In the calendar year of 1986 Tandy introduced two all-in-one computers, the Tandy 1000 EX and the Tandy Color Computer 3. Both were competitively priced at $799.00 and $219.95, respectively. At first the budget-conscious consumer may have chosen the CoCo 3 over the EX. By the next year the price of the EX had dropped by $100 while the Tandy 1000 HX took its prior price. At the same time the CoCo 3 dropped in price by $20, where it would stay until it was discontinued in 1990. The HX would displace the EX and eventually fall to $699 before it was also discontinued in 1990. In this article we will compare the features of these all-in-ones feature by feature and try to determine which would have really been the better purchase.
If one considers the non-Tandy competition, the Commodore 128 comes closest in price and features to these systems, especially the CoCo 3. Announced at $299 and released in November, 1985 (USA), the Commodore 128 was very competitive as well. On the upper end of the 8-bit all-in-one range was the Apple IIc, but it came in at a whopping $1,295 at launch in 1984.
CPU
EX/HX: 7.16MHz 8088 upgradeable to V20
CoCo 3: 1.79MHz 6809 upgradeable to 6309
C128: 2.04MHz 8502 & 4MHz Z80
IIc: 1.02MHz 65C02
The EX and HX use the same 8088 CPU found in the original IBM PC, running at a 50% higher clock speed (and can be run at 4.77MHz for compatibility with older software at boot or at a DOS prompt). It can be upgraded to an NEC V20 for a 5-15% performance boost with most software. The 8088 is socketed in the EX and HX, which makes upgrading easy.
The CoCo 3 comes equipped with a 6809E CPU, and in its native CoCo 3 mode it runs twice as fast as the 6809s used in the CoCo 1 and 2. The CoCo 3 starts up in the slower mode for compatibility with older software. The 6809 can be replaced with a 6309, which improves performance by 20-30% for software which supports it. This was usually the case with homebrew software and games but not contemporary software. The 6809 is soldered in the CoCo 3, which makes upgrades less easy.
The C128 uses two CPUs, the first being a 6502-derivative called the 8502. This was included for backwards compatibility with C64 programs, but can only operate at 1MHz when accessing the VIC-II. The second CPU is a Z80, intended to allow for compatibility with a wide range of text-based software that used CP/M. Both CPUs can be used in CP/M mode, otherwise the 8502 CPU is used.
The Apple IIc's 65C02 CPU is a slightly improved version of the 6502 with more opcodes. Apple provided no official upgrade solution but the CPU is socketed. This permitted third parties like Zip Chip to offer a CPU replacement that ran at 4MHz or 8MHz and had 8KiB of cache built in. There was also the Z-RAM Ultra 3 CPU socket upgrade from Applied Engineering which could add a Z-80 CPU for running CP/M applications, which was very common on prior Apple IIs with a Z-80 SoftCard.
RAM
EX/HX: 256KiB, upgradeable to 640KiB
CoCo 3: 128KiB, upgradeable to 512KiB (officially, 2MiB unofficially)
C128: 128KiB, expandable to 640KiB (officially, 2MiB unofficially)
IIc: 128KiB (upgradeable to 1MiB with Memory Expansion IIcs)
Upgrading the EX or HX used to be more difficult because the official upgrade board, the Memory PLUS card, was rather uncommon if not already installed in an EX or HX. The official Memory PLUS card came with 128KiB preinstalled and an additional 256KiB could be inserted into the empty sockets to bring the system to 640KiB of RAM. These days there are upgrade boards that can be purchased which can add the memory, but not the DMA capability, to these systems.
Upgrading the CoCo 3 requires removing the existing socketed 128KiB RAM, snipping a capacitor or two and plugging in a daughterboard into the sockets on the mainboard designed for that purpose. The official Tandy board is rare if not already installed but there are modern recreations which do the job. The most impressive homebrew for the CoCo 3 requires 512KiB.
The C128's RAM cannot be upgraded internally. In order to upgrade the system, a Commodore RAM Expansion Unit must be plugged into the cartridge slot 128KiB and 512KiB REUs exist for the C128 and they can be unofficially upgraded to 2MiB. The 512KiB REU is rather uncommon.
