Bonus photos (03) for the book, CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer

In the third of a series, I’m posting photos and related materials my co-author, Boisy Pitre, has received and archived during the research phase of our critically acclaimed book on Tandy’s (Radio Shack’s) Color Computer series, CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy’s Underdog Computer. While the book itself contains quite a few exclusive images, naturally, there were many more that simply couldn’t fit. This is part 03, and the concluding entry for now, and is a companion to the Facebook page on the book, where you can see even more photos and additional commentary.

Boisy Pitre: “This is the photo of the CoCo 4 mock-up that John Prickett sent me via email on October 2, 2012. It was added casually at the end of his email, as though it were a postscript, but you can imagine my excitement when I saw it for the first time. Its existence was rumored but never verified until that moment. Bill Loguidice and I kept the secret about this for over a year, until the book came out in December 2013 (we did let a few select friends in on the existence of the mock-up, but they kept quiet).”

Boisy: “Here’s the second photo from that email sent to me by John on October 12, 2012. Notice the very clearly defined ‘COLOR COMPUTER 4’ badge.”

John Prickett at his house.

Boisy: “These are photos that I took during my trip to John Prickett’s house for his one-on-one interview. These pictures hold significance to me because they capture my meeting John (a true gentleman) and the Deluxe CoCo and CoCo 4 mock-up. John had these already sitting on his couch when I walked in. When I arrived I fully expected to see the CoCo 4 mock-up because he had emailed me a photo prior, but the Deluxe CoCo was totally unexpected.”

Frank Hogg: “That’s me back at my office in Syracuse.”

Frank Hogg on the advertising photo: "I was looking for a springtime look for the photo shoot and Sherri brought some outfits she had, but none were what I wanted. It was about noon when we then drove to Dey's department store in Shoppingtown Mall in Syracuse to look for something. It was the wrong season for what I wanted so she suggested the negligee. We looked in that department and Sherri picked some out and changed into them, came out and showed me each one, and, after several, we decided on that one. Sherri is tall, perhaps 6 feet, and taller than my 5'11", and all woman. She was much younger that I at the time, perhaps 19 or so and I was about 40. You can just imagine the looks I was getting from the middle-aged women shoppers there. A pity no guys were around to give me the high 5 or thumbs up. Trivia: You can see the price tag just under the Flex manual... I gave the negligee to Sherri after the shoot and I never saw her in it again. It was all very professional and above board. She was a very nice person besides being drop dead gorgeous. She married a baseball player now I'm told."

Frank Hogg on the pictured advertising photo: “I was looking for a springtime look for the photo shoot and Sherri brought some outfits she had, but none were what I wanted. It was about noon when we then drove to Dey’s department store in Shoppingtown Mall in Syracuse to look for something. It was the wrong season for what I wanted so she suggested the negligee. We looked in that department and Sherri picked some out and changed into them, came out and showed me each one, and, after several, we decided on that one. Sherri is tall, perhaps 6 feet, and taller than my 5’11”, and all woman. She was much younger that I at the time, perhaps 19 or so and I was about 40. You can just imagine the looks I was getting from the middle-aged women shoppers there. A pity no guys were around to give me the high 5 or thumbs up. Trivia: You can see the price tag just under the Flex manual… I gave the negligee to Sherri after the shoot and I never saw her in it again. It was all very professional and above board. She was a very nice person besides being drop dead gorgeous. She married a baseball player now I’m told.”

What follows are never before released photos of the RMS Prototype, the proposed Motorola graphics chip for the CoCo 3 that never saw the light of day: