You Have A Real Color Computer 3, Now What? A Beginner's Guide

So you just bought yourself a real Tandy Color Computer 3, now what? Here is a beginner’s look at what you need to get it set up and running. PCBWay, starting at only $5 for 10 PCBs and Express 24 hour service is available www.pcbway.com/
#tandy #ColorComputer3 #RetroComputer
Thanks for watching!
Special thanks to Ron Delvaux for the idea for this video.
The Color Computer 1&2, Part 1: • You Have a Real CoCo 1...
The Color Computer 1&2, Part 2: • You Have a Real CoCo 1...
The Switch-A-Roo: cocoman.onlineweb.shop/Switch...
The Color Computer Archive: colorcomputerarchive.com/
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See You Next Time!
Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
1:14 PCBWay
1:52 The Outside of the CoCo 3
3:45 The Inside of the CoCo 3
7:01 Hooking Up With Composite
9:43 Hooking Up With RGB
14:12 The Input Method I Missed
16:22 Final Thoughts

[@DaveBall54]

I never owned a CoCo 1 but I had a couple of CoCo 2s. I always wanted the CoCo 3 and it took me 26 years to get one! I added the CoCoSDC and Switcharoo right away. I use a PC on a daily basis but nothing beats the CoCo 3 for playing around with basic programs. I'm remembering so many things from the 80s. Now if I could just find my box of tapes!

[@CanadianRetroThings]

I mostly do tape loading on emulators, they are a lot less fussy.

[@DaveBall54]

@@CanadianRetroThings I have boxes (somewhere) of tapes, filled with programs that I wrote while teaching myself basic. I'd love to take a look at them again. I still have my CCR-82, now I just have to dig out those tapes.😁

[@supwicha1]

Good job, thanks for posting. I just picked up my 4th CoCo3 because, you know I didn't have enough of them. Well done 🙂

[@AsifAlli]

To my fellow Canadian, I love your videos. Keep up the great work!!

[@CanadianRetroThings]

Thanks for watching!

[@cocoliving7157]

Always look forward to when you release new videos. Thanks!

[@CanadianRetroThings]

Thank you for watching!

[@tigerleep]

I owned a CoCo 1 and 2 back in '80s. I now own a CoCo 3 that sits on my desk right next to me along with a Switch-a-Roo and a a SCART-to-HDMI box. Also keep a SDC cartridge plugged in, and run DriveWire on my PC. I also do 6809/6309 Assembly development and compiling on the PC and update a disk image which is mounted on the CoCo via DriveWire and the SDC so I can compile on the PC and immediate run on the CoCo. Quite a nice development setup. :)

[@CanadianRetroThings]

A very nice setup.

[@ohioterran7374]

I really enjoyed your series on the CoCo computers! Keep up the great work!

[@CanadianRetroThings]

Thanks for watching!

[@fractalMD]

Ken is awesome!

[@CanadianRetroThings]

☺

[@David_Ladd]

Yes Ken ( @CanadianRetroThings ) is a great guy Does great videos Also great to pester at events like CoCoFEST and VCFMW! :D

[@miked4377]

great job! color computer3 is a great machine ....i have a sftspot for the battleship grey computer 1 !!!

[@CanadianRetroThings]

I love my CoCo 3! I think more people need to try one.

[@picturesalbum4532]

For those who are stuck with composite note that WIDTH 80:CLS 5 gives a White screen with blue text that is reasonably readable.

[@CanadianRetroThings]

I have not tried that, thanks!

[@emmayu4343]

Nice video, thanks!!!!

[@CycleDoc675]

Former original CoCo1 battleship gray with upgraded keyboard and 64K ram owner here. So my employee has been playing a game called "Helldivers 2" based on Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. That reminded me of a favorite CoCo game, Klendathu! I showed her a KZbin video of it and....she was not impressed. LOL!

[@CanadianRetroThings]

It is amazing how Klendathu is never mentioned in any articles or websites (other than directly CoCo related) as the original Starship Troopers game! Klendathu was one of the games I got with my first CoCo back in the 80s.

[@CycleDoc675]

I didn't realize it was the FIRST Starship Troopers game! I still had hours of fun with it...just had to use my imagination a little, LOL! The cover art of the game was awesome.@@CanadianRetroThings

[@CycleDoc675]

And one other thing: I received my CoCo1 in December 1983 at the age of 12. At age 15, I took high school typing specifically so I could type in the Basic programs from Rainbow Magazine quickly. To this day, I still type over 60 WPS because of that CoCo1 (with upgraded keyboard, identical to that of the CoCo2, installed by Radio Shack).

[@CoindoorDave]

I dig that clear (acrylic?) case/stand for your rom paks - where can I find these? Thanks!

[@CanadianRetroThings]

It is actually a retail display stand from the coffee shop I used to own (we used it for chocolate bars). I got it from a store called Eddies Hang Ups in Vancouver, BC.

[@stlbud]

I had a Color Computer 1, Color Computer 2, and Color Computer 3 that was fully decked out with RGB monitor. The 40 and 80 column width are supposed to be 4:3 ratio not 16:9. With 16:9, I would expect graphics to be distorted. Is there a way to constrain the image to 4:33.

[@CanadianRetroThings]

The 16:9 is my cheap Scart connector, i had been looking for a new one but I got used to the 16:9 so it hasn't been high on my list.

[@michaelcloutier2225]

If you want a good experance with the COCO 3 consider a Mister FPGA system. They have COCO 2 and 3 cores that do just about anything you can do and it is only one of HUNDREDS of computers, consoles and Arcade cabinet titles that are full implementations of the hardware in FPGA. Many of the core have lots of inhansments like built in turbo modes, many Memory upgrades, and replications of SD card storage solutions. The COCO 3 has all of these including the COCO SDC and the multi-cartrage system. I have a COCO 3 but never use it because it is just so easy to use the Mister FPGA to do it all and I don't need to buy all of those upgrades. I was playing checkers the other day and was getting frustrated by how slow the computer was making it's moves and forgot to turn the turbo up to 9.45MHz. It flys at that speed. I got OS/9 running on it as well. OS/9 runs amazing at 9+MHz with 16MB of ram. Its a little picky to set up but easy to back up and restore.

[@CanadianRetroThings]

I have thought about getting a Mister for the convenience. My problem is that I like the feel and sound (keyclicks, transformer hum, etc) of using original hardware almost as much as gaming and programing. The emulation I do use is just for testing stuff VERY quickly if needed.