CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer 1st Edition

by Boisy G Pitre (Author), Bill Loguidice (Author)

61 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-1466592476

ISBN-10: 1466592478

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CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer is the first book to document the complete history of the Tandy Color Computer (CoCo), a popular 8-bit PC series from the 1980s that competed against the era's biggest names, including the Apple II, IBM PC, and Commodore 64. The book takes you inside the interesting stories and people behind this unique, underdog computer.

Both noted computer science and technology advocates, authors Pitre and Loguidice reveal the story of a pivotal period in the home computing revolution from the perspective of Tandy's CoCo. As these computers were sold in Radio Shack stores throughout the United States and other countries, they provide a critical point of reference for key events in the unprecedented evolutionary period for the PC industry in the 1980s. The book also features first-hand accounts from the people who created and promoted the CoCo, from the original Tandy executives and engineers to today's active product creators and information keepers.

The CoCo impacted many lives, and this book leaves no stone unturned in recounting this fascinating slice of the PC revolution that is still in play today. From early telecommunications experiments to engineering and budgetary challenges, it covers all the aspects that made the CoCo a truly personal, useful computing experience in as small and inexpensive a package as possible.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

" … an extensive yet accessible history of one of the first home computers … Highly Recommended."
―CHOICE

About the Author

Boisy G. Pitre
Boisy Pitre has been an avid and passionate advocate for the Color Computer for nearly 30 years. In 1992, he joined Microware Systems Corporation, the makers of OS-9, as a software engineer, and has worked in the industry ever since. Today, he remains a part of the CoCo community, leading various open source initiatives and working with his partner Mark Marlette at Cloud-9 to provide hardware and software for the Color Computer hobbyist.

Boisy is a graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he obtained his Master and Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. Boisy and his wife, Toni, reside in the quiet countryside of Prairie Ronde, Louisiana.

Bill Loguidice
Bill Loguidice is a critically acclaimed technology author and documentary producer, as well as co-founder and Managing Director for the online publication, Armchair Arcade. A noted videogame and computer historian and subject matter expert, Bill personally owns and maintains well over 500 different systems from the 1970s to the present day, including a large volume of associated materials.

Bill resides in Burlington, New Jersey, with his wife and regular co-author, Christina, and his three daughters, Amelie, Olivia, and Evangeline.

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Product details

Publisher : CRC Press; 1st edition (December 10, 2013)
Language : English
Paperback : 203 pages
ISBN-10 : 1466592478
ISBN-13 : 978-1466592476
Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
Dimensions : 6.13 x 0.46 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,951,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #558 in Computing Industry History
- #758 in Computer Hardware Design & Architecture
- #1,331 in Computer Graphics

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61 ratings

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True to its title, it is a thorough history of the Color Computer, its development, evolution, and struggles

Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2013

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Anyone who spent time using a Tandy Color Computer will certainly enjoy the unlikely tale of how the TRS-80 Color Computer came into being. This book takes the reader back to the beginning of Tandy/Radio Shack's earlier foundations which positioned it uniquely to become a major player in the first consumer personal computer market. It presents the chronological history of the Color Computer, successfully integrating the stories of the company and people responsible for its design, manufacture, and marketing. As with all history, its is the often unexpected connections that seemingly create the right circumstances, the right people in the right place at the right time. This book presents the inside story and reveals the challenges that were overcome to keep the Color Computer a successful & profitable Tandy product for ten years. Intertwined, are the important stories of both Microware, Rainbow magazine, and the devoted users/owners of the Color Computer. I read this book in a weekend. The book is filled with great photographs and while you cannot help but be filled with nostalgia, it is not the focus of the book. The book carries you along, providing insights into how the computer narrowly avoided being dumped by Tandy at many points in its evolution. This book is a pleasure to read. Its journalistic style lets the story tell itself seamlessly, through events and the people involved.

22 people found this helpful

Helpful

D. Read

One of the great computing stories of the classic PC era

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2014

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I know what you're thinking: can I part with the bucks for this book? If the subject matter interests you at all, I encourage you to take the leap. The book is a professional production, professionally edited and printed, and clearly well researched, with a lot of photos and reproductions of magazine covers and advertisements. I'm pointing all this out because I hesitated for a while before buying the book, but I was pleased to find that the book was worth it. Besides the professional production, I very much enjoyed reading it. I had a CoCo I, a CoCo II, and a CoCo III. The CoCo III put me through college--all my papers written on it, saved to 5.25" floppy, and printed in dot matrix.

My father was a CoCo enthusiast (especially his favorite flight simulator game), and as teenagers, my brother and I were deep into CoCo culture. We devoured each issue of Rainbow magazine, typed in the program listings line by line, and bought tons of cartridge and cassette-based games. We spent hours playing text adventures, including the infamous unsolvable Raaka-Tu, which we even attempted to map out on sheets of paper.

This is the book I was waiting for, to tell the whole story. There are other stories and books that are worthwhile also, but this is the full end-to-end story. It's funny, right after reading this I happened to watch the Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kuchner--the stories of internal workings at Tandy, and all the things the CoCo designers had to go through to bring the products to market, reminded me a lot of those scenes in the movie, where the internal workings of post-IPO Apple at the same time are depicted. Recommended!

