That should give you an idea of what the games at least looked like. As you can tell, they didn't do great with color and the sound was only a single channel without an external add-on.
As was also the case - and obvious with a computer that was first released in 1980 - memory and memory requirements varied wildly, from just 4K all the way up to 64K. This of course also affected game quality and complexity, added to the fact that software came on cassette, cartridge and later disk, again, each with their own set of capacities.
The Radio Shack Color Computer and Color Computer 2 can be considered one class of system, while the Color Computer 3, which was almost completely backwards compatible and not released until 1986, can be considered another class of system, with a base memory of 128K (512K games were available) and increased color depth.
The Dragon, which was released in the US through Tano in a slightly upgraded form (64K versus 32K) and had very limited distribution (it was released around 1983/84), was essentially a CoCo 1/2 hardware-wise, though not a compatible. So Dragon software is essentially equivalent to what you see on the CoCo 1/2.
This is my favorite Radio Shack Color Computer games site: http://nitros9.lcurtisboyle.com/coco_game_list.html
That should give you an idea of what the games at least looked like. As you can tell, they didn't do great with color and the sound was only a single channel without an external add-on.
As was also the case - and obvious with a computer that was first released in 1980 - memory and memory requirements varied wildly, from just 4K all the way up to 64K. This of course also affected game quality and complexity, added to the fact that software came on cassette, cartridge and later disk, again, each with their own set of capacities.
The Radio Shack Color Computer and Color Computer 2 can be considered one class of system, while the Color Computer 3, which was almost completely backwards compatible and not released until 1986, can be considered another class of system, with a base memory of 128K (512K games were available) and increased color depth.
The Dragon, which was released in the US through Tano in a slightly upgraded form (64K versus 32K) and had very limited distribution (it was released around 1983/84), was essentially a CoCo 1/2 hardware-wise, though not a compatible. So Dragon software is essentially equivalent to what you see on the CoCo 1/2.
Books!
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.