As stated, the InfoWorld link claims 20,000 sold in a single year for SOL and the cryptic "dealership restrictions" as the reason why they lost out by 1978 (again, I think a lot of companies must have felt the crunch when Radio Shack began selling their own computers from the relative ubiquity of their stores alone). We can only speculate (for now) what those "dealership restrictions" were, but it could very well have been related to kit versus non-kit. Interestingly, though, to contradict that idea, I DO have a Tandy Computers 1978 catalog with a wide range of systems for sale in it, including the SOL-20 (kit form, $899, assembled, $1099, with a ship weight of 10 lbs.).
In fact, based on that Tandy Computers catalog I just mentioned, I took a look at the "Intecolor 8031" in there and came up with this: http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?st=1&c=565 , which THEY claim is from 1975 and has BASIC in ROM. More research is needed, plus as to why it's sometimes referenced as "Intecolor" and "Compucolor". Presumably since the 1978 Tandy catalog calls it the "Intecolor 8031", the company dropped the "Compucolor" designation at some point. It was always my understanding that the Compucolor systems didn't hit until 1978, and were quite expensive at that (in fact, the complete Intecolor 8031 in the catalog is an astounding $4495, which is well over $14,000 in today's dollars!)...
As stated, the InfoWorld link claims 20,000 sold in a single year for SOL and the cryptic "dealership restrictions" as the reason why they lost out by 1978 (again, I think a lot of companies must have felt the crunch when Radio Shack began selling their own computers from the relative ubiquity of their stores alone). We can only speculate (for now) what those "dealership restrictions" were, but it could very well have been related to kit versus non-kit. Interestingly, though, to contradict that idea, I DO have a Tandy Computers 1978 catalog with a wide range of systems for sale in it, including the SOL-20 (kit form, $899, assembled, $1099, with a ship weight of 10 lbs.).
In fact, based on that Tandy Computers catalog I just mentioned, I took a look at the "Intecolor 8031" in there and came up with this: http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?st=1&c=565 , which THEY claim is from 1975 and has BASIC in ROM. More research is needed, plus as to why it's sometimes referenced as "Intecolor" and "Compucolor". Presumably since the 1978 Tandy catalog calls it the "Intecolor 8031", the company dropped the "Compucolor" designation at some point. It was always my understanding that the Compucolor systems didn't hit until 1978, and were quite expensive at that (in fact, the complete Intecolor 8031 in the catalog is an astounding $4495, which is well over $14,000 in today's dollars!)...
EDIT: The links at the bottom of the Wikipedia page provide some additional, though still vague information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compucolor_II