Originally the IIc came with no ability to upgrade the RAM but in 1986 Apple released a memory expansion motherboard which could accommodate up to 1MiB of RAM. Owners of earlier IIcs could get a free motherboard swap if they purchased Apple's memory expansion card.
Sound
EX/HX: 4-voice TI SN 76496/NCR 8496 + Timer or Direct-Drive Speaker
CoCo 3: 6-bit DAC + Direct-Drive Speaker
C128: 8580 SID
IIc: Direct-Drive Speaker
The CoCo 3 has more impressive digitized audio capabilities due to its 6-bit DAC. There is no DMA in the CoCo so all DAC sound must be driven by the CPU. Digitized sound also takes up a fair amount of space for more realistic voices, instrument samples and sound effects. There is also a toggle bit for PC-speaker like sound effects but these tend to be more basic than IBM PC Speaker sound effects because the CPU must also drive the speaker toggle directly. The Covox Speech Thing can offer a similar type of CPU-driven DAC on the PCs via a parallel port, but the programs intended for the Speech Thing typically demand much greater performance than an 8088 or V20 system.
The CoCo 3 can work with a Sound/Speech Pak but requires a modification to the cartridge. Not many games support the device and they're all CoCo 1 & 2 based. There is also the Orchestra-90 cartridge but it is only supported by a very few titles. The Game Master Cart was developed in 2018 which has the same sound source as the Tandy 1000 but is only supported by a few homebrew programs.
The C128 uses the 8580 Sound Interface Device (SID), a revised version of the famous 6581 SID. This chip supports three channels of audio, each with four waveform selections per channel (rectangle, triangle, sawtooth and noise), a programmable filter, an ASDR volume envelope and a ring modulator. Musically it makes the TI chip look primitive but in order for the chip to play digital samples, it must be CPU driven and they will not sound as good as the CoCo 3.
The IIc has an internal speaker but there is no timer to drive it, unlike Tandy EX and HX. The IIc's speaker must be driven by the CPU, so when music is playing, the screen is usually static. Simple sound effects are possible with games.
Keyboard
EX/HX: 90 keys + 3 Status LEDs
CoCo 3: 57 keys
C128: 92 keys
IIc: 65 keys
The EX and HX's chief advantages over CoCo 3 is its 12 function keys, cursor keys and numeric keypad. The CoCo 3 uses rubber dome over membrane keys while the EX and HX use Fujitsu Leaf Spring 3rd generation switches over a membrane. The EX and HX also has status LEDs for Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock, features not found on the CoCo 3 (although it supports lowercase text characters, unlike its predecessors).
The C128 has the most keys of any of these computers and it has a numeric keypad. The Shift Lock key is a latching key, so its status can be easily determined. The C128's new cursor keys are not ideally placed or laid out but they are better than the C64's cursor keys which require you to use Shift and one of the cursor keys to move left and up in BASIC. There are four function keys but each has an alternate function number that can be signaled with the shift key held down.
The IIc Caps Lock key is a latching key and normally should be pushed down to ensure correct operation with programs that do not know about lowercase support as the earlier computers did not have that without upgrades. Like the CoCos, the IIc has no real ability to support a numeric keypad. The IIc has a button to switch the layout from QWERTY to DVORAK but if a program uses key presses for some other kind of input, it is very inconvenient to change the keys back. The Memory Expansion IIcs have a nice Alps-switch keyboard but the original IIc uses Apple-designed switches which wear very poorly.
EX/HX: Headphone & Volume Wheel, 2 x Joystick, Parallel, Composite Video, Digital RGBI Video, External Drive, 3x PLUS Card Slots
CoCo 3: Cartridge, Reset Button, 2 x Joystick, Analog RGB Video, Composite Video & Audio, RF & Channel Select, RS-232, Cassette
C128: 2 x Joystick, Reset, Cartridge, Cassette, Serial, Video, RF & Channel Select, RGBI, User Port
IIc: Floppy Drive, Headphone Jack, Volume Wheel, Serial x 2, External Floppy, Composite, External Monitor, Joystick/Mouse
The EX and HX have a built-in expansion option with its 3x PLUS Card slots but not many PLUS cards were made. Tandy made an RS-232 Serial Interface card, 300 and 1200 baud Modem cards, the Memory PLUS Expansion card and a Network 4 Interface card.
