Sales of Note ending prior to July 11th, 2006:
Auction listings from eBay will expire 14 days after the auction ends and the links will no longer work. The blogger guy (me) claims no responsibility, endorsment, or affiliation with the listings presented. 'nuff said. As alsways read the listings carefully and buy and sell responsibly. :)
Here's one you dont' see very often:
Tandy Color Computer 3 (Coco 3) motherboard with 512Kb
Just the mainboard, but nicely mod'ed to include 512K and a PC XT power supply. The seller also threw in a Magnovox monitor cable, a floppy drive, and a 10MB hard drive. The item went for US$53.00. This modified CoCo stuff is hit or miss sometimes, but this one seemed to struck a sweet spot with several bidders. The recent sale of a complete upgraded CoCo 3 for several hundred dollars makes me wonder what folks would be willing to spend on prepackaged, plug and go systems. The problem is putting it together.
Let's say you have a base system: Color Computer 3 with 512K, 6309, duel floppies (one 5 1/4" and one 3 1/2") with controller, VGA or S-Video adapter, mass storage device (hard drive or memory card) with controller, speech/sound pak, NitrOS-9 preinstalled and preconfigured to boot on start up and support disks and drivers, all running from a PC power supply. The only thing you'd need to add was a display. What would you pay for such a system? Did I leave anything out?
I figure it at about US$440 plus, say, US$60 to pay the builder for the cost of setting it all up. So maybe US$500.00 all together. Too much? Too little?
Not ideal for the collector, and we're kind of getting into the modern CoCo market here, but if you're gung-ho to CoCo, it'd be great to be able to buy it ready to rock. Problem is, complete and mostly complete system rarely ever get even close to this amount. Indeed, they frequently sell for less than the components would sell for individually. What to do?
Glen from the CoCo Lounge has been auctioning off large quantities of vintage CoCo casettes and a few disks and hardware items. Way too many to list here. Run a "ended items" only search on the TRS-80 listings see the stuff that's over. And add him to favorite sellers to see what's coming up next. He's been running the auctions pretty short, so don't delay if you see a must have or two, or three or four!
A new record for this one:
TANDY COLOR MOUSE Tandy 1000 or Color Computer TRS-80
Very mint looking Color Mouse. A very nice collectible piece as well. Definately a pack it away and keep it nice CoCo item.
In the "Watch Out" department:
Radio Shack Color Computer FD-501 5"1/4 Disk Drive NR
The drive shown in the picture is a 26-3022 or 3029 silver vertical drive (unliike the white, horizontal mounted FD-501). It's not a bad drive, mind you... but it's not an FD-501. The seller also claimed it to be one of the most difficult to find "ascessories" (sic) for the CoCo. Actually, the white 26-3029 is the probably rarest of the CoCo drives and the FD-501 one of the more common (with the FD-500/26-3129 being the most common, currently). Read carefully, view carefully, question carefully.
Couple of Price Guide bits...
How many people learned to type on a CoCo? Must have been a lot because there's been a rash of Typing Tutor paks this year! Explains my horrible typing skills, though.
Lost in the dungeons? Apparently so with the Dungeon's of Daggorath pak. Last year they were everywhere. You couldn't go into the TRS-80 listings without seeing one. This year? Four. Is it becoming rare? Or is this just a lull? I'm betting the later, but time will tell.
Angel's Luck,
Capt.
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9 comments:
Regarding the $$$ for the 'dream coco,' I'll let you know how much I've got in my repack when it's done and then tell you if I'd pay to have it done...
Heh! I would love to see a breakdown. Perhaps others would as well. For planning purposes, of course. I can say that I've put about $450.00 into my CoCo 3 base system so far (but I paid way above average for the CoCo itself and the FD-501... oops!). Add in Cloud-9 stuff planned for purchase when they reopen, plus various modern software I've purchased, and I'll bet it'll approach $1000. Ooops, add in that flat panel VGA monito I still haven't ordered yet, for use with Roy's adapter... ahem... All worth it, of course, and spread out over about a year and half.
I should note to anyone else reading this that you can CoCo in style for far less, so don't let the $$$ quoted here scare ya. We're talking heavy duty enthusiast machines here. :)
Honestly, I don't see any market for prebuilt systems in CoCo land at the moment. But who knows? Maybe it's just a matter of putting together the right system.
Can't wait to see and hear about the repack, of course. Hope it goes well!
Angel's Luck,
Capt.
Well, here's what I've got planned for my repack:
What I've spent so far:
Repack into a Model III case ($5.95 + 27.00 s/h)
Coco 3 w/512k ($80)
MPI w/PAL upgrade ($50)
FD-502 ($29)
9.1GB SCSI drive (had)
CD-ROM (had)
PC Power supply
What I still need to get:
Roy's VGA adapter (need to get with Roy to see if I can do a special order for one without a case and can run from a PC power supply) (~$50 + s/h)
14" LCD (to replace the 12" crt in the Model III) (price depends if I can get a deal on eBay)
Cloud 9 6309 upgrade (considering doing a 6809/6309 piggyback with the switch)
Cloud 9 SuperBoard (kinda necessary for the SCSI drive and cdrom)
And what ever other miscellaneous cables and crap I'll need...
