TRS-80 Color Computer

A TRS-80 Color Computer with peripherals and games.

The TRS-80 Color Computer (nicknamed the CoCo) is an 8-bit personal computer created by Tandy Corporation and first sold through Radio Shack in 1980. Though part of the TRS-80 series, it was entirely incompatible with the earlier Model I.

The computer used a Motorola 6809E CPU and collected a pretty impressive software library, but few publishers targeted it for original software, so, it mostly only saw ports. Despite having rather impressive hardware, the CoCo was out-competed by more affordable rivals like the Apple II, Commodore 64, and the Atari 8-bit line of computers. It boots into Color BASIC. The CoCo seems to have served as a basis for Fujitsu's FM-8 and FM-7 computer models.

Personal

My uncle had a CoCo around 1985 and I was enamored by it. At that age, I enjoyed pretty much anything that emitted beeps and colorful graphics, and being able to play games on it was fantastic. My cousin showed me several games that he had for it. I remember playing Lurkley Manor, a motorcycle barrel-jumping game, and some other game he had typed in from The Rainbow magazine.