Last Sunday I went to the
Glenside Color Computer Club's 2012
CoCoFEST. What's a CoCoFEST, you ask? It is a vintage computer convention centered around the
Tandy/ Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer line of 8-bit home computers which were sold from 1980-1991. This was my very first time going to this particular vintage computer convention, and I had a lot of fun buying a whole bunch of "CoCo"-related stuff for myself, including:
- 4 Full-Height CoCo-compatible 5.25" floppy drives, made by various manufacturers. As for why I bought 4 of these rather large and heavy metal-cased floppy drives (they each are about the size and weight of a cinder block) instead of just one (which is all I really needed), as I often do with inexpensive questionable-condition vintage electronics I decided to apply the "Mongolian Hordes technique" to my purchasing strategy. In other words, since there is no guarantee that *any* of these old beat-up and in some cases slightly rusty floppy drives are still in working condition, I decided to increase my chances of getting one working floppy drive by buying 4 of them. There are members of the vintage computer collecting club that have the knowledge, tools, and expertise to repair and re-align vintage floppy drives, but as of right now I do not currently have these skills so I decided to hedge my bets by buying these fragile devices in quantity.
- 2 brand new never-opened old-stock CCR-83 Computer Cassette Recorders. Once again I only really needed one of these, but the vendor selling them told me that they cost $10 for one, but that he would make me a deal and sell me two for $12. Well, I took him up on that, and I plan to use one with my CoCo and keep the other factory-sealed in its box as a neat little collector's piece.
- 2 "Direct Connect Modem Paks for the Color Computer." While these two 300-baud modems did come in their original boxes, they are anything but new, so since they were inexpensive I applied the Mongolian Hordes technique to buying them as well.
- A TRS-80 "X-PAD." This is some kind of line-artwork digitizing pad with a stylus (think 1980's ancestor to today's Wacom tablets), which I was told was only compatible with the CoCo1 (which I do not have). You also need some other accessory that I don't have before you can actually use it. While I am not able to utilize this particularly cool-looking piece of hardware at this point in time, it was free so I still snapped it up!
- The TRS-80 Color Computer-related books, Color Computer Graphics and Introducing Your Color Computer 3.
- The following software titles: Zone Runner, Ghanabwana, Color Computer Artist, Rogue, Koronis Rift, and Color Math. Most of these are still factory-sealed in their original packaging, which is pretty awesome!
- I won a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 through the CoCoFEST's live voice auction!
- My biggest ticket item was a working Tandy CM 8 color monitor for the CoCo3, which cost almost as much as everything else that I bought put together. With that said, the monitor was in great shape so I figured that paying to get such a nice matching monitor for my system would be worth it.
- Various other computer-related odds and ends, such as a 40GB PATA (IDE) hard drive, a Logitech trackball, some various adapters and electrical components, etc.
To add to all of that wonderful goodness, I also won a fantastic door prize while I was there-- a $25 roll of golden $1 coins, which came in handy when I was bidding in the CoCoFEST live voice auction!
As a result, all things considered I was extremely ecstatic with my purchases, and I couldn't wait until I got home and I pulled the TRS-80 Color Computer that I already had out of storage in my basement and I tried out some of this new stuff on it, well that is until I actually did...
To explain, a lot of the software and the relatively expensive monitor that I bought could only be used with a 128K or better TRS-80 Color Computer 3. That was because I was absolutely convinced that my one and only Color Computer that I owned before I went to this convention, which I bought on eBay many years ago, *was* a 128K Color Computer 3. That was also why I happily bought the 64K Color Computer 2 that was up for auction at CoCoFEST-- I thought that I was adding a CoCo2 to the CoCo3 that I already allegedly had, expanding the number of models of CoCo's that I had in my collection. However, when I pulled my original CoCo's box out of storage in my basement, in bold red letters on its side was written the following: "
Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 2."
*facepalm* Instead of having a CoCo3 and a CoCo2 like I thought that I had, it turns out that I actually now own two 64K CoCo2's. Count on me, Mr. Absent-Minded Professor, to pull a complete boneheaded move like that!
So the very pricey CM 8 monitor and nearly all of the software that I bought at CoCoFEST this year is actually completely unusable with the model of the Color Computer that I have!
*sigh*With that said, does anybody know where I could pick up an inexpensive TRS-80 Color Computer 3? It turns out that I kind of need one now!