So, yeah, I'll have at least a grand in it...(for a 20 year old computer, I must be crazy...)
Not crazy at all. Sounds wicked! Should be quite a mod. I hope more people will get into moding their CoCos. The not-so-great condition CoCos, with good boards, make excellent cantidates for repacking or doctoring up. I've been slowly assembling the parts and materials for a "shop" CoCo to live in the workshop. It's main purpose would to be to perform calculations for electronics, woodworking, building, etc. which the CoCo is plenty powerful to do. The physical requirements are that it has to be completely sealed to prevent saw dust, bugs and other undesirables from mucking up the innards. A filtered air flow system will be required and a sealed keyboard as well. With the readily available modding components for PCs, including filtered fans, I've got most of it worked out. I still have to figure out how to power it. The power supply is meant to be external, but that would mean a seperate sealed enclosure. I also have to come up with a data storage method. Right now I'm leaning toward including a SD card reader and power supply in a seperate inclosure, connected to a CoCo 1 with it's easily protected chiclet-style keyboard. Should be completed by late fall and hopefully won't require breaking the bank. :)
Angel's Luck,
Capt.
Yeah add me to the curious list Rodder, Any chance of some photo's of the finished product, I know I have been planning on trying a repack, would surely make a lot more room, be able to have both my Pc and Coco 3 repack on the same old Kitchen table.
Keep us fellow coconuts up to date with your progress, be worth a thread or 2 in Rogers coco 3 website, And especially here as well, can't forget my Amigo Captcpu.
laters
Briza
Heh... I think there was a thread on coco3.com... or the maltedmedia list about rodder's repak. I think the ultimate repak will be when someone manages to remake the CoCo board smaller (on a chip) and it can be stuck in a small external enclosure. I'm think less than 8"x1". With build in VGA and S-Video... and NitrOS-9 on flashROM... and a built in MC/SD reader/controller... and... and... ahem...
I'm planning on taking pix everytime I complete a phase. Currently, I have nothing more to show than a stripped MIII case and Coco m/b & MPI sitting on my desk. I was originally going to try and orient the cc3 m/b the same way the MIII was, but, after talking to the Cloud9 guy (Mark) this does not sound plausible. It looks like the add-on cards for the SuperBoard will be too tall for them to fit if the m/b is mounted in this fashion. So I'll probably get som aluminum angle, 1/2" x 1/2" and make a rack to hold both the MPI board and m/b & SuperBoard, Roy's VGA adapter, etc. The MPI will be on top so I can access the slots thru the top of the case. I have a few technical questions I'll be posting to maltedmedia when I get closer to doing this part (like attaching a floppy controller to slot 4 via a short extender cable, etc...). Stuff I'm pretty sure i know the answers to, but would like confirmation from those with more experience working with the Coco...
r/r
Some wicked challenges there! Fun! You know, if you could figure out a way to build an internal cage around the MPI guts, one that could hold the pressure of pressing the paks in, you might not need an extention cable for the drive. Just plug the controller in with it sticking out the top. heh! A III with paks sticking out the top of it's noggin' would look kind of cool.
Intergrating the MPI into the case also raises some interesting moding ideas. Such as reinstalling the MPI pak doors so that they swing in and spring up like when they're in the MPI case. Or, just cut the top off the MPI so that it's flat, and then attach it lined up over the guts and flush with the III case. A couple of brackets on the inside, some muliput, primer and spray paint and it would look like it was built that way. Ahem...
Sorry, this sort of thing gets the imagination flowing... :)
Sounds wicked cool!
Angel's Luck,
Capt.
On the MPI I have, the door assembly unscrews from the top part of the case (yes I finally took it apart). I'll probably attach the doors to the top part of the case with hotmelt glue. The biggest problem with that is aligning the doors/cutouts with the MPI after I get the mounting cage done. I've also toyed with just removing the transformer from the MPI case and installing the the MPI in the III case as a whole unit (minus the transformer for weight savings), then all I have to line up is the cutouts in the III case with the MPI doors.
The cage is really the easy part. Some 1/2 x 1/2 aluminum angle, a drill and drill bits and a pop rivet tool is all that is needed. And if I keep the MPI board in it's case, I can use the rubber feet mounting holes to attach the MPI to the cage. The trick will be either coating the cage in liquid latex or creating some non-conductive standoffs to prevent shorting out the cc3 m/b.
I thought about having the fdd controller stick out the top, but, I think it would be a problem when moving the unit (don't really want to break it off).
Where I'm gonna have to get really creative is in mounting the new jacks for the j/s, bitbanger, etc. Thinking about a small plastic enclosure that will sit between the drive bays of the III, either just above or below the logo slot, where the Tandy COCO3 label will be residing. Either that or in the filler piece I have to make for the keyboard hole (damn that MIII keyboard was long...). I'm just not sure I want all of the cables hanging out from the front of this thing.
desicions, decisions...
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