ehwest (11/01/82)
May I suggest some answers to questions posted regarding the coco.
(1) The extended basic $100 cost only buys you a users manual
and a rom which plugs in an empty socket. I asked Motorola
for a sample and they sent one! You could plug in an EPROM
if you wanted.
(2) You can cut a few leads inside and wire in a 1.00 MHZ crystal
for the processor, but then the music and baud rate timing
software would be wrong.
(3) I have found the expansion bus great except that the capacitive
loading on the bus address lines is already nearly too much.
Any length of connector greater than about 3 inches requires
that bus drivers for all address, clock and data lines be
mounted right on the plug in card. That takes about 4-5 ICs.
(4) Eighty character lines with uc/lc is done in software in most
cases. However you can hardly read it on a standard color
TV. The background noise on the screen becomes very annoying.
(5) You can easily add a sound generator chip by building a plug in
module with one. A sound input line is available on the
expansion bus.
(6) Motorola applications engineers designed the Color Computer
for Tandy in Phoenix. Tandy had microsoft do the operating
system for 250K$, I heard.
(7) If you ever need replacement Ics, write to Motorola in Austin,
TX. They'll replace them free.