these eight bit systems by younger people, as they're a very pure form of computing, and your can learn a lot from these systems.

[@speedrobo99]

RIP Radioshack

[@johanlaurasia]

A couple of corrections, the Agvision terminal was never sold by Tandy, it was sold by Agvision. Radio Shack did sell it's own version of the terminal (initially a gray unit and eventually a white unit in the form factor of the original CoCo 1). Also, the terminal wasn't "recycled" into a home computer, the computer was intended from the beginning which can be seen if you look at the agvision motherboard (the layout for the cartridge is there, just no cartridge connector, and the case was designed with the cutout for the cartridge slot from day one, so Tandy fully intended of releasing a computer based on the same design from day 1.

[@cireynolds]

I have my CoCo 2 right beside me.

[@flashg643]

you folks should have way more views

[@jacobjones9071]

It's a shame the Coco line would shift so much to beige systems, the silver color is sweet!

[@diggydude5229]

The real keyboard on the CoCo2 makes up for the beige color though.

[@hdufort]

I have a beige Coco3... but I'm sooooo glad I have the silver grey floppy drive!

[@RoyCyberPunk]

LOL 😂 at the long expired warranty issue.🤣

[@KG4JYS]

Fun fact: it's a violation of federal law to void a warranty because a customer opened or worked on a product (in the US). My first computer was COCO3. I don't remember software being sold pre-compiled for it.. at least, I never owned any. Instead, you could buy books with the source code for games and stuff. You had to type them in yourself and then you saved the program to a cassette recorder.

[@ms-ex8em]

Hello, this Tandy coco machine, does it have a program which lists (displays) the start, end and exec values of a program in machine code?? Also, a game called Grand Prix too, written in basic?? thanks.........

[@elobservadorobservante1605]

So, is this what Alec and Shana were so hyped about?

[@cathrynm]

Even in 1980, you needed lower case for a business computer.

[@Derpy1969]

I always wondered why the Motorola data books for CPUs had the entire color computer block diagram using the 6883 SAM, the 6821 VDG, and two 6821 PIAs with the 6809 processor as a “suggested” system. Motorola must have been given the OK to sell the chips as part of the agreement to develop it. It needed only the ROM to be a coco. Now, I know why.

[@alejandroprieto8770]

Qué tal. Tengo un TRS 80 en muy buen estado para la venta. Colombia 🇨🇴 Interesados bienvenidos 👍

[@imagesbyraphael]

I learnt to program on this only because there wasn't that much software available for it. At least they were mostly limited to expensive ROM cartridges back then before floppy disk drives became more common and affordable.

[@enjoythepig]

This is your best video ever. Great research combined with expert filming and editing. I got a Coco 1 for Septandy and can say that the Rev F model (which they began to make in 10/1980) is the one to get. They purple sticker on the bottom is how you know you have an F. The F can be upgraded to VGA video, a 3Mhz CPU and 64mb of ram easily, because virtually every chip on the board is socketed. Again, fantastic work on this one guys!

[@NewsmakersTech]

The upgrade path for the original Coco is very intriguing, but so is just using a coco3 lol

[@NewsmakersTech]

Wave you ever seen the AGvision before? which color scheme do you prefer?

[@naysmith5272]

The AgVision Videotex terminal is a lovely blue colour. vintagecomputer.ca has put up some nice pictures.

[@grahamariss2111]

I had a clone of this computer in the UK, the Dragon 32, which was made by Mettoy the people behind the Corgi toy cars. It was not a copy so much of the Tandy but Motorola concept of how their chips etc could and shoukd be used which was also the guidance for Tandy's approach so they both ended up in the same place. Literally the Mettoy team lifted the circuit board design from the Motorola promotional material just deleting the Motorola trade mark.This however was the products downfall, whereas Acorn and Sinclair were commissioning there own chipsets they were locked into buying from Motorola. This meant that when Sterling had a collapse against the dollar at a time the early 80s computer boom was coming to an end with a price war they could not compete.

[@perfectionbox]

The 256 x 192 graphics mode was monochrome, not four color.

[@Jonny_O]

Motorola was based in Schaumburg, IL, not Austin, TX.

[@diggydude5229]

I don't believe the built-in serial port was a full RS-232C implementation. I have an RS-232C cartridge with onboard terminal program. The 300 baud modem cartridge has the same terminal program.

[@jesusabelardosaldivaraguil339]

You say it lacks a composite output, but is not the "to tv" port in the back an RCA video composite output?

[@EddieSheffield]

I had one of these as my first computer - it's the same CONNECTOR as usually used for composite video, but it is in fact an RF signal coming out on channel 3 or 4 (NTSC). There was a switch box that came with it that had twin lead antenna connections in and out and a cable with an RCA style plug to connect to the computer. It wasn't a modulator either - just a switch with a few simple coils to impedance match the 75 ohm signal from the computer to the 300 ohm twin lean connection. If your TV had a 75 ohm cable TV connector, you could plug it right in with plain adapter.

[@digitalnomad9985]

The CoCo 2 keyboard was much better.

[@circuithijacker]

OS9! OS9! OS9!

[@charlesjmouse]

It's a funny thing. Company marketing people are at very best entirely useless, especially those in the computer business who tend to be so moronically destructive one wonders if they all work for rivals. I'd like to think if I were put in charge of an 80's computer company the very first thing I'd do would be to fire the entire marketing department - a win, win, as not only would I save paying their salaries but marketing would almost certainly improve!

[@dvirga]

Amen up to 3am 6:02 beyond 3 am for 6:45

[@padistedor]

I remember these. The keyboard was horrible.

[@RobertEmery]

Everybody knocked them, but they worked. And now look at Apple keyboards... 🤔 What was old is new again.

[@joeminpa6705]

YOU VOIDED THE WARRANTY!!!??????????? YOU REBEL!!!!!! lol

[@Cp-71]

I don't know, I think having a ZX Spectrum would be a better start at computing :/

[@NewsmakersTech]

The ZX Spectrum was ABSOLUTLY a better system, but that really wasn't a thing over here. Timex did release it but it was a pretty major failure here in the US

[@sandpir8]

I had one and the best thing I ever did was take it back for a refund!

[@310McQueen]

I'm betting his machine doesn't actually work. I was disappointed to not see it boot and run anything. It does look good, though.

[@argonwheatbelly637]

10 PMODE 4,1 20 SCREEN 1,1

[@jobadirk6371]

The branding of this system makes it quite confusing for those of us who didn't grow up with it. Like, it's a TRS-80..... except it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual TRS-80 line. Marketing sucks sometimes.

[@NewsmakersTech]

Wait till you see some of the OTHER systems that were randomly branded with the TRS-80 name!

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

XRoar Online

[@Cam-zv1jq]

I had this as a kid.I asked for a computer to play games!!This wasn't it!!At least i didn't get any good games,all were trash,no official games.I had no clue about any computer an this was different than school,ut was a ghetto one to me!!Waste of money.

[@Cam-zv1jq]

Mine was silver to9

[@fjccommish]

Awful - why the bad background music?

[@microtasker]

Lol, Trash 80