Hey everyone,
Well, I got my childhood color computer out after sitting for a long, long time. It’s a CoCo 2 and it still works (had to buy an adapter for the tv at radioshack). The one problem I’m having is the keyboard. Some keys work and some don’t. I don’t recall anything ever being spilled on it.
I opened the computer up and messed with the ribbon cable connected from the keyboard to the main board. After trying to clean and tinker with it, a few more keys worked. But I can’t get them all to go. I’m a bit stuck on what to do with it. I haven’t opened the actual keyboard part up to take a look as.. well.. I’m not quite sure how to open it.
The keys that work: 345780-WEUOP@SDGHKL;XCM enter and spacebar also work along with the up arrow and shifts also work. Anyone have any ideas?
This post was submitted by parasomia.
Well I got the coco2 in today. I didn’t switch keyboards yet as I wanted to make sure everything worked fine on the one I got. I am having issues though! (typical). It has been a long time since I’ve done this so I may be doing something wrong.
I have games on cassette tapes that our uncle made for us way back when. I also have a real cassette tape for Micro Painter. Anyway, I make the connections, put a tape in, and type cloadm. It goes to the S on the screen, and the cassette deck starts running. Soon the wonderful beeping noises come from it! Buuut, that’s about it. it doesn’t find anything and just keeps going? The tapes have the names of the games, like pactac and berserk. So I rewind the tape and type in, Cloadm “Pactac” starts up, goes through tape and finds nothing?
On the tapes it has written, cloadm exec? Man I forget how to do this stuff. Shouldn’t it at least give an error? It won’t find anything even when I run the micro painter cartridge. It says to type in the name of a picture to load from cassette. I type in micropainter. It searches.. and searches.
I don’t have all the documentation. Am I missing something?
Hi parasomia,
I’m only going from memory as it’s been years since I had a cassette player for the CoCo, but I’m thinking that if you can here the tape noises, then that means the CoCo can’t.
The cassette cable should have 3 wires? 1 is for motor control, 1 is the one you plug into the head phone socket, can’t remember what the othe one is for lol.
I’ll search around for a cassette manual online…
Here’s the manual: CCR82.PDF
The other one goes into the microphone jack so the CoCo can save to tape, of course
It sure has been a while
Also, you can load virtual cassettes (*.wav) on the PC and play them in Windows Media Player etc, and the sound out goes from the PC speaker out jack. Like using the PC as a tape plyer. This will give you access to a lot for extra files online.
This link: http://www.coco3.com/community/2009/10/loading-from-pc-to-coco will explain it a bit better.
Ahhhhh, you guys are a life savers!
Okay, so apparently I had the connections wrong to the cassette deck. All is fine now and I had managed to load some games up. Wow does it bring back some memories!
As for the keyboard thing. I replaced the keyboard in mine and it worked fine. So it must have been an issue with the old keyboard itself and not the connection. So at least that is solved.
I really, really appreciate everyone’s help in all the matters. Man, this is such nostalgia. It’s great.
So am I to assume that the way the CoCo’s read data is through sound waves?
When you are transferring data via the tape cassette port, the answer is yes, the CoCo’s read data through sound waves. A 0 bit is transmitted as one cycle at 1200 Hz, and a 1 bit is a cycle of 2400 Hz. I’ve never checked, but I don’t think there are any start/stop bits. I believe the presence/absence of the carrier is start/stop.
Re: Conductive pens
Has hell frozen over? Radio Shack is actually selling something useful!
Of course, in the Columbus, OH area, it looks like only 3 or 4 stores carry it and they’re all across town…at least one is in the same strip as Micro Center.
(from radioshack.com:)
CAIG CircuitWriter™ Pen
Model: 276-037 | Catalog #: 276-037
Draw traces on circuit boards, repair defective traces, design prototype circuits and more.
$9.99