Computers
Upgrading
a
Radio Shack
"Bare
Bones"
Color Computer
How to
add 64K
RAM,
Extended
BASIC
and
64- column
video
output
to
CoCo
By
John
Richardson
One of the
hottest
selling
holiday- season
products
last
year
was
Radio Shack's
"bare
bones"
Color
Computer
II,
featuring
16K of
memory
(RAM)
and
Standard
BASIC.
Priced
at
only
$88 they
sold
like ice pops
in July,
but
many buyers
soon
discovered
that
its 16K
RAM
and
"standard"
version of
BASIC
doesn't
do
very
much.
Well,
here's
how
to
inexpen-
sively
upgrade
it to
run
World Class
word processing
and
telecommuni-
cations
software
-stuff
that
puts
to
shame
a
lot of
the
mega -buck
soft-
ware being
sold
for even
"business
computers."
Basically,
all
it takes
is less
than
$50
and
an evening's
effort
to
up-
grade the
CoCo
II to a
high- perfor-
mance
computer
having
both
64K
RAM
and a
video
monitor
ouptut
ca-
pable
of
displaying
64
columns,
rath-
er
than
the CoCo's
normal
32
col-
umn
TV
display.
With these
one -eve-
ning
retrofits
you can
then
run Mi-
keyTerm,
a public
domain
modem
program,
and
Telewriter
-64, an
un-
der-$70
word processor
that's
easier
to
use,
much easier
to learn,
and
even
more powerful
than
WordStar
(it
can
transmit
any
printer
control
codes),
and
it can
directly
save
its
files
in ASCII
or
binary.
Unlike
most
modern
telecommu-
nications
software
that
requires
con-
siderable
time
and
effort
to
learn
to
-----.---__...
, .......
-
°-.
r
1111.1111111010110111M11110
11111111111111111111111111111111110111111
use,
and
which
requires
frequent
re-
ference
to the documentation
if not
used every
day,
MikeyTerm
operates
from
a
single
menu.
Even
more im-
portant,
it
features dynamic
buffer
control,
which
in plain
English
means the
user can
instantly select
and
save parts
of
the
incoming
text
because
it takes
only
one
key
to
open
/close
the
receive buffer,
which
is later
dumped
to mass storage.
Upgrading
the
16K CoCo
II is a
lot
like
making
over Cinderella
from
a
"Plain Jane"
into a princess
because
most of
what's
needed
is already
there.
The only
extras
required
for
high
-performance
word processing
and
telecommunications
is
a
video
output
for a conventional
composite
monochrome
or color
monitor, and
sufficient
RAM to store
many
pages
of
the text -preferably
64KB.
Also,
if you
want to get
into sophisticated
programming
you'll
need
Extended
BASIC -an
enhanced
version of the
BASIC
used
in the higher
priced
ver-
sions
of the CoCo
II.
Built For Factory
Upgrades
From the
introduction of the original
CoCo -what
enthusiasts
call
the
CoCo
I -Radio
Shack
intended the
16K computer
to
have its RAM and
BASIC upgraded
by its own
service
stations,
so sockets
and jumpers
were built
into the motherboard
for
just about
every
integrated circuit
24
/
MODERN ELECTRONICS
/
September
1986
Say You Saw It In Modern Electronics
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