Last post here...

Howdy folks. The title says it really. Four years ago, when Cris asked me if I'd be a contributor here, I was shocked as I was still relatively new to the modern CoCo scene. I'd spent a little time starting my current collection, and in turn commented to his 'CoCo Collector' posts regarding eBay auctions he had discussed and I had won. Cris then asked if I'd write occasional posts to the blog and I gladly accepted.

Fast forward four years, and I have way too many projects to keep track of. I've got my hardware testing, website, repack blog, and many others too numerous to list. Pre-accident Brian could have handled all of this, but, it's all a little hard to handle now. Too easy to get frustrated, disappointed and aggravated; something has to give. Unfortunately, it's gonna have to be the blogging. Since the blogs have been the areas that have suffered, they are gonna go. Both of 'em.

The CoCoHut is Cris' blog; he started it and he can make the decision to close it when he sees fit. He's been AWOL for quite some time - I haven't heard from him in over a year.

I will not be leaving the CoCo Scene. My latest project has been the creation of an actual forum, which can be found here. Slowly, I'll get the contents of the repack blog transferred over to the 'Mod My CoCo' section. When that's done, I'll close the repack blog also.

This was a tough decision, but, I've got to lighten the load some. It's been a fun ride, and I hope everyone will join us over at the forum.

Later,

Brian

Oy....

Just finished four MAJOR projects at work that began in June. Due for some downtime and look forward to getting into some CoCoing....

Time's flying...

Okay, been busy, not gonna make a bunch of excuses - been CoCoing whenever I can, and since I've got a CoCo3.com MicroSD Drive Pak and a Cloud9 DriveWire HDBDOS Pak, that's been quite a lot. Look for full blown USER reviews on my website later this month. If someone else wants to do benchmarking, knock yourself out, I don't have time for that. While I've been busy as (insert your favorite word here), there's been quite a bit of action over on the eVilBay. So, without further ado...

tandy color computer 3 trs-80

This was a decent auction but DAMN!!! Shipping from Canada was a killer...

TRS-80 Color Computer T & D Software Disk #97

John over at gimechip.com, aka shadow_nightwarrior, had a butt-load of T&D disks up for auction. Not gonna post them all here, tho...

Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computers Lot of 2 Vintage

This was almost criminal... THe buyer got a hell of a deal.

RADIO SHACK TRS-80 COLOR VINTAGE COMPUTER

This IS criminal...

Tandy Color Computer 3 with original box!

Not bad....

Tandy Color Computer 3 (w/ 512k ram upgrade)

Wow, didn't see that coming....

That's about all I see of interest. Later...

Rare, rarer or rarest?

One of the things I've noticed about eBay recently is the increasing use of the 'rare' moniker. That word has been attached to everything from hardware to software to 1980's Radio Shack catalogs. Quite honestly it's driving me bonkers. The question that's eating at me is this: when dealing with vintage/retro computer equipment, what qualifies as rare?

My line of thinking believes the white CoCo1 comes pretty close to being the rarest creature living in the CoCo family.However, I'm hesitant to even consider it a 'rare' item, especially compared to an IMSAI or an Atari Falcon, computers that would give even Indiana Jones a tough time finding. When those two pop up on eBay, they command a price one would think should accompany truly rare vintage/retro computing equipment.

I'll fully agree that certain items qualify as rare. One needs only look at the Exatron Stringy Floppy Controller and the PBJ Expansion Interface auctions to see two examples of rare CoCo artifacts. I've not seen these two items on eBay since I started tracking CoCo stuff in 2006. Add those to a mislabeled White CoCo with a Keytronic KB-500 keyboard - the white is rare enough, but, that keyboard has not shown up on eBay since I've been looking either.

Looking at the Vintage Computers category on
eBay, the Atari, Commodore, and PC categories usually out-number the
TRS-80 categories by a 3 to 1 margin. (I am boycotting everything,
including discussion, of the fruity computer company, so they are not
included) This easily makes the TRS-80 stuff 'more rare' than most
others. But, are they really rare to those looking for them? That's am
impossible question to answer, unfortunately, since I cannot read the
minds of the people viewing the auctions.

When compared to the the Commodore auctions, the TRS-80 items tend to sell for more, especially the CoCo3, Model I and III. The TRS-80 line also fares well when compared to a few of the Atari auctions, the exceptions being the Atari Falcon, MEGA ST and TT. The Atari 400 seems to be the red-headed step-child of the Atari family, rarely commanding a decent price unless it's accompanied by numerous accessories and software. The 800 line sells well, but, prices seem to be a moving target with no rational behind them.

What about software? Can that be considered a rare item. My opinion is this: the rarity of software is completely dependent upon completeness of the package, and demand. Remember, most of the software for vintage/retro computers is now freely available SOMEWHERE on the internet, as is most of the documentation. So unless people are looking for a specific package for a museum, club collection, or other reason, there's little reason to be looking for software. For software to be considered rare, IMO, it should include the original packaging, manuals, and media, all in good and working condition. The media or manuals by themselves do not make the item rare - yes they can complete a collection, but, for the media you can do that yourself.

What got me started on this subject is all of the auctions the have the 'rare' moniker listed boldly in the auction titles or description recently. While not in the title, this auction for the CoCo Winnie the Pooh game is an example, and it's price is ridiculous. Yes, it's original, and sealed, and it'd be a cold day in Hades before I paid that price. I already have a copy I got from the CoCo Lounge before Glenn closed it down (also got the Mikey's Space Adventure and Flight Sim II in complete packaging). The seal was broken, but, it is a complete package and I paid less than $20 for each package. There's also a TDP-100 listed for $300 right now, using it's rarity status. While in a different case, it IS a CoCo.

Another quickie...