The CoCo 3's only general purpose expansion slot is the single cartridge port. This can be expanded to four cartridge slots by a Multi-Pak Interface. Generally only one cartridge slot peripheral can be active at one time with the Multi-Pak Interface, which has a switch to select the active cartridge slot peripheral. While the CoCo 3 starts out more compact than the EX or HX, it will likely take up far more of your desktop by the time you're done upgrading.
The EX and HX have a Tandy parallel port intended for its printers, it uses a card edge instead of the 25-pin D shell connector of other IBM PC compatibles. The CoCo 3 has a 4-pin DIN that implements an RS-232 interface, which has to be CPU driven. The interface is intended to connect to Tandy printers, many of which come with serial and parallel port connectors. It can also be used with Tandy Acoustic Couplers and its Direct Connect Modem line (may require an adapter cable).
The CoCo 3 has a hardware reset button as did its predecessors, the EX and HX have to use Ctrl + Alt + Del to initiate a soft reset (and as it calls a software interrupt, programs can disable the functionality).
The C128 uses digital joysticks with a single fire button, but the port has analog inputs which were typically used with paddles. The Commodore 1351 is an optical mouse, unlike the Color Computer mice, but it sends data to the paddle ports of the SID. The NEOS mouse works similarly.
The C128 uses a special cassette recorder, the 1530 Datasette, to save and load programs and data to compact cassette. The Datasette long ceased to be relevant in the US for commercial programs by the time of the C128's release but in Europe it was the primary method by which games were sold and distributed.
The C128's user port could be used to interface with a modem, an RS-232 interface or a parallel printer.
The C128's cartridge port was mainly used for cartridges, few were being released by the time of the 128. Fast loaders and utility cartridges were most common. It could also be used for RAM expansions. The Magic Voice Speech Module offered a speech synthesis chip which plugged into the RAM module and had a slot to extend the port, but only three cartridges supported it.
The Apple IIc may be pricey but it does provide a lot of expansion out of the box. It loses the cassette interface support of earlier Apple IIs but it has a built-in disk drive. There are two serial ports, intended for connection to a printer and a modem, respectively. The external monitor port could be used with an LCD monitor, a high quality RGB monitor, or an RF modulator box. (PAL IIcs need an adapter connected to this port to provide color output, without it the machine is monochrome-only). The mouse/joystick port autodetects which device is plugged in and can be a bit finicky about which Apple II mice it will recognize. Application support for mice would be more common going forward with the introduction of the Apple IIc.
Tandy and Apple II joysticks are analog but support two independent fire buttons, which can be very useful for games. The CoCo 3 supports the 2nd joystick button but earlier CoCo 1 & 2 software does not. All CoCo's have two joystick ports. The Apple IIc can only support one joystick.
EX: 1 x 360KiB upgradeable with 1 x 360KiB or 720KiB
HX: 1 x 720KiB upgradeable with 2 x 720KiB of 1 x 720KiB + 1 x 360KiB
CoCo 3: Upgradeable with 1-4 156KiB
C128: Upgradeable with 1-4 170KiB or 800KiB
IIc: 1 x 143KiB upgradeable with 1 x 143KiB or 2 x 800 KiB
The HX comes with a 3.5" disk drive in its drive bay with room for another 3.5" disk drive next to it. It also has the external floppy drive port and can support either an external 5.25" or 3.5" double density disk drive. The HX cannot fit an internal 5.25" drive but the EX can fit an internal 3.5" drive with an adapter.
IBM PC compatible disks were double sided for years by the time of the EX's introduction. A 5.25" double sided formatted disk can hold 368,640 bytes and a 3.5" double sided formatted disk can hold 737,280 bytes.
The CoCo 3 does not come with disk drives. The disk drive interface is implemented as a cartridge and can connect up to two external disk drives. These disk drives are housed in enclosures with an AC power cable and an on/off switch and connect to the interface via a ribbon cable. Most CoCo 3 drive interfaces only support single sided disk drives, only the final interface, FD-502, supports double sided drives and very little software supports them. Each side of a disk can store 156KiB.
