Look at this beauty: Prológica CP-400 color II, a brazilian clone of the TRS-80 (CoCo 2) - 1985
Posted by khazbreen@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 13 comments
khazbreen@reddit (OP)
My brother and I found this little boy while cleaning the things of our late uncle, and rediscovered it recently after my grandma passing. It was barely used as far as I know. We tested it using grandma TV at the time (some ten years ago) and it worked but had some interference. As I am the vintage computer enthusiast of the family its now in my care.
Today I am too scared of powering it on without doing a full review of the computer and power supply.
Besides, I do not have the cassete recorder to be able to check out those amazing looking tapes, unfortunately.
I am not sure how to proceed. Im just a lurker level enthusiast and dont know any vintage computer group in Brazil (let alone close to me) so for now, it sits being pretty in way over engineered cardboard and bubble wrap enclosure, inside a bag.
Hopefully one day I get to have the time and energy to give this baby the time and care it needs.
fcarolo@reddit
Wow, it's been almost 40 years since I've seen one of these. One of my school friends had a CP400 and some of its games were quite nice, especially when compared to my TK90X (a Brazilian clone of the ZX Spectrum).
Unfortunately I don't know much about CP400 and CoCo enthusiasts in Brazil to give you more pointers. I hope someone that knows more about them will see this thread.
BRguyNZ@reddit
My first computer, I knew of two CP400 users in my city. Really hard to find software for that little bastard. I would love to have another one.
khazbreen@reddit (OP)
Oh I love to hear about peoples experiences from the time! Thanks for that!
BadOk3617@reddit
Nice computer!
Look in your power supply and see if it contains two "RIFA" (usually yellow) capacitors. Replace these with new non-RIFA caps.Don't even bother trying to test them, they're crap.
On the computer motherboard, look for small, bright blue caps. These would most likely be tantalum caps, they are known to pop. Consider replacing these. And for any electrolytics, look for swelling of the can and/or leakage. Get these out of the computer as soon as possible and clean the board.
In any case, take some pictures of the insides and share them here.
kaylanrfr@reddit
I also have one. You should look for Victor Trucco's MiniIDE. It's a great machine, but the keyboard isn't very good.
olifiers@reddit
The keyboard is bad indeed, and doesn't register well keypresses. Second on Victor Trucco's MiniIDE -- it's just what you need to get it going without tapes. And Victor is an awesome guy (and a good friend).
A RGB cable to plug it into an RGB monitor or an RGB to HDMI converter -- you don't want to keep on using that noisy RF video output.
Worth investing in getting it back in shape. It's a nice piece of kit.
khazbreen@reddit (OP)
Definitely gonna look into the MiniIDE, and hope to bring it back to its glory one day.
khazbreen@reddit (OP)
Definitely gonna look into that! Yeah I read the keyboard is not great, but at least is not the chiclet keyboard version.
Did you have any problems with capacitors that needed to be replaced, or the power supply?
Damaniel2@reddit
Reminds me a lot of the Timex Sinclair 2068 (a US-based derivative of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, but different enough that pretty much no Speccy software ran on it out of the box). Same shape, same color - this one looks like it has a better keyboard though.
khazbreen@reddit (OP)
You should see the first version of the CP400 Color, which had chiclet keyboard.
The Wikipedia page says it was designed by a Italian designer, but also "its notable similarity with the Timex Sinclair 2068, which launched at the end of 1983 in the United States". They knew what they were doing lmao
FAMICOMASTER@reddit
That sure is a beauty, wow! Looks like a Timex 2068.
Holiday-Plum-8054@reddit
Nice.