trash80

Model

• Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 2
  

Introduced

• 1983
  

CPU

• Motorola 6809E, 0.89 MHz

RAM

• 64 KB
  

Video

• 256 x 192, 2 colour
  

Disk

• none

Network

• none
  

Operating Systems

• none
  

Features

• Digital-to-analog converter
  

The big religious war when I was in highschool was Apple II versus TRS-80. I would always give my friend Aaron a hard time about his TRS-80 CoCo (Colour Computer). The heart of this supposedly intellectual debate was that the Apple II used a 6502 processor, a knock off of the superior (in my opinion) Motorola 6809. The Trash-80s, in contrast, had to suffer with the ugly (in my opinion) Z-80 processor.

Only years later did I find out that while some TRS-80s used the Z-80 processor, the CoCos actually used a 6809. If I had only known this, all those years ago... I would have found some other pointless rationalization for why the Apple II was still superior.

One thing I secretly admired about Aaron's CoCo, though, was the speech synthesizer program. When he told it to say a particular number — "forty-six" or something — it would sound like it was saying "bloody pig." That was cool.