Welcome back to part 8 of my fourth SepTandy Spectacular. In the last post we took a closer look at the Coco's various Printers and Modems. In this post we wrap up our look at the Coco with the many miscellaneous peripherals and add ons for it. There were many types of other peripherals for the Coco both by Tandy and other third party companies, from Joysticks and mice, to speech and sound modules, to even Home Automation systems. This concludes Part 7 of the fourth Septandy Spectacular, join me next time as we take a closer look at the many miscellaneous add ons and peripherals for the Coco.
First off we’ll have a look at the Speech Sound Program Pak, It was released in 1984, and sold for $99.95
In terms of input devices, one type of after market add on that was very common in the early days of the Coco was aftermarket mechanical keyboards. Since many found the Coco's chickelet keyboard hard to type on many opted to replace it with a mechanial keybord similar to other home computers at the time.
There was also the Orchestra 90, released in 1985, and sold for $79.95
Its very similar to the original Ocestra 80 we talked about previously, and much like it it was mainly designed for music rather than games. Since the Coco already has a similar DAC its kida pointless, but it still was a neat periferal none the less.
The most notable Aftermarket keyboard was the HJL-57 by HJL Products, released in 1983, for $79.95.
The HJL-57is notable in that it was designed to work on both the Coco 1 and 2, and includes 4 programable funtion keys that you could program functions for in BASIC.
In terms of joysticks, After the original Coco Joysticks came the Deluxe Joystick, released in 1984 and selling for $39.95.
The Deluxe Joystick was superiour to the original non centering sticks as it featured a self-centering joystick, trim adjustments and better button placement. These are rather prone to breaking due to age though, as the springs put stress on the plastic.
And if you think that this joystick design looks farmiliar, thats because its essentually a Kraft Premium Joystick with the Coco's DIN connector.
Kraft Systems is a pretty interesting company, they were founded in 1962 by a man named by Philip O. Kraft and intially got its start manufacturing transmitters and controls for RC aircraft.
In 1972, the company was acquired by a company called Carlisle Corporation from Cincinnati, Ohio, who kept Kraft around as a subsidiary still based in San Diego. In the early 1980s, They decided to diversify by making joysticks for Video game consoles and home computers. Their joysticks were fairly popular, and Kraft soon became a major leader in the market. Kraft is notable as they were one of the first manufacturers to offer joysticks for the IBM PC in 1982, and later IBM themselves even commissioned Kraft for the manufacture of the joysticks for their ill-fated PCjr, released in 1984. It was also the same as the premium just with a different connector.
but by the late 80's, consolidation in the industry compelled Kraft to outsource some of their manufacturing overseas in East Asia for cheaper labor. It wasnt enough to help and soon they were sold to a company called MicroSpeed, Inc. in 1994, who soon shut it down.
The only problem with these joysticks is that they tend to break due to age so finding one in working condition is difficult.
but if you didnt need an analog controller, you could just buy a third party adapter to use Atari 2600 compatible joysticks.
There were also mice availiple with the first being the Color Computer Mouse, released in 1984 for $49.95.
Its very similar to the mouse for the Machintosh with 1 button than the standard 2. It used the exact same signals as the joystick and could be used like one, making it highly compatible with software.
Another interesting periferal was the TRS-80 Touch Pad, also released in 1984, for $59.95.
This plugged into the cartridge port and allowed youn to trace drawings for CAD work. I can't imagine this thing sold well since with a maximum resolution of 256 by 192, It would be inferior to to a professional CAD worksation. Still it was far cheaper, so it was probably appealing to some people.
The last interesting input device was the TRS-80 Color Computer Electronoc Book, released in 1984, for $24.95.
This was designed for the educational market to allow young children to interact with the Coco. The idea was that in a program that supported it, it would ask the child to press one of the buttons in the book to reply. Pretty neat i must say.
One odd periferal releating to joysticks is the High Resolution Joystick Interface, Released in 1987 for $9.95.
It pluged into the 2 joystick ports and comined them into a single port that you could plug a joystick or mose into. The idea was that since the Coco 3 had a higher resolution, the older joysticks and moce couldent handle software in that mode. By connecting the interfgace into the joystick ports, you could double the area
Another interesting periferal was the RS232 Program Pak, Released in 1984, for $79.95
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By pluging this minto your Coco, You could get a fullsized RS232 Serial port for hooking up modems and printer. While the Coco technically has an RS232 RS232 Serial port, its a DIN conec tor and missing features.
And finally there's the TRS-80 Applience/Light Controller, also released in 1984, for $99.95.
This was part of Radio Shack's Plug n' Power line of home automation systems, which was a liscenced version of the X10 Home Automation system by 1975 by Pico Electronics of Glenrothes, Scotland. The standard was first introduced in 1975. Radio Shack entered a partnership with them in 1978, and introduec the Plug n' Power line for the TRS-80 Model I with this version following in 1984.
With the system you could hook up appliences like TV's, Radios, Coffee Makers, and of course lights into a special adaper box that you plug the device into and then plug the box into the wall. by setting a dial on the box you could assign a number to the device and with special software on the Coco you could controll the device and either turn it on and off from the computer, or set it to turn on or off at specific times. X10 was one of the first Home Automation Systems and soon became availible for other platforms. X10 is still around today and the method has more or less remained unchanged
but that concludes our look at pereferals for the Coco. There were many more periferals availible that could allow the coco to do more, but some were revolutionary others were not, and while some may not be remembers there are still some impressive footnotes in the history of personal computers. This concludes Part 8 of the fourth Septandy Spectacular, join me next time as we take our first look at the miscellaneous add ons and peripherals for the Pocket Computers.
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