>>>>> "Stephen" == Stephen Judd <judd@merle.acns.nwu.edu> writes:
Someone> is a interface used by a CoCo (a kind of Tandy-computer???
Someone> sorry, I forgot (no joke)) I also have one for a XT-PC which
Someone> looks alike. Two weeks ago I
Ruud> Tandy Color Computer. I think it's a successor/bigger version of
Ruud> the TRS-80 series. But that's all I know about it.
Stephen> The CoCo is actually a pretty cool computer; in Europe it was
Stephen> marketed as the Dragon 32/64.
The Dragon was actually a clone of the CoCo -- I don't think it was
licensed or endorsed by Tandy, but someone else could probably tell
you more if you're curious.
Stephen> It was around during the golden era (I used to play games on
Stephen> the model I at Radio Shack in the early 1980's). Roughly, it
Stephen> is to the TRS-80 machines what the C64 is to the PET.
The CoCo 3 is actually more like an Amiga compared to a PET :)
Stephen> The processor is a 6809, which is a pretty nifty processor --
Stephen> in the spirit of the 6502, but with extra registers and
Stephen> instructions (branching, mult/div, bigger stack, etc.), i.e.
Stephen> more powerful/flexible.
I still claim that the 6809 is the most powerful 8-bit processor ever
made. With 16-bit accumulator, index registers, stack pointer and
branch instructions it fixes all of the 6502's shortcomings. And even
cooler, there's a version of it with multiprocessor support. And it's
really easy to port 6502 source code since the instruction sets are
fairly similar.
Stephen> I have a model III, which came standard with 128k. The CoCo's
Stephen> had OS/9 ported to them early on (nice multitasking OS), and
Stephen> a lot of development work has been done in that area.
OS/9 is a really nice UNIX-like realtime OS. I've been wanting to try
it since a friend of mine found the users and programmers manual a few
months ago.
Stephen> A number of resources are available on the web. There is also
Stephen> a CoCo mailing list and a newsgroup. There may even be an
Stephen> emulator.
There's a freeware CoCo II emulator, the CoCo III emulator is share-
ware.
If you're interested in learning more about CoCos,
http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab594/coco.html
has all the links you'll ever need.
PS: yes, I want one. :)
--
___ . . . . . + . . o
_|___|_ + . + . + . . + + Per Olofsson
o-o . . . o + MagerValp@Goth.Org
- + + . http://www.cling.gu.se/~cl3polof/
-
This message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list.
To unsubscribe: echo unsubscribe | mail cbm-hackers-request@dot.tcm.hut.fi.
Archive generated by hypermail 2.1.1.