knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (mike knudsen) (05/27/86)
I just attended all 3 days of the Chicago area RainbowFest (CoCo). If there is a fest yet to come in your area, you may be interested in some observations. First, there are some real bargains to be had. Radio Shack has the biggest booth there and they were selling stuff at 30-40% of list price! Not just old items, but some new ones, like $600 daisy wheel printer (DWP-220) for $250, and the inkjet color printer (CGP-220( for $150. Oh yes, 64K Cocos for $99 and Drive 0 w/ controller for $150 (that's the new half-height drive in dual case, too). Other vendors were doing almost as well. How about two of the latest 1/2-height DS 40s in a case with cable for $210? Tandons, and really quiet. Disk controllers for $50 (HDS, new last year). Lots of Tandy-1000 stuff there too -- Shack's RGB monitor for $199, etc. So you TRS-80 types should attend too. If you've been waiting for some major purchases, get to a Fest, even if you have to drive all day and sack out in a motel. However, some vendors of the past Fests were absent in Chicago: Frank Hogg, Computerware, CerComp and others. Some new faces were selling some OS9 utilities. Also nobody was selling the Banker RAM extension kits, so I got one of every DISTO item from CRC's booth. (DISTO stuff is great under their BASIC CDOS; I haven't got it all going under OS9 yet). Some of the technical talks were good, especially one on the inner secrets of CocoMax. More dirty tricks than you'd ever remember from your BASIC assembler days. And the four-synthesizer MIDI concert, and a new music score editor. I'd be glad to answer any requests for details by email. Also to give results of my comparison shopping among 5 (yes, five!) different Coco disk controllers. keep on coco-in' -- mike k PS: J&M had their Hard Drives (10 & 20) Meg there -- $500 for the smaller one (w/out controller, uses their newer floppy controller). Looked and worked great.