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Larry McDowell's avatar

Wow. You just took me back. The good old Trash80 and that was my first computer and learned basic on it . I had the old joystick that didn't spring back to center which really made it hard for that last level. I could never get the "house clean". I remember playing a zork like game on it using the cassette tape. Can't remember what that game was called. Thanks for reminding me of that fun!!

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Retroist's avatar

It's been long enough but I still have some memories of finding the joystick changing. At the same time, I was willing to put up with a lot of nonsense just to play and videogame back then.

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L. Curtis Boyle's avatar

The original "black beauty" joysticks (and there were multiple versions of those with different thicknesses of handles, and the handles could be aluminum (early versions) or plastic (later ones). By the mid-1980's Tandy also offered the Deluxe joystick, which was a re-branded Kraft joystick that allowed choosing between free floating and springback individually on each axis. (The later Coco 3 Deluxe joysticks added the second button as well, although they were originally planned for the fall of 1984 with the Deluxe Color Computer which was cancelled). As for the cassette based text adventure - it might have been Pyramid 2000 (which had both Coco and TRS-80 Model 1/3 versions)?

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essiej's avatar

Wait, you could buy games for the TRS-80? I guess my dad gaslit the family, LOL. All we had was a magazine that had all the code in it; you had to type it all in, compile & debug it, and save it to a cassette tape.

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spider73's avatar

I had a TRS-80 back in the day myself and sadly, I never came across this one at the local Radio Shack. The few games I had for it were pretty fun as far as I remember.

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Retroist's avatar

It seems to be on the rare side. Not sure if that is because not enough sold or if its because people didn't hold onto their games for the CoCo. I am thinking it might be the former since 3 years later it will still be listed in sales ads for the system.

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David Perlmutter's avatar

I have to think ongoing issues with MGM's financial survival and/or disputes with Spielberg over the ownership precluded the franchise from being more overtly exploited.

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Retroist's avatar

That sounds likely. I would like to know how the original deal that got this game made even happened.

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