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The Color Computer (affectionately known as a Coco and formerly
sold by Tandy) has got to be the most underrated computer ever made.
It was based on the Motorola MC6809E. The circuit used for the original
Coco 1 was, almost part for part, shown in the Motorola spec sheet
for the SN74LS783 - MC6883, a synchronous address multiplexer (called
by Cocoists a SAM.) The third major chip in the Coco was the MC6847
Color Video Display Generator.
The Coco 1 was an 8/16 bit computer running at 0.89/1.78 MHz. The
text screen was 32 letters by 16 lines in uppercase. Graphics resolution
was 256x192x2 although owners quickly found that color artifacting
produced by the composite video output could increase the color
count by one or two orders of magnitude. Memory was limited to 32K
ROM plus 64K RAM. With the Coco 3, the final version made by Tandy,
the support chips were enhanced to produce a base unit with 128K
RAM, 80x25 character text, 640x192x4 or 320x192x16 graphics, and
RGB video output. The Coco1 did have one graphics capability that
the Coco3 lacks, Semigraphics.
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