MediaWiki:Sitenotice:
2025-12-29: I have restored the wiki to a backup from the end of November. Starting in September 2025, accesses went form the 800MB-1.2GB range per month to 26GB in September, 42GB in October, and 70GB in November with most accesses originating from China. As soon as I realized what was causing all the access problems in November, I shut it down (it had reached 36GB by then) behind a password/login screen. The database had gotten corrupted, and I tried a restore from just before the spike in access but that didn't work. Thus, end of November. I still have the other daily backups so if there were any important additions in December, let me know and maybe they can be recovered. - Allen H.
MC-10 Micro Color Computer
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| Looking for CoCo help? If you are trying to do something with your old Color Computer, read this quick reference. Want to contribute to this wiki? Be sure to read this first. This CoCo wiki project was started on October 29, 2004. --OS-9 Al |
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This page was last updated on 01/26/2025. Total Pages: 747. Total Files: 997.
Home / CoCo Relatives - MC-10 Micro Color Computer
This computer was first made available in 1984. Tandy intended it to compete with the Timex Sinclair 1000, the low-price leader in US home computers at the time.
It had the same cassette port used by other TRS-80 computers (such as the CoCo, the Model I/III/4, and the Model 100) and could use the same computer tape drives they did, including the CCR-81, CCR-82, CCR-83, and others.
Together with the MC-10, Radio Shack introduced a printer intended especially for it: the TP-10, a small and cheap thermal printer using 4⅛" wide paper. However, since the MC-10 had the same 4-pin DIN serial port used by the CoCo, the CoCo could also use this printer, and the MC-10 could use any CoCo-compatible printer... or modem.
Radio Shack offered a 16K RAM expansion plug-in.
Although it was "cute" and cheap, it was not well-suited for children because it lacked joystick ports or a cartridge slot. It was instead aimed at electronics hobbyists and first-time computer buyers who wanted to learn to program. Accordingly, its version of BASIC was powerful and its small keyboard enabled entire commands to be entered with minimal keystrokes.
Although the MC-10 arguably made sense when Tandy began the project, by the time the computer actually came out, the market had changed due to various factors such as video game crash of 1983 and the Commodore-driven drastic decline in the price of mid-range home computers closer to the low-end MC-10's price point. With those pressures and a weak lineup of officially released software at time of launch, the MC-10 sold poorly; Tandy almost immediately gave up on it, releasing no new software or accessories and slashing the price to clear out the existing inventory.
The computer was discontinued in 1985.
Accessories
Tandy/Radio Shack MC10 Disk Drive