Mr. Steve Bjork – the author of Tandy’s Popcorn, Mega-Bug, Sands of Egypt, Clowns & Balloons, Zaxxon, Ghana Bwana, Stellar Life Line, Desert Rider, Pitfall II, One on One, Super Pitfall, Mine Rescue, Bash, Snake Pit, Rampage, Z-89, Arkanoid, Marty’s Nightmare, Color Computer Artist, Bjork Blocks, Audio Spectrum Analyzer, Color File II, and the Hi-Res Joystick Interface for the CoCo.
Mr. Rick Adams – the author of Tandy’s Shanghai and Temple of ROM and the new game, Bomb Threat.
Mr. Nick Marentes – the author of the smash CoCo3 hit GunStar, Stellar Odyssey, Cosmic Bomber, Neutroid, The Gladiator, Stellar Odyssey 2, Donut Dilemma, Escape Zone, Neutroid 2, Donut Dilemma, Rupert Rythym, Space Intruders, Rascan/Digiscan, Cosmic Ambush, Pacman Tribute, CoCoNuts, Pennfest ’99, Gate Crasher, Pennfest 2000, Digiwiper, 4K Invaders, Neutroid 2.015,
Hi-Res Interface, 225 Line Basic, and Pop*Star Pilot.
Mr. L. Curtis Boyle – CoCo guru and co-leader of the EOU project for NitrOS9
Mr. Steve “Stevie” Strowbridge – The original Gamer and Host of CoCoTalk!
Mr. Jason Reighard – aka the Cocoman and inventor of the Switch-a-roo
Mr. Simon Jonassen – with all my code and experiments, I usually make a habit of sharing. I prefer others be able to take what I have learned and not have to reinvent the wheel. Simon’s link on his name is to his CoCo directory that he shares with everyone!
Mr. Ken Reighard – Author of Nightmare Highway and a valued member of the CoCo Community.
Mr. Richard Lorbieski – owner of Boyson Technologies
Mr. Mark D. Overholser – One of the editors and contributors to The New Rainbow Magazine.
Mr. Ron Delvaux – Ron’s Garage and CoCo Guru!
Mr. David Ladd – – Valued member of the CoCo Community.
Mr. Paul Fiscarelli – Valued member of the CoCo Community.
Mr. Bill Nobel – Co-leader of the EOU project for NitrOS9
Mr. David OConnor – Valued member of the CoCo Community.
Mr. Grant Leighty – Valued member of the CoCo Community.
Mr. Rob Inman – Valued member of the CoCo Community.
Mr. Nick Marotta – As a teen I had a CoCo 1 which my friend upgraded to 64K for me, then he got me a trade in on a CoCo 2. Later also acquired a CoCo 3. I was heavily into gaming, played around a lot with BASIC programming and learned some valuable concepts by experimenting with OS-9. I knew I enjoyed tech and became a software developer. After moving away and losing interest in keeping my CoCo stuff, I foolishly got rid of everything but I have since gotten back into the hobby after meeting my friends on CoCoTalk . I currently have a CoCo2 and a CoCo3. My other big passion is music where I am a self-taught ukulele player.
Mr. Jim Brain – Owner of the site go4retro.com
Mr. Fedor Steeman – Valued member of the CoCo Community.
Mr. Ed Snider – Owner of The Zippster Zone and maker of such great products as the Mega-mini MPI, CoCo SDC (Darren Atkinson) CoCoVGA, CoCo3FPGA and the future GIME-X
Mr. Boisy Pitre – Author of CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer
Mr. John W. Linville – Author of Fahrfall, Xmas Rush, and Sluzzle; designer of the Game Master Cartridge; co-founder and co-host of The CoCo Crew Podcast. John has been active as a CoCo community evangelist for more than a decade.
Mr. Terry Steege – I started programming at age 10 with my first computer in 1980 which was a TRS-80 Model 4 that was given to my Dad from the local school because it was broken. Together we worked on it and found something was unplugged inside. Its specs were 4 MHz and had 64KB RAM, with two 5.25″ floppy disk (184 KB each) and ran under TRSDOS 6.0. I taught myself basic from books I found at the library. I then upgraded to a Tandy Color Computer 2, melted keyboard 16k version of which I upgraded immediately from a kit I got off of an ad in Rainbow Magazine.
After graduating high school I went to college for Computer Science, and began programming COBOL and Fortran. I loved COBOL but by then, it wasn’t practical I felt to limit myself to an aging language, so I started to study C.
Around 1989 I started part-time at our local Radio Shack #01-8671. I absolutely loved working there and within a year I started the management program and was the Asst. Manager. Working for RS, taught me so much and to this day I only think of my days there as a great time. Around this time I started to freelance as a custom programmer for a few businesses in the area, using Turbo Pascal, and eventually C and C++. In 1994 I started to program and maintain some Microsoft Access 2.0 databases. One was a developer version using the MS Access runtime engine called DJ assist. It cataloged CD’s by rack location but was able to play .wav files of each song using the OLE functions. It was massive, but the DJ that commissioned it from me loved it.
Around 1996 I started working for the corporate world and supported AS-400, DECUnix, as well as some coding on mainframes. After a couple of years of that, I decided that I hated the corporate scene and went to work for the State of Wyoming as an Oracle DBA and Visual C++ developer. During this time I fell in love with what is now Visual Studio, and Java. Other than minor fixes using Tcl, Perl, and Python, VS, Python, and Java is where I do most of my developing today.
I currently hold the position of Senior Technology Engineer at a power utility full time, operate fourteen websites, custom program for various GIS mapping vendors, and commercially fly inspection drones as a fully licensed UAV pilot.
My free time consists of collecting Star Wars memorabilia, vintage computers and software as well as flying drones, RC Helicopters, and planes as well as playing with my Grandkids.
Some of my CoCo collection includes:
12x CoCos 1, 2, and 3s, 3x TDP-100s, 2x Dragon 32s, 2x MC-10s, 2 VideoTexs, and most of the accessories Radio Shack sold. Additionally, I own at least one each from the TRS-80 Model 1, 2, 3, 4, 4p, 102, and 102 lines as well as each version of the Tandy 1000 series, 1200, 2000, 3000 and the laptops like the 1100, 1400 and so on. I am working on getting my CoCo and TDP cartridge collection completed as well as finding all the PC-# series of pocket computers.
My latest project I am currently working on is a preservation project for the Glenside Color Computer Club, scanning, cleaning, and organizing the club’s newsletters.
I have been a regular on CoCoTalk for since episode 99. It is so amazing to communicate with some of the superstars in the CoCo world. I learn something every time we meet and really enjoy the fun way CoCoTalk is presented, not monotone or ridged but instead dynamic, evolving, and entertaining.
I feel very humbled and honored to be a part of CoCoTalk!, thank you to the great community that supports all things CoCo! Reach me at mail@TheTandyShack.com