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

Colorware, maker of CoCo Max, announced the arrival ofMax-10 with a two page ad in Junes’ Rainbow. Max-10 wassimilar to the Apple MacIntoshs’ MacWrite word processor.It was all graphics based with mouse controlled pulldownmenus. Since graphics and text could be mixed, it wasbilled as a desktop publishing system when combined withCoCo Max 3. Many different fonts and styles were available,and since all could be displayed on the graphics screen, Max-10 was the CoCos’ first true WYSIWYG (what you see iswhat you get) word processor. The ad stated that Max-10 wasnot copy protected, but that wasn’t entirely true. The diskitself had no copy protection, but a hardware key (the firstand only one ever for a CoCo product) was included. Thiswas a series of resistors and diodes which plugged into thecassette port. If the software didn’t find it, it simply wouldn’trun! Though the keys’ components were cast into an opaqueresin disk, hackers soon discovered how to mimic its signalsand defeat the protection. Such an outcry was made over thisnew (to the CoCo world) protection scheme that Colorwaresoon dropped it in future versions. SD Enterprises releasedan updated VIP Database for the CoCo 3 in June. VIPDatabase owners could upgrade at a reduced price.THE NINTH YEAR (Jul '88 - Jun '89)In the beginning of the Rainbow's seventh year (CoCo'sninth), there are 79 advertisers. Many long time advertisershad started dropping support for the CoCo as their CoCo 1and 2 products became dated. They just didn’t see putting inthe effort to update (in many cases entirely re-write) programsto take advantage of the many CoCo 3 features.Others, like Computerware, who ran their last CoCo ad thismonth, expanded into more profitable computer fields.Paul Searby (owner of Computerware) redirected his programmingefforts toward the popular IBM PC and compatibles.Computerware had been one of the largest CoCosuppliers. Fortunately, many small newcomers were joiningthe programming ranks (which accounts partially for thelarge number of ads). Microcom became the largest advertiserwith five entire pages.Several other interesting things happened in July of 1988.Windows came to Disk BASIC users through Cer-Comp'sWindow Master software. Up to 31 windows (even overlapping!)with pull down menus could be controlled via amouse/joystick or the keyboard on a 512K CoCo 3.Burke&Burke introduced R.S.B. (Radio Shack BASIC)for OS-9, which allowed pure Disk BASIC programs to runin a window under Level II. Lastly, Rainbow reviewed anotherdesktop publishing package for the CoCo 3- this onefrom Tandy and operating under OS-9 Level II. Tandy'sHome Publisher was a bit slow, but did do the job. The maingripe with this program was that it only supported TandyDMP and Epson RX-80 printers. While most printers wouldoperate with the RX-80 drivers, the RX-80 was getting a bitdated and newer printers were much better and had featuresthe RX-80 driver wouldn’t access.One of the first things that captured ones’ attention in theAugust issue of Rainbow was a full page ad from AdventureNovel Software. In this unique ad, players of their newNight of the Living Dead interactive adventure game wereoffered $500 if they were the first to "survive". D.P. Johnsonintroduced another programming language for OS-9users- FORTH09. This was a FORTH-83 standard implementationspecially tailored for OS-9 (level I or II, even forother OS-9 computers!). Help for users of Tandy's DCMModem Pak was offered. The Modem Pak's primitivecommunications software does not allow for downloads oruploads (transfer of files from or to the host computer/BBS). How to overcome this problem was the subject of anarticle by Delphi CoCo SIG database manager DonHutchison.Even though Tandy was pushing OS-9 for software developers,it dropped the RS-232 Pak, which was required fortelecommunications under OS-9. It wasn’t long before someone,in this case Orion Technologies, introduced a directlycompatible clone (October ’88). Unlike other products(such as the Disto RS-232 Pack), Orion's pack had the samehardware address as the Tandy. Just plug it in and go! Aversion with external power supply was made for the CoCo2 and 3, or the standard version could be used with a CoCo1 or Multi-Pack, which provided the necessary 12 volts.Getting ready for Christmas, Diecom released several newgames in November. Xenion ran on a CoCo 1,2, or 3 and wassimilar to the arcade game Xevious. Medieval Madnesswas another CoCo 3 only light phaser game. If one alreadyhad a Sega light phaser and interface from Iron Forest, thedisk could be purchased alone. Microcom added a spellingchecker, pop-up calculator, split-screen editing, andtwo column printing to Word Power release 3.2.Colorware started advertising their Max products (CoCoMax III and Max-10) as the ideal desktop publishing packagefor the CoCo 3. Release 2.0 of SD Enterprises’ VIPWriter III supports up to 495K of text space on a 512KCoCo 3 (106K on a 128K model), more than any other wordprocessor to date.It was hard not to notice that Microcom had become thebiggest CoCo advertiser ever- their ads were up to 6 pages inthe December ’88 Rainbow! They offered a wide variety ofCoCo products from many different companies as well astheir own software. A new offering was 512K BASIC for theCoCo 3. When Tandy updated the CoCo's BASIC, they didn’tallow easy access to more than 32K for BASIC programs.This product patched BASIC to allow access to 64K on a128K machine and 384K with 512K RAM. The only problemwas that one must have 512K BASIC in order to run aprogram that took advantage of the extra memory!Tandy's Little Wonder page 19