Tandy CoCo 2: US To AUS Conversion (Part 1)

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The Clueless Engineer

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Published on February 5, 2023 9:41:55 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z1eAEL_Dco

Duration: 22:06

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Disclaimer: this is the first time I'm touching a Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 or Color Computer ... so figuring things out.

This is a 64KB Colour Computer 2 (Model 26-3127B) from the US - thus it's an NTSC model running on 120VAC.

The first task will be converting the power supply to 240VAC. The supplied transformer outputs 7.5VAC which is then regulated to +5VDC in the SC77527P a.k.a. SALT (Supply And Level Translation) chip ... I believe.

I'm thinking of maybe using a small 7V or 9V toroid as a replacement.

The second task will be getting video output. There are a few mods available - some composite mods and one that generates VGA output. The closed-source composite mods appear to be "out of stock" (surprise surprise), so I'll probably look at an open-source version.

CoCo motherboard schematics:
https://github.com/qbancoffee/coco_motherboards

SALT replacement board:
https://github.com/qbancoffee/coco_salt_replacement

CoCo2 composite video board:
https://github.com/calphool/CoCo2

CoCoVGA:
http://cocovga.com