Compucolor.org – News

Two more ad scans, purchased from eBay. The third one below was scanned and posted back in 2022 but I forgot to update this news page.

• ISC 8070 $4900
• We've just built a brand new case for color graphics. (ISC 3621)
• Unbelieveable!!!!! The Intecolor 8001 Kit (color)

One more ad scan, purchased from eBay

• Another ISC breakthrough: Affordable dot addressable color graphics

Two more scans of ads, both obtained off eBay.

• Intelligent System 3650 Buy Factory Direct
• Intecolor 8063 First CP/M Computer with Color Graphics

There are few developments in the Compucolor world, but I did buy a couple Intecolor computer ads off of eBay. Here they are.

• The Intecolor 8001 Christmas Kit
• Intecolor 8963 CP/M Compatible Desktop Computer

Just a small update, one new brochure (more colorful than one would expect from an OEM price list)

• Intecolor 8000 Series OEM Price List, 9-79

After a long pause, finally something new to share, this time a couple Colorcue isues.

These are single issues:

• Colorcue Dec. 1979 / Jan. 1980 (vol. 3, no. 1)
• Colorcue Dec. 1979 / Jan. 1980.

The manual mentioned in the previous entry contained a disk labeled "Trader". The disk was in ISC 3650 format, which isn't compatible with the CCII, but I was able to read it and convert it to CCII format. Read the description here, or just run it.

Here are scans of a few more documents that I purchased on eBay.

• Intecolor 3650 User's Manual
• Intecolor 3650 and Compucolor II Maintenance Manual
• FDD100-5 Microfloppy Operation and Maintenance Manual
• ISC 3600/9600 Series Options

David Polglaze donated his collection of disks to help round out the disk library. These disks were the source of some missing cover art and manual scans for disk images already in the collection, but also filled in some gaps, including

• Bounce
• an error-free Hangman disk image
• Monitor
• Personal Database
• Shoot
• Solitaire
• Text Editor

While going through some old Byte magazines, I found a couple ads and an article about the Intecolor 8001 and Compucolor 8001 computers.

• Unbelieveable!!!!! The Intecolor 8001 Kit
• Now $2750. America's Lowest-Priced Personal Computer System With Color Vector Graphics
• Making Color Slides with an Intecolor Microcomputer

Another ad:

• The personal computer for the enterprising mind

I put up two more ads:

• The Intecolor 8070 business system
• Intecolor 8051 vs. IBM 5100

I've acquired another ad, this one for the Intecolor 8031 and 8051.

I've made a small update to the emulator, yielding a 6x speedup under the Chrome browser. The emulator was already faster than real time, so this change simply reduces load on the host CPU. The issue is that at the core of the emulator is a 256-way switch statement, indexed by the 8080 opcode. It turns out Chrome doesn't optimize switch statements with more than 128 branches. On my machine, in unregulated speed mode, the emulator runs 30x realtime, vs 5x realtime previously.

I put up two more ads:

• The Compucolor 8001 System
• Putting color to work in computers. (ISC 3621)

Yet another release of the Compucolor II emulator. This round of improvements includes adding emulation of a joystick, fixing a bug in the half carry flag of the ADC instruction, and adding an option to not throttle the emulation speed.

You can try it out here, with release notes here.

After two months of evening and weekend puttering, a new version of the Compucolor II emulator is ready. A lot of credit is due to Garry Epps for his extensive help in tracking down emulator bugs, suggesting improvements, and being encouraging.

A few disk images were also rearranged or cleaned up on the virtual media page.

I cleaned up some HTML and CSS errors and warnings, and while I was at it, I've modernized to use the header, footer, nav, figure, and figcaption tags instead of divs with class attributes. The page structure now feels like just brushed teeth.

It has taken a long time, but I've finally reviewed all the 250+ disk captures I made a few months ago. The virtual media page has all the latest goodness folded into it. If you happen to play around with one of these disk images and have something to add, let me know and I will update the notes associated with that disk image.

I've also updated the tech page to include a new section about floppy disk implementation used by the CCII. This includes low level information as well as file system level information. It is somewhat terse, but is already in the TL;DR danger zone for anyone not smitten with learning arcane details.

I've added a small section to the docs page, supplying source code for v6.78 and v8.79 ROMs. I haven't verified that these are complete or that, nor if the compiled binary matches the real ROM images.

I've also posted a short (5 minute) video on youtube with a quick demonstration of how I captured the floppy disk images.

The long Thanksgiving weekend has given me the time to add a major new feature to the emulator, and a few other minor enhancements. The big change is to support the Soundware audio device. This will work only in browsers which support the Audio API (that is, newer browsers).

Peter Hiner does it again, digging up an assortment of newsletters from various Compucolor/Intecolor user groups. These aren't complete collections by any means, really just a few issues, but at least it gives one some flavor for what it was like.

All can be found on the Newsletters section of the docs page.

Peter also expertly turned the virtual disk image "berts_bar+colossal_adventure.ccvf" into two more functional disks: Berts Bar and Colosssal Adventure, which boots directly to the program after pressing AUTO. Thanks, Peter!

This one is a long time coming. I've been sitting on a large collection of Compucolor floppy disks for a few years, but there hasn't been a way to read them. Over the past six months of on and off work, I've written some software and used an FPGA board and some interface logic to drive a spare Wangco Model 82 floppy drive and capture all those disks.

I've posted all the floppy images to a new page, Disk Images. Only a handful of disk images have a description for them. In time I hope to fix this, perhaps with the help of someone reading this message.

On that page, you can download a zip'd version of the virtual disk image, suitable for running on the emulator or for creating a real disk. A few disk have cover art and/or instructions that are available there too. Clicking on the "directory" link produces a listing of the disk contents; the files in such listings can also be clicked to view the file contents.

I've release a new version of the Compucolor II emulator, with a number of interesting improvements. Probably the most useful one is the list of available disk images is greatly improved, including most of the standard Compucolor game floppies, and a few other good ones.

Thanks to Dr. David B. Suits for permission to share his terrific Space Invaders-like game, Alien Invaders.

Peter Hiner scanned Colorcue Volume 6, numbers 1, 3, and 4 to help fill out most of the missing issues from Volume 6 of that newsletter. Number 2 is still missing.

• Colorcue Vol. 6 (partial)

I've added two ads: one for the Compucolor II; one for the Intecolor 8010.

• Guess who's coming to class
• Intecolor 8010 vs IBM 5110. Draw your own conclusion.

The emulator has been updated with a number of improvements, most notably emulation of the floppy disk system.

Al Kossow, the visionary archivist of bitsavers.org, has kindly contributed a couple manuals:

• Compucolor II Assembler Operating Manual
• Compucolor Text Editor

I've scanned or rescanned a few more documents:

• A Personal Computer I Respect (Graph)
• A Personal Computer I Respect (Startrek)
• Color Graphics on the Compucolor 8051, Byte Magazine, May, 1978

After spending a decade thinking about it, and eight years holding the domain, I've finally put up a website dedicated to the legacy of the Compucolor II computer. There is more information than ever on the web about the machine, but there is still room for improvement, and the purpose of this website is to fill that gap.

If nothing else, please visit the emulator page. There is nothing to install, nothing to configure, just go and kick the tires.

If you have anything to contribute, I'm receptive. Even if you have just some fond memories, consider adding them to the guestbook.