TRS-80 Tandy Color Computer 3 CoCo RGBtoHDMI HDMI Video Converter Kit

Tandy Color Computer 3 – Complete RGBtoHDMI Kit

If you have a Color Computer 3, this is the version for you.

As many vendors sell the RGBtoHDMI product in pieces, not including everything you need, I like to start by making it clear: this is the complete solution. You do not need to add a Raspberry Pi or program the SD card—it is all-inclusive:

What's Included:

• Raspberry Pi Zero v1.3

• SD Card

• 3D Printed Case

• New 5V Power Supply

• Mini-HDMI to HDMI Adapter

• RGBtoHDMI CPLD Board

• RGBtoHDMI Analog Board

• CoCo 3 Adapter Board

• Ribbon Cables

Other Computers Supported

(Via the 6-way IDC connection)

• Amstrad CPC

• Spectrum +2 (grey), +2A, +3 and Sinclair QL (Analog RGB)

• Oric 1 / Atmos (3-bit RGB TTL)

• Camputers Lynx (3-bit RGB TTL)

• Sharp MZ700 (3-bit RGB TTL)

• Tandy Color Computer 3 (Analog RGB)

• 48K Spectrum / Atom / Dragon 32 (Analog YUV)

• PAL/NTSC Tandy Color Computer 1/2/MC10 (Analog YUV)

• LumaCode / Apple II / ZX80 / ZX81 / UK101 / Nascom / Superboard II (or any other mono computer)

• TRS-80 Model 1 (Mono) / Video Genie

• Commodore 64 (with c0pperdragon's YUV interface)

• Atari 800XL (with c0pperdragon's A-VideoBoard YUV interface)

Installation & Technical Notes

I have personally tested each board, and they all work with my CoCo 3 before I ship them.

The CoCo 3 Kit: CoCo 3 installation is very simple: plug a cable into the RGB port of your CoCo 3 and the other end into the RGBtoHDMI. There is a picture above so you can see the "red" wire should be closest to the edge of the case, or near the "R" in the printed lettering "RGB OUT." If you plug it in backwards, switch it around and try again. From the RGBtoHDMI, run an HDMI cable to your monitor. That's it. This is for video, not sound. For sound, use your RCA sound-out ports on your CoCo 3 same as you did before.

The reason the IBM PC version and other versions sell so well is they deliver perfect emulator-like output thanks to the integer scaling. However, the CoCo 3 had quality RGB output already; nevertheless, finding a CM-8 monitor is hard to do, and this is a good solution for using a flat panel instead of CRT.

Power & Image Quality: I want to share that I do not have any snow on my screen, and the banding in that screenshot is from the iPhone camera; there is no banding. However, in my experience, all RGB-to-digital solutions can have snow if you have dirty power.

Tip: Plug the monitor and RGBtoHDMI into the same power strip. If you really have a problem with dirty power, you can plug the device into a USB power bank.

A Quick Note on the Chess Game

About the chess game: I'm playing the Jobava London and later I defeated the Color Computer game "Chess" easily on the first try. It's crazy how good humans got at chess over the past few years; I feel sorry for these computers, they just didn't keep up. Actually, I would not have beat this game in my youth; I just learned chess earlier this year, but I am not doing bad. Am I selling you this device or bragging about chess? Bragging about chess, of course—we have to talk about important things, right? OK, I kid.

I will include in the box my contact info; feel free to reach out for support.

Attributions

• CoCo 3 Adapter: By Rocky Hill (qbancoffee), licensed under the AGPL 3.0. Open-source hardware design files can be found on GitHub.

• RGBtoHDMI Project: Licensed under the GPL 3.0. Open-source hardware and files can be found on GitHub (username: hoglet67).