dyer (05/08/83)
You undoubtedly will receive many different responses from people
with favorite micro-computers, and to an extent, they all will be
right: it's hard to get a real dog among the mass-market small
computers. But I think that one, the TRS-80 Color Computer satisfies
all your requirements:
o low cost - 16K standard BASIC $200
16K extended BASIC $300
32K extended BASIC $400 (actually, this is a 64K machine)
o attaches to your TV and uses an ordinary cassette recorder
o there are several editor-assembler packages available: two,
Radio Shack's EDTASM and Micro Works' SDS80-C reside in ROMPACs,
and therefore use little of the precious RAM.
o there are several bit-mapped graphics modes available, and there
are several books describing how to use them in BASIC and assembly
language.
o you get an 8-bit micro with perhaps the nicest 64K-limited architecture
available: the 6809. Rather like a single-address PDP-11, it
makes the Z80 and 6502 look primitive by comparison.
o a disk subsystem is available, and with that, and a 64K upgrade,
you will be able to run "real" operating systems such as FLEX
and OS-9 (the latter a UNIX look-alike constrained to 64K.)
o commercial software is relatively low-cost, compared to CP/M
systems.
Hope this helps, and have fun looking.
/Steve Dyer
decvax!wivax!dyer