Looks like this must be the year of the rare items for the CoCo. Going thru eVilBay again last night I saw this:

Exatron FD Controller Tandy Color Computer + CCDOS!

 

 

Just dropping in for a quickie - update that is...

While perusing eVilBay tonight, I saw one of the rarest items I have ever encountered in the wild.

PBJ Bus Expander for Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer!

I've never seen one of these in person, nor have I seen one on eVilBay before now. If I had the extra cash, I'd bid on it myself. This ranks right up there with the Amdek 3" Dual Disk Drive in this auction a few months ago in rarity level.

Later,

MCCM

Okay.... I'm a slacker...

Okay, sorry for the lack of posting. I've been otherwise occupied with my website(s), work and life. So, without any further delay, I will post some recent CoCo activity of interest. I hope some of you readers were the lucky recipients of these fountains of CoCo-Goodness...

WICO NEW JOYSTICKS ADAPTOR FOR TRS80 COLOR COMPUTER

Well, what can I say, I was the lucky winner of this. I've been wanting one of these for a while now. Can't wait to get it in and start play with my WICO joystick I've had for three years...

 

Tandy Color Computer 3 with 512K RAM Upgrade

This was a good buy for someone. 

 

Tandy Color Computer 3 Floppy Drives

Another good buy. 

 

TANDY MULTI-PAK INTERFACE UNIT TRS-80 COLOR COMPUTER 3

Seller claims this has the PAL upgrade. I had expected this one to go a little higher ~ $75 mark. Wasn't too far off. 

 

TANDY MULTI-PAK INTERFACE UNIT TRS-80 COLOR COMPUTER 2

I figured this one would go for about $50. Again, not too far off. 

 

Orchestra 90-CC Stereo Music Synthesizer Tandy Coco 2

 I suppose a fair price for this. God knows there are better speech and sound paks for the CoCo line... 

 

Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer W 16 games and more

I was a little surprised this one sold for $125 - evidently someone thought it was worth it as there wasn't a lot of action on this auction... 

 

Trs-80 color computer cart: Speech Systems "The voice"

Heh, I won this one also. If only the other bidders has a clue as to how close they came to going over my max bid... Now I gotta first see if the thing works, and second, related to the first, find the software... 

 

Vintage Tandy FD 501 Disk Drive All Connections

Unless the winning bidder has a spare parts floppy somewhere, he'll have to replace this drive in this one. Not a bad price at any rate.  

 

Tandy Color ComputerMetric Serial Parallel Interface

These are pretty rare devices, so, this isn't a bad deal at all. 

 

Tandy Radio Shack Color Computer Multi Pack Interface

I guess I had to eat my words on this one... The seller and I passed a few emails regarding the starting price on this. I seriously doubted it would sell that high. Guess I was wrong. BTW, the seller was very gracious and not rude at all, so, I would deal with him in the future if he had a product I was interested in.

 

TANDY MULTI-PAK INTERFACE FOR TRS-80 COLOR COMPUTER 2

There's been a butt-load of MPI's on eBay this year... 

 

TRS-80 Vintage computer Silver 4K Ram model 1 *RARE* RS

No comment for this one... 

 

VINTAGE TANDY DELUXE JOYSTICK 26-3012B ++FREE SHIP++

This is just silly... 

 

Vintage - TRS-80 color computer (radio shack)

 

Radio Shack Tandy Color Computer 3 with Manuals and Box

No too bad. 

There were interesting auctions - if you've been watching eBay, you saw 'em and hopefully you won some. I'm not making any promises on updates here. I've got a ton going on right now. I'll try to pop in every so often and give an update. Cris is trying to locate his 'CoCo Collector' file. I'd like to update it with some newer data as well as add some rare items that have been spotted recently.

 

Later,

MCCM

Sorry...

Sorry that it's been so long since the last post - life and work has gotten in the way. I'm gonna throw some eBay action up here on the screen and not even comment on them, so, here goes...

tandy 64k color computer 2

Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer - Works

Nice trs-80 26-3004a With trs-80 X-pad Rare Find

RADIO SHACK TRS-80

Extreme Rare Diecom Adapter+Sega Phaser / Tandy TRS-80

Vintage Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 2 System

Vintage TRS-80 Color Computer System Tested Game

Look all you want, but, I think that Diecom light gun adapter is about the rarest thing I've seen on eBay for a few years.

Anyway, my excuse for not posting a lot leave a little to be desired - in short since my car accident, I've found it necessary to start training for a new career. I don't know what the future holds for it, but, I've been taking classes in web design. I've learned a lot, but, I still have more to learn. My first go 'round was actually the site for my employer, and it turned out pretty well. My next one was my own web site, and two sub-domains are CoCo-centric so this is as good a place as any to talk about it. If you are interested in looking at yet another CoCo website, take a look at Random Rodder's CoCo Den at let me know what you think. Shortly there will be an anonymous  FTP access also.

Later, 

MCCM

I'm Back Fellow Coconuts

Been ages since I could post anything in the coco blog. Feels awesome to be back in the Blogger crew.

laters

Briza

Review - take 2

For some unknown reason, my last post about these had some formatting issues... So, we'll try again...

Radio Shack Tandy TRS80 Color Computer MIB W/access

Well, I can understand why this one didn't sell. $50 seems a little high as a starting price.

Radio Shack Tandy TRS80 Color Computer MIB W/access

Well, I can understand why this one didn't sell. $50 seems a little high as a starting price.

Tandy Color Computer 3 COCO 3 with 3 disc drives mouse

This auction was an interesting one. Up until the last hour it was stuck at $56 and change. In the last few minutes it exploded. It surpassed by expectations by selling for as much as it did. I figured it would go for about $125 or so. Guess the rarity of the Amdek unit definitely added to the value of this one...