Color Computer Magazine (November 1983)

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(Edited)

Cover of the November 1983 issue of Color Computer Magazine

The Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer, also known as the Tandy Color Computer or the Coco was a series of mostly compatible home computers produced from 1980 until 1991. It was the only common computer I am aware of that used the Motorola 6809 CPU. This was an 8-bit CPU but had some 16-bit features and was powerful for its time.

The Coco wasn't really as popular as Commodore, Apple or Atari computers but it was supported by Radio Shack for a long time and still had a magazine or two dedicated to it, including Color Computer Magazine.

The November 1983 issue included the following:

Features

  • Super Spiro! – A type-in program for generating spirographs, including parameters for several different ones.

  • Color Computing for Kids – A programming article for kids. Included is a tutorial on FOR/NEXT loops in BASIC with math examples and an example printing a Thanksgiving message.

  • Star – A simple type-in program for drawing a star-like object on the screen.

  • Sorcerer’s Puzzles – A type-in game that features several puzzle challenges.

  • Slither – A type-in machine language game. This game existed on may computers in many forms. You control a snake as it goes around the screen eating things. As it eats it grows longer. If you run into yourself, you die.
  • Unforgettable Characters – Creating custom characters on the Color Computer.

  • My MC-10 Speaks ML! – The MC-10 was a sort of cut down version of the Color Computer designed to compete with even cheaper computers like the VIC-20. Other than BASIC programs, it was mostly incompatible with the Color Computer and far more limited. It was not a success. This article covers machine language programming on that machine.

Table of Contents from the November 1983 issue of Color Computer Magazine

Departments

  • PEEK (11,83) - An overview of the magazine's contents this month.

  • INKEY$ - Letters from readers covering topics such as piracy, machine language for beginners, productivity software and more.

  • GOTO School - A column on education and computers. This month, the advantages of monochrome monitors and how computer information services are beginning to supplement encyclopedias as a go to resource.

  • Reviews
    • Micron Eye - A digital imaging system for the 16K Color Computer.
    • Astro Blast - A Space Invaders clone for the Color Computer.
    • Colorkit 1.2 - A toolkit that provides a wide variety of programming tools for the Color Computer.
    • Kaleidophone - A program (and hardware) for creating visual effects based on audio input.

  • New Products - Some new products covered this month include a new Daisy Wheel Printer, a program for creating pie charts, and Infidel, the latest interactive fiction game from Infocom among a number of other things.

  • FOR...NEXT - What's coming next month...

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3 comments
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I love seeing these tidbits on old gaming publications. So many I missed either due to being too young at the time (I was born in 1976) or just not having the money to afford them all.

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I'm about the same age as you and I didn't really start buying computer or gaming magazines until probably 1988-ish. They were in the $3 range then and I would typically get one or two a month. Sometime later, in the early 2000s (after I had a real job for a couple of years), on a nostalgia trip I bought several lots of various old magazine on eBay. I haven't priced stuff like that recently but they were reasonably cheap then. Since then I thinned out my collection some but I still have quite a few old magazine lying around. Mostly gaming magazines like VG&CE and EGM and Commodore 64 related magazine. I would still like to find a few of those phone book sized computer shoppers though...

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