[Coco] Re: Strange CoCo 2B model

[Torsten Dittel]

The French beast came in today. It is a "64K COLOUR COMPUTER2 PERITEL
VERSION" (Peritel is the French name for the SCART connector). Model no.
is 265-3127B (not 26-3127B!), serial no. 2000990. It has a Mini DIN 7
connector with RGB, probably black&white Composite Video and H+V Sync
signal, sound (haven't analysed that yet). Like all(?) of the "B" models
it comes with lowercase VDG (6847T1). Warranty seal is still in place
(this is why I didn't open it to see the PCB, but I guess my curiosity
will win against my collector's purism).

I did a little research on TANDYs strategy in France. Many efforts have
to do with a "computers for any school" campaign starting in 1983 or
'84. It was almost impossible to sell something to the government
without AZERTY keyboard and video out.

Funny enough there was a red 4K MC-10 clone called "Alice" made by Matra
Hachette (the French TANDY manufacturer) (with AZERTY keyboard ;-)).
They tried to improve that (called "Alice 32"). It had 16K RAM and 16K
ROM: A "BASIC Line Editor" and an "Assembler/Debugger" were added to the
Micro Color Basic. There was an extension pack for joysticks available.
One thing which made me curious: the ALICE 32 had a new VDG named EF9345
which is claimed to be 6847 compatible but has additional 40/80 column
modes and a more video modes up to 320*250 resolution. I wonder why it
was never introduced to the CoCo line...

Torsten