80-US (January 1979)

80-US (January 1979)



The TRS-80 was one of the first home computers available and therefore had some of the earliest computer publications dedicated to it. 80-US is one of those. The January 1979 issue includes:

• Going First Class - Our experience with a new Selectra-Print
• Text 80 - A text editor without frills, for those who can't remember all the sub-commands
• Bowling Revisited - An authentic Level II version of the Computerized Bowling Alley
• An Audio-Visual Demo - How to connect pictures with sound, using existing equipment
• Notes on BASIC Programming - Keeping track of your Level I variables
• Renew That Program - A sometimes successful way to bring a disk basic program back to life
• Math Drill Ala King - A fun math program, with some Level I tutorial material included
• Erode - For your mid-winter madness, try and break thru the barrier in the time allowed - 4 levels of expertise
• View from the top of the Stack
• Reviews
• Hangups
• Editorial
• Random Access
• Letters

...and more!

Input – Issue Number 2

Input – Issue Number 2

Input was a short-lived magazine published in the U.K. in 1984-1985 but it was published weekly so there are a lot of them. It covered the subject of home computer programming. Computers covered included the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Dragon 32, Sinclair ZX81, Commodore VIC-20 and Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer. Issue number 2 includes:

• BASIC Programming 3
• The Computer As Decision-Maker - How IF...THEN is used. Three-way and multiple choices
• Machine Code 2
• 10-Minute Games Graphics - Binary/decimal and binary/hex conversions. Planning graphics.
• Applications
• Streamline Your Hobbies Files: 1 - A datafile program to index - or cross-index - your hobbies.
• Games Programming 2
• Right...Up...Left...Fire! - Use GET$ and INKEY$ to get your games programs moving.
• BASIC Programming 4
• The Programmer's Road Signs - How to jump lines using GOTO, ON...GOTO and GOSUB.

...and more!

Buzzard Bait (Color Computer)

Despite nearly matching the longevity of the Commodore 64, Tandy’s Color Computer line never really had the third party software support that the Commodore 64 and other 8-bit computers of the time had. The fact that Radio Shack did not really court third party development combined with the fact that the hardware was only sold at Radio Shack probably had something to do with that.

Buzzard Bait is one example of the games you would typically find for this system. As you can see, it is a blatant rip-off (er…clone) of the arcade game Joust. It actually isn’t terrible (except for the sound which was a limitation of the CoCo series). There were lots of clones of more popular arcade games on the Coco but the quality varied wildly. Some were decent like Buzzard Bait and some were terrible.

Buzzard Bait was released by a company called Tom Mix Software in 1983. Like much of the software for the CoCo, you could only find it easily via mail order but the company did have a BBS that you could order through so that’s pretty cool. It was available on both disk and cassette and given the fact that it wasn’t marketed through major retail establishments, original copies are probably pretty rare. I didn’t see one on eBay at a glance and that’s usually a pretty good indication. This is one you will probably need emulation to try. However, for a better conversions of Joust, you are better off checking out the official conversions for the Atari 8-bit, Atari 7800 and Atari ST.