The CoCo 3's cartridge port could run the many games and program cartridges released for the CoCo 1 & 2, but not as many true CoCo 3 game or program cartridges were released. Tandy advertised only 14 of them in its catalogs.
The cassette port was a legacy port for cassette programs released for the CoCo 1 & 2, but BASIC programs could be saved to tape. Some game cartridges also support saving the current state of a game to tape.
The C128 did not come with a disk drive (the Commodore 128D did, but it has a detached keyboard). You can connect up to four external disk drives through the serial port. The mainstay disk drive, the 1541 is a single sided drive supporting 170KiB per side and most commercially available software disks were formatted as single sided. The drive which was typically paired with the C128 was the 1571, which supported double sided disks in addition to single sided disks. When formatted in the C128's native format, it could hold up to 340KiB. It also supported the IBM 360KiB format. There was also the 3.5" 1581 drive, which could hold up to 800KiB per side. Commercial software for the C64 almost never went above the 170KiB single sided format, you would need to find dedicated C128 productivity software which did.
By the time you add a disk drive or two to a CoCo 3 or a C128 you will have come very close to the Tandy 1000s price point.
The IIc came with a built-in disk 5.25" drive, which made using the computer very hassle-free compared to other machines. Apple II disk drives are single sided but a lot faster than the equivalent Commodore disk drives if not quite as speedy as Tandy drives. The IIc was much smaller than the EX or HX and did not require a fan but uses a large external power brick. It could be upgraded with a special external 5.25" disk drive which received power from the drive cable and this was fairly common. The IIc also can support the 800KiB 3.5" UniDisk drive, one can be connected along with the extra 143KiB disk drive in a daisy-chain fashion. Alternatively two UniDisk drives can be connected to the external drive port.
EX: Tandy MS-DOS v2.11.24 & Personal Deskmate (3 x 5.25" disks)
HX: Tandy MS-DOS v2.11.26 & Personal Deskmate 2 (2 x 3.5" disks + part of DOS in ROM)
CoCo 3: Extended Color BASIC
C128: Commodore BASIC 7.0 + Commodore BASIC 2.0
IIc: AppleSoft BASIC + ProDOS
The EX came with all the software required to get the system doing something useful. MS-DOS allowed for formatting and copying disks as well as copying and deleting files and directories on disks. It also included a BASIC interpreter, GW-BASIC.
Personal Deskmate came with several productivity programs, a word processor, a spreadsheet, a calculator and calendar, a terminal program, a database and an art program. Personal Deskmate runs on top of DOS and can handle most of the basic disk manipulation commands offered by DOS, so it is more or less a GUI OS many years before Windows took over the market.
The HX comes with a slightly more advanced DOS that supports full usage of 3.5" disks but it also comes with the kernel of DOS in ROM which allows disks to be accessed and programs to boot without needing to load DOS off disk first. This DOS can be disabled so a hard drive's DOS may boot instead.
Personal Deskmate 2 had similar features and interface as Personal Deskmate but added a music making and playback program and had an art program with support for full 16-color pictures.
The EX can be configured by the function keys F1-F4 while the HX can be configured by software settings stored on an EEPROM chip inside the system. The HX can be configured to bypass the power on memory test, resulting in a very fast boot compared to most PC compatibles of its time.
Display Modes
EX/HX: 40 column text, 80 column text (200 or 225 lines), 160, 320, 640 pixels by 200 lines, 2, 4 or 16 colors selectable from 16 color palette
CoCo 3: 32, 40, 64, 80 column text, 128, 160, 256, 320, 512, 640 pixels by 192, 200 or 225 lines, 2, 4 or 16 colors selectable from 64 color palette
C128: 40 column text (200 lines), 160x200 or 320x200, 16 colors selectable from a 16 color palette, 80 column text (200 lines), 640x200, 16 colors selectable from a 16 color palette
IIc: 40 or 80 column text (192 lines), 40x48 (15 colors), 280x192 (6 colors), 560x192 (15 colors)
The CoCo 3 uses a chip called Graphics Interrupt Memory Enhancement (GIME) to support 16 colors in resolutions up to 320x225 but it can select from a palette of 64 colors. It also supports most of the display modes of the CoCo 1 & 2, which could display up to 9 colors in resolutions as high as 256x192.
