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Radio Shack MC-10 Micro Color Computer

This page is about the TRS-80 MC-10 Micro Color Computer, produced by the Radio Shack electronic store chain in the early 1980's. I vaguely remembered this computer in back in junior high, and as a grownup stumbled on it in June 2008 while going a Google search on the entire TRS-80 computer line. I downloaded a program that recreates its operating system on Windows PC's and am creating new programs for it in the BASIC programming language.

Click on the picture for a bigger view of the mighty MC-10.

> > history

A Beginner's Computer

In the 1970's and 80's, Radio Shack produced a line of personal computers under the TRS-80 brand name, affectionately nicknamed "Trash-80" by its owners. The best known TRS-80 model was the Color Computer, a somewhat conservative but expandable PC which competed with the Atari and Apple II computers and was produced with upgraded versions from 1980 to 1991.

Among the more interesting models in the TRS-80 line was the MC-10 Micro Color Computer, a so-called "beginner's computer" introduced in 1983 to compete with the popular Timex Sinclair 1000, the first PC to sell under US$100 ($99 to be exact). Competitively priced at $119.95, the philosophy behind the MC-10 was that it would make a newcomer comfortable with home computing, then they would graduate to the more powerful (and expensive) Color Computer. Like the Timex and Atari PC's, the MC-10 connected to the back of a TV for use as a monitor.

It only had 4K of RAM, a puny amount against the wildly popular Commodore 64 (with 64K of onboard RAM), Radio Shack's own Color Computer 2 (32K expandable to 64K) and other PC's from IBM, Atari, Apple and Texas Instruments, which were all upgrading to 64K. The memory could be expanded to a heart-stopping 20K through an external plug-in 16K RAM box. There were no joystick or mouse ports, the small-scale "chiclet" keyboard made it hard to type, the one-voice sound chip slowed down the computer when it was called upon, and programs could only be loaded via cassette tape, whereas all other computers were making major use of fast-loading floppy disks. It was criticized in the press for being too little, too late, and was shelved after only one year because of slow sales.

Nevertheless, it was still technically superior to the Timex Sinclair 1000. While the Timex had a silent, black-and-white TV output and its flat membrane keyboard made typing rather hellacious, the MC-10 could display in nine primary colors, generate audio (albeit only one voice) and be programmed in an easy to understand BASIC language developed by Microsoft (in its pre-Windows days). Today the MC-10 enjoys a small but active fan base among computer hobbyists in the form of modern emulators and new programs. Among the titles are a phonetic voice synthesizer, a poetry program that generates humorous free verse from a database of phrases, casino games, and a version of the popular online game Bejeweled.

> > emulators

Virtual MC-10 Emulator for Windows
Created by a computer enthusiast in Australia, this emulator recreates the MC-10 on your Windows PC, and is required to run the programs I created in the below section. It includes original programs from contributors around the world.