These darned old computers

From: Bob Shannon <bshannon_at_tiac.net>
Date: Sat Aug 24 10:05:01 2002

Yes,

A CoCo can be attached to any monitor, using a nail gun.

Sellam Ismail wrote:

>Well, I finally had some success with these old computers I've been trying
>to get working.
>
>The Atari problem ended up being with the power supply. Its plug did not
>properly fit the power receptacle on the computer. Once I got the proper
>power supply it worked like a champ. More like I remember the last time I
>played with an Atari 800 a few years ago. Then, I was amazed at how easy
>it was to get up and running with a disk-based Atari 800. Everything is
>total plug and play (but for real). I now like the Atari 800 :)
>
>The TRS-80 M3 was a LOT of work but I finally got it running. It turns
>out the problem with most of the units I tested most likely was a bad
>keyboard or just my ignorance in not knowing how to boot it into BASIC ;)
>I finally found one that had a decent keyboard and would boot to BASIC if
>I held down the BREAK key upon boot-up or after a reset. I wanted to
>make one nice machine out of two that I had. I moved the good keyboard
>to the nicer one. The nicer one didn't have the serial port board, so I
>moved it from the yucky one to the nice one. No wonder RS wanted you to
>bring the machine in to the service center to get it upgraded. This is
>NOT an easy computer to work on. I had to unscrew everything to remove
>the motherboard to both take out the card on the one and install it on the
>other. Also, there is a power cable that is added for the serial port
>option when it's upgraded, so I had to cut the zip ties holding the cable
>in place on the old one to move it to the new one. What a shit design.
>The stuck brightness and contrast knobs were fixed with a healthy helping
>of Deoxit, which is this deoxidizing agent. I worked the knobs back
>and forth and they loosened up nicely. Now everything works great. I
>now like the TRS-80 Model III :)
>
>The Commodore 64 I have is just plum dead. Or at least it seems to be.
>The video cable I am using has four connectors on it: red, yellow, white
>and black. The 1702 monitor has three jacks on the back: chroma, luma and
>audio. I tried all different combinations trying to get video on the
>display but no die. What's the deal with that? I think I'm using the
>wrong video cable, but all the C64 stashes I check turn up this
>4-connector cable. I forgot to bring home the spare C64's I was going to
>have as stand-by's so I don't currently have another C64 to compare with.
>I know I have a three-connector cable that I'm sure goes to the C64 but I
>cannot find one for the life of me. Grrr. I still hate the C64.
>
>The Radio Shack Color Computer 2 is confusing. And somewhat lame. I have
>to go find the disk controller carthridge to attach disk drives to it.
>Then I have to find the proper disk drives. Fine. But I can't figure out
>the video. I want to connect it to an Amdek color monitor. The only
>video jack is the RCA type on the back that seems to be a built in RF
>modulator. So needless to say I don't get video on the display. I can't
>find any mention on the web of adding an external monitor to the CoCo.
>The CoCo2 is lame. I do not like the CoCo2.
>
>Any idea on how to hook the CoCo2 to a composite monitor?
>
>Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
>
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>
>
Received on Sat Aug 24 2002 - 10:05:01 BST

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