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Volume 1, ISSUE 9

December 2005

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Welcome everyone to the December issue of the CoCo Lounge online Magazine.It's Christmas time again. For most that means time with the family, the Heavy Christmas rush to buy those last minute gifts, The cooking and everything else. What I remember most about Christmas 20 some odd years ago, was all the Radio Shack ads! Every where you looked, RS was plugging the CoCo and other gifts Ideas. It was the best place to find gadgets an stocking stuffers and (of course) the batteries! Who could ever forget the BINS of batteries - and they were always in Christmas colors-RED and Green. If I remember correctly, the red were the cheap ones and the greens were the "HIGH END". I remember buying a battery tester for Christmas for my parents, and its still being used today! I miss all the shack commercials, Here in Canada, Radio Shack still hasn't made a big comeback after Circuit City bought out INTERTAN Canada. It just doesn't feel right without them.

Monitors for the CoCo
This month I wanted to take a closer look at Monitors for the CoCo, as I have has a few E-mails from "new" collectors.
As far as I know, the original CoCo, and the CoCo 2 did not have an "official Monitor" released.
Most of the 8 bit machines were like this, and were designed to take advantage of what most people already owned at home- the TV. It certainly was a lot cheaper for manufacturers to design this way, and even the pioneers in the field like Steve Wozniak will come right out and admit this. Tandy, with the model one, knew this was a fact and the model 1's monitor was in fact an off the shelf Black and White TV with the tuner removed. The early TRS 80 1000 also had a TV out, but Monitors were quickly adapted and adopted, as families had to fight between computer, TV, and Video Game time, As more than 1 TV in the average household was not the norm.

But wait, Radio Shack on their catalogs Always had the same monitor with the sliver CoCo 1's (See picture above). Yes, this is true, all of RS's adverting showed this "Monitor", and if you look closely, you will see the label saying "TRS 80 Color Video" on it. I never saw this particular TV at RS. RS did sell many TV's back in the 1980, usual under the house brand "Archer" or "Realistic". Obviously, this is just a regular Color TV, but it is unknown if this was just a mock up for advertising or maybe down in the US, they actually sold them. One thing is know, There is no "Official" monitor for the CoCo 1 or 2

The CoCo 3
The CoCo 3 DID have a monitor made for it. In fact with the new GIME chip, not only Composite out was available, RCA cables (audio and video) could be hooked up or a monitor could be used. Tandy only made one monitor for the CoCo 3 - The CM 8, and made sure, that none of the other Tandy monitors were used. It had a different connector than normal Tandy 1000's and even though it is an RGB monitor, it use a very low frequency rate. To this day, many people debate on the poor quality of this monitor, and the CoCo users still are split whether to stick with a TV or use a CM-8. Also, it is worth noteting that you will get different color and quality results whether you use a TV, RCA outs or a RGB monitor. I like the monitor myself, but I have not seen other monitors to make a true comparison.

The CM 8 monitor is not the ONLY monitor that can be used with the CoCo 3 though. IT IS the only one put out by Tandy, but many people prefer (with cable adapters ) to use such Monitors as Magnavox 8CM515, the Commodore 1084S, and the NEC Multi sync 3DS (cable adapters are available though Cloud 9). It is my opinion that the most popular was the Magnavox, but I could be wrong. There probably were a hand full of others, but these are the most popular.

Modifications
Some people have(apparently) successfully modified monitors such Tandy's CM-5 monitor to be used with a CoCo 3. Although the truth is somewhere in between modifying the CoCo and Modifying the monitor. There is no "clear" answer. I had asked this questions to the CoCo fourms and I got so many different answers, that it made my head swim. My advice, DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. CM-8's are just as easily bought on E-bay as CM-5's. You just have to watch the prices. Times (like now) there is 1 or 2 collector that it seems they have more money than brains. you just have to wait until these people run low on cash, then you can grab them. I have seen them around Christmas go for as high as $160 (last January) to as low as $15 (this last june). Just remember, it's the shipping that will kill you!

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