CoCo 3 games which take advantage of the more colorful options of that system will look more colorful than their PC counterparts, even on a Tandy. This includes Arkanoid, Flight Simulator II, Rad Warrior, Laser Surgeon: The Microscopic Mission, Rad Warrior, Rampage, Shanghai, Soko-Ban, Silpheed, Thexder, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? There are not many commercial games which take advantage of the CoCo 3's graphics. Tandy only advertised 30 games which supported the enhanced graphics and some of them were either not released (Alternate Reality – The City, The Last Ninja), did not look any better than their PC counterparts (King’s Quest III, Leisure Suit Larry I, Rogue) or were severely cut down to fit on a cartridge (Silpheed, Thexder).
The C128 uses the 8564/8566 Video Interface Chip (VIC) II E for C64 compatible graphics. This implements a 40 column text mode with lower case support, a 160x200 graphics mode and a 320x200 graphics mode. All display modes in the VIC-II use tiled graphics. With 160 pixel graphics three colors are defined for the screen and one color may be selected for each tile. 320 pixel graphics allows a single background color for the screen and a unique foreground color for each tile.
The VIC-II is far better suited for games than either PC Tandy graphics or CoCo 3 graphics in most respects. The VIC-II supports raster interrupts so the programmer can use both types of graphics on the screen. The VIC-II supports 8 sprites per scanline, either 24x21 pixels or 12x21 pixels. It also has support for smooth scrolling both horizontally and vertically. Raster interrupts can be programmed to allow different colors or extra sprites to be displayed on different parts of the screen.
80-column text is handled by another graphics chip unique to the C128, the 8563 Video Display Controller (VDC). This chip can display text in the 16 CGA colors and requires a CGA monitor. Text scrolling can be done smoothly due to the chip's blitting capabilities. It is also possible to display high resolution 640x200 bitmap graphics through programming but this mode is too slow for fast-paced gameplay. Between the two graphics chips multi-monitor support is possible.
The IIc can display 15 colors but most applications used the 280x192 mode, which is limited to 6 colors (more can often be perceived through clever use of moire patterns and a comb filter in the display.) 560x192 graphics often puts a strain on the CPU to deliver graphics at playable frame rates. All three graphics modes have the ability to be displayed with four rows of text, but unlike pure text modes this text will show color fringing.
EX/HX: CM-5, CM-10/11
CoCo 3: CM-8
C128: 1702, 1080, 1084, 1902/1902A
IIc: Apple Monitor IIc, ColorMonitor IIc or Flat Panel Display
While the Tandy EX and HX and CoCo 3 could output video to composite monitors, they supported higher quality displays. Tandy offered the CM-5 and the CM-10 and a little later the CM-11 for the EX and HX but any CGA-compatible monitor could be used. The CM-5 was not a particularly high quality monitor but is fine for 40-column text and 160 and 320 pixel resolution graphics. 80-column graphics are a little hard to read on it. The CM-10 and CM-11 had a finer dot pitch and could resolve 80-column text and 640-pixel graphics well.
The CM-8 was an analog RGB monitor with a special plug intended only for the CoCo 3. Other computer systems like the Apple IIgs, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST also supported analog RGB monitors. The CM-8 has separate horizontal and vertical sync pins. Those systems which output combined sync (Apple IIgs) will need a sync splitter if you want to use a CM-8 with those machines. You will need a sync combiner if you want to use the CoCo 3 with most PVMs. Despite the CM-5 costing the same price as the CM-8, the CM-8 uses a finer dot pitch (0.52mm) than a CM-5 (0.62mm). The CM-11 uses a 0.42mm dot pitch but was $100-160 more than either the CM-5 or CM-8.
Commodore supplied its own color monitors for its systems. By the time of the C128, the Commodore 1702 was a popular choice. The 1702 supported composite and separate chroma/luma inputs, S-Video with a pair of RCA plugs. The 1080 and 1084 are monitors with an RGB solution. The 1080 and most of the 1084s support the digital RGBI output from the C128.
The 1902/1902A were digital RGBI only-monitors intended for the C128. They also had the composite and separate luma/chroma inputs. They may have an analog/digital switch on the back but that does nothing unless the monitor is modded to support analog RGB. You can also use any CGA RGBI monitor with the C128's RGB video.
