Tandy's Little Wonder (1993)(Farna Systems).pdf - TRS-80 Color ...

Rainbow announced support for the Dragon/32 in December,its first perfect bound issue (square back with glued inpages, just like a paperback book). Tom Mix’s king of theDonkey Kong clones, Donkey King, was released just intime for Christmas. This is one of the best game ever donefor the CoCo. Thanks Tom!!!!DON’T BUG ME!1982 closed out with a tip of the hat to the very inventivefolks in Natick, Massachusetts for coming up with a veryimaginative idea..... DEBUG. The concept worked like this:You sent these folks a program you wrote that may have bugs.If the program is interesting enough, they send your programto "people who like to stomp on other people’s bugs". Theunderstanding was that the program is sold (by them) ifdebugged, and everybody shares in the profits! The ad askedfor $5.00 to accompany your "bugged" program, or $9.00 fora cassette containing 20 or so "bugged" programs from otherpeople, or $12.00 for both. The idea of "buying" someoneelses problems was (and still is!) a bit bizarre, however, andthe ads soon disappeared.In January Jake Commander (CCM) predicted the arrival ofthe British made Dragon computer early in 1983. CCNstarted the year with a new cosmetic look including a newcover ("The Color Computer Magazine for 6809 users") andnewspaper quality pages.Cosmetic changes also appeared in the Rainbow’s January"Adventure" issue with the first Fred Crawford coverartwork! Fred brought a Norman Rockwell feel to the pagesof The Rainbow, and many looked forward to Fred’s covers.This issue probably had the first centerfold ever in a computermagazine.Other January events included Micronix Systems marketingthe first keyboard for the CoCo, Dennis Lewandowskiwriting the Rainbow Check, and dates confirmed for thefirst RainbowFest. It was held in Chicago, April 22-24th.Peter Stark, one of the pioneer CoCo supporters, startedincluding little "tips" in his ads. Peter was a real innovatorboth in software and advertising.In February, 68 Micro eluded to the fact that they may bestarting a CoCo publication to meet the explosion of "new"subscribers. Absent, for the first time since many issues of68 Micro, are The Micro Works ads. Was somethinghappening?Most of the other February news included reports of CoCoproducts on display at last fall’s COMDEX show in LasVegas. The products included AMDEK’s new 3 inch diskdrives, WICO’s joysticks and trackball, and the longawaited ZAXXON from Datasoft (a licensed version of thearcade hit, not a clone!).The February rumors were obviously true, because in Marchthe third CoCo magazine hit the news stands. Edited byKerry Leichtman, The Color Computer Magazine(TCCM for short) premiered with articles from Jake Commander,Bob Rosen, William Barden, Jr., and DennisKitsz.March’s "nuclear" issue of Rainbow featured the first RainbowScoreboard and an ad for Elite Software’s ZAKSUND(the first ZAXXON clone). The Mark Data replacementkeyboard was also reviewed.In late April of 1983 users from across the United Statesand Canada (not to mention Great Britain, Germany, Hawaii,and the Yukon) descended upon Chicago to take part in thefirst ever CoCo convention, RainbowFest! Estimated attendancefor this 3 day bash was around 10,000. On the salesfloor, J&M unveiled its JFD disk controller, while seminarswere held by Don Inman, Fred Scerbo, Tom Nelson,Steve Bjork, and Charles Roslund, to name a few.TCCM’s April showers included the cross reference indexdisassembly of 1.1 ROM, the first ad for Computerware’s64K Screen Expander, word that Bob Rosen was thenoperating 3 bulletin boards, Jake Commander’s first installmentof the most ambitious commenting of the BASIC ROMever, and the appearance of Datasoft’s first ZAXXON ads.May brought flowers and a cross reference index disassemblyof the 1.0 EXTENDED BASIC ROM to TCCM, plus aname change for Med Systems to Screen Play. What’s in aname anyway?The Comment Corner column returned to CCN in June,authored by Andrew Hubbell, and a list of differences forBASIC 1.2, EXTENDED BASIC 1.1, and DISK BASIC 1.1.CoCo’s third year ended with two new releases. First: thelong awaited and much rumored "new" Color Computer, theRadio Shack MC-10. Second: another Color Computermagazine. HOT CoCo, a Wayne Green publication, debutedwithout so much as a word of credit to Dave Lagerquistfor coining the name "CoCo" for the Color Computer... ohwell, we will remember!THE FOURTH YEAR (Jul '83 - Jun '84)CCN definitely seemed to be nearing its end. In July therewas a full-cover photo of the Dragon/32 but nothing on theinside about the computer. Rainbow magazine, now supportingthe MC-10 also, celebrated its second anniversarywith a 308 page issue containing a two year index, a recordwith some BASIC programs, a look at the "new" MC-10, anda review of April’s RainbowFest. Marketing began for Un-Disk from Dr. Preble, Elite Calc from Elite Software,and PBJ’s 80 Column Card. If 64K wasn’t enough for yourCoCo, you could always try Dennis Kitsz’s 128K bubblememory upgrade which appeared in July’s TCCM.Tandy's Little Wonder page 13