knudsen (10/26/82)
I stopped by local Lady O'Shack yesterday with 8-yr son to check out the 16K Color Computer. I was pretty well impressed. But before I try to get wife to release $300 (with aid of son, who thought the games were pretty good), I'd like to know: 1) Can the basic 16K machine be later retro-fitted up to the "extended BASIC", or should I spend $100 more for that now? I understand the Extended gives better color graphics functions; is it worth $100 extra? 2) Spec sheet sez the 6809E inside is clocked at 0.89 MHz. Seems slow; that chip is rated 2.0 MHz, right? Why is this, and what can be done about it? (I like to synthesize music, so want speed). 3) What is their expansion buss like? Full 16-bit address? Easy to hook up home-brew hack cards to? It could be clean like the 6809, or did they hose it up like S100 did to the 8080? 4) How easily can I expand screen to 64--80 chars and LOWER CASE? (Yeah--buy some mem-map video board, right? Well, at least it need not have graphics!!!). 5) Is the sound generator inside really limited to one tone at a time, at rather limited random pitches, or can it play 3+ genuine musical pitches at once? Someone here told me they use a genuine D-A converter, but it sounded like bad old square wave to me. 6) How do you rate the BASIC and machine-code monitor? I DEFINITELY want to write machine code for a beatiful architecture like the 6809; wihtout mach8ne code, I might as well use a Z80. PS--The analog (!) joystick, as used in the Missile Command (Polaris) game, is terrific. Also the BASIC can do File I/O to the casette, for us folks too poor to buy floppies. Please post comments to net.micro -- thanks.
dyer (10/27/82)
Two magazines which deal exclusively with the TRS-80 Color Computer are: The Rainbow 5803 Timber Ridge Drive P.O. Box 209 Prospect, KY 40059 ($16/yr.) Color Computer News REMarkable Software P.O. Box 1192 Muskegon, MI 49443 ($21/yr [I think]) They are both very similar, catering to a wide audience, from beginners to hackers. I find them most valuable as a source of advertisers (which are scarce in the mainstream magazines.) Also, both are beginning to have information on versions of FLEX and OS-9, as alternatives to the Radio Shack disk OS.