The Apple II was fundamentally a composite output device but the IIc expanded on that. The Monitor IIc was a 9" green monochrome display which included a stand to allow it to sit above the IIc. 80-column text was very readable with this monitor. Apple also sold a composite color monitor with stlying to match the IIc but at 13" it was not portable. This monitor had a switch to kill the color generation, which turned all text and graphics into black and white. Any composite monitor or TV (RF modulator may be required) can be used with the Apple IIc.
While the Monitor IIc was designed to allow the IIc to be a portable system, Apple also sold the Flat Panel Display, which would sit directly on the IIc and make it act like a laptop. The screen was expensive, had no backlight, poor contrast and squished graphics, so it was a poor seller. The external monitor port provided all the signals to reconstruct the video signal with color, 3rd parties offered options to allow the IIc to plug into a digital or analog RGB monitor. The colors you may get from a digital RGBI monitor might not match especially well with composite colors, depending on monitor and adapter.
Hard Drives
EX/HX: No official solution
CoCo 3: Hard Disk Interface
C128: No official solution
IIc: No official solution
The EX and HX, due to their form factors and small power supplies, never had an official hard drive upgrade option provided. The normal way people got hard drives connected would be to use an ISA to PLUS adapter and run the drive and cables externally out of the back of the machine. One generally expected that people would use an interface card that would fit in the cavity for a PLUS slot. The DOS which came with these systems could partition and format hard drives but support was limited to a single 15MiB DOS partition. Tandy DOS 3.2 could be bought as an upgrade and supported up to four (v3.2) 32MiB partitions.
The CoCo 3 did have a Hard Drive Interface cartridge, it connected to externally powered MFM hard drives. The interface was not especially expensive but the drives were more costly than the system and its floppy drive controller combined. OS-9 had support for hard drives. A few CoCo 3 games support installation to a hard drive.
The C128 had no official hard drive support but a company called Creative Micro Designs released an external hard drive & interface called the CMD HD-20. This was the closest thing to an official hard drive that the C128 ever got near its lifetime. The hard drive inside the enclosure uses a SCSI interface. CMD released a utility disk to for the GEOS operating system to support its drive interface. CP/M also had hard drive support through the HD-20. The drive was not popular and support was limited.
During its lifetime there was no hard drive solution for the IIc. The only port suitable for data transfer for a hard drive would be the external disk drive port, and during its lifespan only floppy disk drives connected to that port. With two UniDisk drives the Apple IIc could boast a respectable ability to access 1,743 KiB at one time, but that still pales in comparison to even the smallest hard drives the other systems could access. As ProDOS and Smartport can access volumes up to 32 MiB in size, hard drive capacities were possible, even if slow.
Printers
EX/HX: Parallel Port
CoCo 3: Serial Port
C128: Serial Port
IIc: Serial Port
One aspect of computing which may often be overlooked today but was essential for personal computing was the ability to connect and use a printer. After the computer and the monitor, the printer would be the third big purchase when putting together a home computer system for many, many users. The EX and HX have a parallel port built in, but as it uses a card edge instead of a DB-25 connector, it requires a special cable to use with most printers. Tandy had a number of cables which could connect to various printers, you would need to get the right cable for your printer and may need to install a jumper inside your system to connect a printer signal line that was left unconnected by default. If you install a serial port you can use a serial printer and you can install two serial ports in an EX or HX.
The CoCo 3 has a 4-pin serial port like its predecessors and this was generally used for printing. Many Radio Shack printers from after the introduction of the CoCo 1 until 1990 had a 4-pin DIN for a direct connection. Other serial printers could be used but they generally had DB-25 connectors and would need a special cable. Finally, there were serial to parallel converters available to allow the CoCos to connect to parallel port printers.
The C128 also supported serial printers and Commodore made special printers for their systems. Some of these printers also have a parallel port connector. Two printers can be daisy-chained together and they use the same serial port as the disk drives, so you can have up to six external devices connected to a single C128 through the serial port. This serial port is specific to Commodore machines, it is not RS-232 compatible. It is possible to connect a parallel printer through the C128's User Port via an adapter but this was uncommon.
