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by bediger4000 1789 days ago
Radio Shack Color Computer III - they had a multi-tasking OS, OS-9, that worked via memory bank switching. It had a windowing system that worked via in-band signalling, which is quite different than any windowing system today.
2 comments
wisemanwillhear 1788 days ago
I grew up on a Color Computer 2 (Coco 2) (Exact same specs as the Coco 1 but reduced number of chips, making it cheaper I understand). Learning to program on it as early as 7 years old got me hooked on software development. Later someone gave us a Coco 3, which was too little, too late be a market success. Still, there was something attractive about the simplicity of those old 8-bit computers.

At the end of the day, the majority of 8 bit home computers didn't have a path forward that included more powerful CPUs with advanced features and backwards compatibility and were always doomed for eventual obsoleting.

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watersb 1787 days ago
Learning to write 6809 Assembly language programs set me up quite nicely for the wave 32-bit 68000 machines.

But yes, I think microcomputers had to get more complicated to move forward. The original Macintosh team worked like mad to keep the hardware design as simple as possible, but virtually no computer manufacturer could afford a project like that.

(The first Mac hardware prototype was a 6809 board. Not a CoCo :-)

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peatmoss 1787 days ago
Yes, we had a CoCo2 as well. What I mostly remember was the cassette recorder disk drive, which was kind of like recorded modem sounds. There were a handful of games that plugged in via a cartridge on the side (like an NES, but usually with more boring games). But then there were some commercial games distributed on cassette tape as well, such as this one:

https://www.pixelatedarcade.com/games/taxi

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drewzero1 1788 days ago
I have a CoCo 1 that I picked up at a thrift store while missing my childhood Apple ][e. While learning about the CoCo I discovered that it had its own rich ecosystem, and I've come to really love this black sheep of the TRS-80 family.

Someday I'd like to pick up a CoCo 3 and disk drive(s), it really seems like a leap forward from the capabilities of my original CoCo.

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