The Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer was known to be called "coco" (Color Computer) by its users. It uses its own version of BASIC, "Tandy Color BASIC" instead of the world famous Microsoft BASIC.
More information about the various Tandy Color BASIC versions from Lee Veal
:
In reality, the 'dialects' of BASIC on all versions of the TRS-80 Color Computer 1s & 2s were written by Microsoft for Tandy. That includes Color BASIC (CB), Extended Color BASIC (ECB) and Disk Extended Color BASIC (DECB).
In fact, with very few modifcations, BASIC programs from an IBM-PC or compatible using Microsoft BASIC could run on a CoCo and vice versa. (The way I know that is that I did it. Some were quite complex graphics oriented programs.)
Within one-half K of the beginning the Color BASIC ROM address, there's a character string that reads "COLOR BASIC 1.0(C) 1980 TANDYMICROSOFT". When you fire up a CoCo 1 that has only the Color BASIC ROM, you'll see on the screen
COLOR BASIC 1.0
(C) 1980 TANDY
The authors of Tandy's Color BASIC (Microsoft) left their name in the code, but they left it off the opening display.
Subsequent levels of CoCo BASIC (Extended CB and Disk Extended CB) had Microsoft prominently displayed in the opening display. Thus, Color BASIC was quite compatible for obvious reasons with the BASIC that Microsoft develped for the PC. Extended and Disk Extended versions of CoCo BASIC were even more compatible with Microsoft's BASIC for the PC.
On the other hand, the BASIC dialects contained in computers like the Commodore-64, TI-994A, etc were quite incompatible with any version of Microsoft BASIC.
The BASIC developed by Microware (the developers of the OS-9 operating system and originally Tandy's first choice of a BASIC developer), called BASIC09, was NOT compatible with Microsoft BASIC. BASIC09 is and was a powerful language that compiled to intermediate code but it is more akin to Pascal then BASIC.
The CoCo actually did use Microsoft Color Basic which tandy licensed from Microsoft... as a matter of fact, the fact is listed every time the machine boots on the startup screen.
Sunday 17th June 2018
david1024 (USA)
Hey does anyone know what these are worth I''m sitting on about 4 of them that I picked up at a flea Market for 5 bucks
Monday 15th June 2015
Robert (Usa)
To call the Dragon 32 a "clone" is rather unfair. The CoCo and the Dragon were both simply implementations of the Motorola reference design for a computer based on the 6809 microprocessor. The Dragon 32 was my first computer (and later I got a 64). I ordered the Motorola datasheet for the 6809 to help my assembly language programming and it included the circuit design which was used for both machines.
Sunday 1st September 2013
Nick Ellerby (UK)
NAME
Color Computer
MANUFACTURER
Tandy Radio Shack
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1980
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
Tandy (Microsoft) BASIC interpreter
KEYBOARD
QWERTY, calculator type keyboard
CPU
Motorola 6809 E
SPEED
0.895 MHz (or 1.79 MHz)
RAM
4 KB (up to 64 KB)
ROM
8 KB
TEXT MODES
max : 16 x 32, min : 16 x 8
GRAPHIC MODES
Several graphic modes, max : 256 x 192 (with 2 colors)
COLORS
9
SOUND
1 voice
SIZE / WEIGHT
36.9 (W) x 34.4 (D) x 9.4 (H) cm
I/O PORTS
Tape, RGB, Joystick (2), Monitor, Cardridge, Serial RS232
