Coco variations (was: Proper name for Tandy Color Computer?

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 23:48 +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
> > 
> > IIRC, Tandy also made a "Vidoetext" terminal that was in a white version
> > of the Coco 1 case.
> 
> I've always wondered what was inside that Videotex machine. I've not seen 
> the service manual on the web anywhere, and I've never seen any info in 
> print. Is it a modified CoCo? Does it even have a 6809 + 6883 (SAM) + 
> 6847 (VDG) in the middile of it?
> 
> -tony
> 
> 

I believe the videotex terminal was the predecessor to the coco 1. It's
motherboard was based on Motorola's reference design for the 6809.

The videotex machine was silver. The later white coco 1's were general
purpose machines (I'm not sure if they all had 64K but maybe). At the
very least they had a different keyboard.

The original chiclet keyboard has one advantage-- you can put a template
over it to give special meaning to each key, and these templates were
shipped with some programs.


-- John.