3 people found this helpful

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James Jones

The story of the last computer with a personality

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2014

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Once upon a time computers weren't commodity items. They weren't interchangeable, and finding people who used the same one you used meant something--especially because most of the time, if you used a computer, you could program it.

If you used a CoCo, you'll want CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer to recall those days, and while you're at it you will learn things and enjoy tales you haven't heard before. If you used some other computer in those days, you'll learn even more, and still have the pleasure of recollection. If you are from a later generation, you'll learn the most of all from it--and that matters because, despite what I said at the beginning, we have hopes of returning to an era of knowledgeable users. If you're working toward that end, learn from the past.

This book is the story of the people and events that influenced the history of one of the last computers that had a personality and that still has a committed core of users and hardware being developed for it. Some of the events were fortunate, some not so much (if I could hop to an alternative universe in which Hitachi could and did document and publicize the added features of the 6309, I'd do it in a heartbeat).

3 people found this helpful

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Mark J. Blair

A delightful history of a popular computer and the communities that arose around it.

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2013

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My first exposure to computers was a TRS-80 Color Computer. Although I stepped away from the community of Color Computer enthusiasts when I got my Amiga 1000 in 1986, the Color Computer played an import part in the development of my hobbies and career. I became interested in retrocomputing not long ago, and I was surprised to find that an active community of CoCo enthusiasts still exists. In a fortunate coincidence, this book was made available for pre-ordering just about the same time I regained interest in the CoCo.

As a person who was very enthusiastic about the CoCo but moved on to different interests years before the CoCo went out of development and production, this book provided three things to me: A reminder of my own history with the CoCo and its community of enthusiasts, a deeper understanding of its early history and development, and a good summary of later developments after my attention wandered, all the way up to the present-day CoCo enthusiast community. I was previously only dimly aware of CoCo developments after 1986, and I was surprised to learn how much life the CoCo still had left in it after that time.

I recommend this book for anybody interested in the CoCo's chapters of computer history. It is a pleasant read, with the right level of detail to interest CoCo enthusiasts with any level of technical background.

13 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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S DAVIES

Very interesting read, only complaints being the price and ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 14, 2014

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Very interesting read, only complaints being the price and very US centric (then again what can I expect from a US company). Also the magazine coverage is very much Rainbow only, little of the competition gets a look in which is a shame.

Glen VanDenBiggelaar

CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer

Reviewed in Canada on January 11, 2014

Verified Purchase

I was a teenager in the 1980's and my first computer was the CoCo. While all the other 8 bit machines of the day used the 6502 CPU,the CoCo used the 6809, a far more powerful CPU. Here was the rebel, the true underdog of the day.Many people balk and say that it didn't have the graphics or the sound capabilities to match the C64, it was designed and built years before the C64 ever saw the light of day. It was truly more of a successor to the 68000 systems than any other 8 bit micro at the time.
There was really no internet back them, so you had to read magazines and the Radio Shack Catalog to keep up with what was going on with the CoCo. This book shows that there was so much more to it, From Tandy looking it at first to not much more than a toy and was shocked that people were using it for Business to the rise of the Unix like OS- OS9. To the Rainbowfest and User groups to the canceled "Deluxe Color Computer" and the last CoCo 3. This book has interviews with the people that were there from the start to the end of production and beyond. This book has so much, but it just scratches the surface and hopefully, someday there is a Vol.2 with even more interviews and revelations.
If you had a CoCo, this book is for you. If you wondered why so many people had it and loved it, this book is for you. If you grew up with a C64 and couldn't understand why the CoCo was the main competition for it, this book is for you. I couldn't put it down and read it all in 2 sittings in less than 2 days.The CoCo spirit truly lives on to this day, and this book shows you why.
When I was a teen, all I had was a 16K CoCo 1 with a tape drive, Today, I have owned at one time or another, most of the CoCo's and Peripherals- Why can't I just move on from this machine that a modern cell phone is a billion times faster? Read the book and find out. Chances are you will want to grab a CoCo and just go nuts after reading this book.

3 people found this helpful

Schwertmeister

Ein Großartiges Buch (auf Englisch) für (Ex-) Coco Besitzer

Reviewed in Germany on June 16, 2014

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Ein Großartiges Buch (auf Englisch) für (Ex-) Coco Besitzer- in dem Buch findet man viele Hintergrundgeschichten um den Coco2 herum und viele Fotos u. Screenshots aus alter Zeit. Tolles Buch, wenn man den Coco kannte und mochte!

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D. Bruce Moore

Fabulous

Reviewed in Canada on December 21, 2017

Verified Purchase

A treasure trove of history on the beloved “Coco”. So, THAT’S how it happened! Thanks, Boisy, for this labour of love!

Pablo

The complete story of one of the most US popular computers.

Reviewed in Canada on November 4, 2017

Verified Purchase

If during the '80s you own and enjoy a Coco, you must read this book. I enjoyed it very much....

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CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer 1st Edition

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