Apple supplied its own line of printers for the Apple II computers like the ImageWriter II and the LaserWriter. Several of these printers could be networked but the IIc did not support the AppleTalk network as it did not have an adapter for the system. Other Apple II computers could support parallel printers but they required expansion cards.
Parallel printers are generally preferred over serial printers because they are faster. This is not particularly critical when running off a list or a short letter, but when you have a print queue full of reports with a deadline to consider, the parallel solution was usually the better one.
Software Library
The library of the C128 borrows heavily on the C64, just as the CoCo 3 borrows from the CoCo 1 & 2. The EX and HX have near 100% compatibility with all IBM PC software. The Apple IIc had a fairly lengthy
In terms of productivity the PC compatibles win the argument, there were so many options for the PC by the late 1980s. WordStar, VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, dBase III, Microsoft Works, Word, Excel, Windows, GEM all could expand on the basic utilities of Deskmate.
The Apple IIc could utilize a large library of productivity programs including WordPerfect, VisiCalc, WordStar and the AppleWorks office suite. It also had support for a game library that rivaled the C64 in terms of the number and quality of games, if they were not always as graphically or aurally impressive. The Apple II line had the strongest lineup of educational software of any home computer of the 1980s.
All four computers could display 80-column text but the PC and the Apple II had the greatest number of text-based adventure games officially available for 80-columns. Outside of these games, there were only a few games that took advantage of the C128's abilities. The CoCo 3 beats the C128 because it had a reasonable number of titles that were unique to it but the C64's larger gaming library defeats the CoCo's hands down. Between the C64 and IBM PC, the C64 almost always wins. For those games that fully support Tandy 1000 graphics and sound, the question becomes much harder to answer. The C64's sprite, scrolling and sound capabilities have to compete with the Tandy's full color bitmaps, 320 and 640 pixel resolutions, larger and faster floppy disks and hard drive support.
The Apple II's gaming abilities were very constrained as its graphics was based on the absolute minimum hardware required to show color graphics in high resolution on a TV. Against the IBM PC and Tandy CoCo 1 & 2 it often has an advantage by being able to show 6 colors in high resolution graphics modes versus 4 for the IBM PC and CoCo 1 & 2. The Tandy EX and HX do not show proper artifact colors for games supporting IBM PC CGA composite graphics, so games which use those modes are not ideal to play compared to their Apple II counterparts. The Tandy CoCo artifact color mode can show either purple/green or blue/orange (depending on the system, the CoCo 3 is blue/green) but the Apple II can do all four.
Playing AGI games like King's Quest is not ideal on any Apple II because they cannot be installed to a hard drive, walking, animation and screen transition speeds are slow.
Conclusion
The C128 and CoCo 3 made sense as an upgrade path for a C64 or CoCo 1 & 2 user who already had a decent investment in the software available for those systems. However by late 1986 it should have become clear that for productivity purposes, these systems were not enjoying a flood of support. The IBM PC-compatible market had come to dominate that area and had plenty of programs for all users. The Apple IIc was very expensive purchase and hard to recommend over an EX or HX, even when serial or modem cards are added to the latter systems.
There were more advanced all-in-one PCs in the form of the Amiga 500 and the Atari 1040ST that would be competitive with the Tandy 1000s' prices but even they never boasted the breadth of productivity software of the IBM PC world. Not a small factor in the buying decision for many households was the ability to take home your report or your spreadsheet on a disc and work on it over the weekend. As businesses tended more and more to use IBM PC compatibles, it was a smart move to buy a machine which could run the same software. The EX and HX may have been a budget entry into that market, but they were the safest buys even if the initial barrier to entry was higher than its non-PC competitors.
Photo Credits : Commodore 128 by Evan Amos (wikipedia), Tandy 1000 EX by Tvdog (Tvdog's Archive), Tandy Color Computer 3 by Lamune (wikipedia).
Shouldn't Apple IIc also be included as an all in one in 1986? a popular debate was Tandy 1000 vs Apple IIc/e
ReplyDeleteIt could have, although the system was rather pricey at launch by comparison ($1,295). Still, my Apple II stares at me, more in sorrow than in anger, from its exclusion.
DeleteAnd now it has been.
DeleteHow does the Tandy 1000tl compare with the Apple IIgs?
ReplyDelete