--- title: Tandy Radio Shack MC 10 categories: - Computers types: - Home Computer origins: - U.S.A. years: - '1983' cpus: - Motorola 6803 params: name: MC 10 company: /companies/tandy-radio-shack company_name: Tandy Radio Shack specs: - label: NAME value: MC 10 - label: MANUFACTURER value: Tandy Radio Shack - label: TYPE value: Home Computer - label: ORIGIN value: U.S.A. - label: YEAR value: '1983' - label: END OF PRODUCTION value: '1984' - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE value: Microcolor Basic 1.0 (Microsoft) - label: KEYBOARD value: |- QWERTY / AZERTY, Calculator style keyboard, 48 keys, Basic statements written above keys\ SHIFT, CONTROL, ENTER, BREAK - label: CPU value: Motorola 6803 (6800 compatible) - label: SPEED value: 0.89 MHz - label: CO-PROCESSOR value: MC-6847 Video Generator - label: RAM value: 4 kb (up to 20 kb), 3142 bytes left for user - label: ROM value: 8 kb (Microcolor Basic) - label: TEXT MODES value: 32 x 16 - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: |- With Basic : 64 x 32, 8 colors\ With machine-code : up to 128 x 192, 2 colors\ With machine-code and 16k expansion RAM : 256 x 192, 2 colors - label: COLORS value: '9' - label: SOUND value: Beeper with variable pitch and duration - label: SIZE / WEIGHT value: 216 mm x 180 mm x 50mm / 836gr - label: I/O PORTS value: RGB DIN8 or RF jack (USA) video out, Expansion port, Tape (DIN6), Serial (DIN5), power IN - label: POWER SUPPLY value: 8.0v AC 1.5A (MATRA Alice PSU can be used) - label: PERIPHERALS value: 16k RAM expansion, Printer - label: PRICE value: £99.95 (UK, 1983), $119.95 (USA), 16K RAM upgrade $49.95 tabs: - photos - hardware - connectors - software - emulators - links - docs photos: - title: THE MC-10 subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: TOP VIEW subtitle: '' text: |- I have a little game for you : Search for the "V" key... Yes, this must be a fabrication default... image: null - title: UNDER... subtitle: '' text: 4 small feet... image: null - title: LEFT SIDE subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: RIGHT SIDE subtitle: '' text: Spot the ON/OFF switch ! image: null - title: FRONT VIEW subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: REAR VIEW subtitle: '' text: |- From left to right : \- power IN\ \- RGB video out (DIN8)\ \- Expansion slot (cached)\ \- Reset button (soft reset)\ \- Serial socket (DIN5)\ \- Tape-recorder (DIN6) image: null - title: MC-10 MOTHERBOARD subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: BOX subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: EUROPEAN BOX (?) subtitle: '' text: Maybe this box was blue (instead of red for the US version) in order to differenciate the MC-10 from the Alice which all visual communication was based on the red color... image: null - title: DOCUMENTATION subtitle: '' text: '' image: null hardware: - title: TP10 PRINTER subtitle: '' text: |- Could print graphics and alphanumerics, 32 characters per line at 30 characters per second on 4''1/8 wide thermal paper. Measures 3 x 8 x 5''. The TP-10 was also compatible with "Coco" computers. image: null - title: DISK-DRIVE AND JOYSTICK INTERFACE subtitle: Vaporware !!! text: |- This is the only known picture of the vaporware 3.5'' disk-drive and joystick interface for the Alice. They were presented at the Micro-Expo exhibition in Paris in february 1985, along with a modem (not pictured here). Only the disk-drive and modem are vaporware. The joystick interface was indeed released. image: null - title: JOYSTICK EXPANSION subtitle: '' text: |- With this add-on, you can use a joystick with the Alice. But you can't use a memory expansion at the same time :-( Thanks to [www.mapetitecollection.com](http://www.mapetitecollection.com/) for the picture image: null - title: 16 KB RAM MODULE subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: 16 KB RAM subtitle: back text: '' image: null - title: 16 KB RAM subtitle: box text: '' image: null connectors: - title: SERIAL INTERFACE subtitle: '' text: |- 1 - CD (Carrier Detection)\ 2 - RD (Receive Data)\ 3 - GND (Ground)\ 4 - TD (Transmit Data) image: null - title: TAPE INTERFACE subtitle: '' text: |- 1 - Audio DATA out\ 2 - Ground\ 3 - Audio DATA in\ 4 - Not used\ 5 - Not used 4 & 5 were planned to be used for Remote control of the tape-recorder, but this function was not implemented into the MC-10 / Alice. image: null - title: RGB VIDEO / AUDIO OUTPUT subtitle: '' text: |- 1 - Commutation\ 2 - Ground\ 3 - Red\ 4 - Video\ 5 - Green\ 6 - Audio\ 7 - Blue image: null - title: EXPANSION PORT subtitle: '' text: |- The sketch represents the connector when you look at the back of the MC-10 / Alice (see Reset button on right). 1 - 2 = GND (Ground)\ 3 - 10 = D0..D7 (Data Buses)\ 11 = R/W (Read/Write signal)\ 12 - 27 = A0..A15 (Address buses)\ 28 = E (CPU clock, 1Mhz)\ 29 = SEL (peripherals invalidation entry)\ 30 = RESET (hard reset)\ 31 = NMI (non-maskable CPU interrupts)\ 32 = +5v (power in, 5v 300mA)\ 33 - 34 = GND (ground) image: null screenshots: - title: BOOT SCREEN subtitle: '' text: '' image: null emulators: - title: DCAlice url: http://alice32.free.fr/index.html platform: Windows text: Excellent working Alice emulator - title: Emucompboy's MC-10 Emulator url: http://www.geocities.com/emucompboy/ platform: Windows text: Nice Windows emulator - title: The MC-10 Emulation project url: http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~camennie/mc10/ platform: Unix / Linux text: Still active ? - title: The MESS project url: http://www.mess.org/ platform: Multiplatform text: This multi-platform emulator can emulate the MC-10 links: - title: Alice FAQ url: http://membres.lycos.fr/romualdl/alice/alice_faq.txt text: Useful source of information about the Alice systems - title: Alice page url: http://membres.lycos.fr/romualdl/alice/alice.html text: Excellent dedicated pages full of info by Romuald Line, includes a FAQ - title: Inside the Radio Shack MC-10 url: http://www.slowcomputing.org/ssouth/mc10/ text: Simon South's excellent and useful page. Lot of hardware info. - title: My MC10 Home Page url: http://mymc10.tripod.com/ text: Lot of stuff here, especially software. Cool. - title: The MC-10 archive url: http://mc10archive.com text: Small dedicated site with extended Basic available + utilities, games and documents to download ! - title: TRS-80 MC10 Club (Yahoo club) url: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/trs80mc10club text: The heart of the MC-10 community. Quite active. docs: - title: DECOUVREZ LE BASIC url: http://alice32.free.fr/doc/index.html cover: null text: |- [**DECOUVREZ LE BASIC**](http://alice32.free.fr/doc/index.html)written by Matra & Hachette  compiled/archived by Daniel Coulom\  type of document : DJV\  source : [DCAlice website](http://alice32.free.fr/) - title: RÉSUMÉ DES COMMANDES ET FONCTIONS BASIC url: http://alice32.free.fr/doc/index.html cover: null text: |- [**RÉSUMÉ DES COMMANDES ET FONCTIONS BASIC**](http://alice32.free.fr/doc/index.html)written by Matra & Hachette  compiled/archived by Daniel Coulom\  type of document : DJV\  source : [DCAlice website](http://alice32.free.fr/) - title: GUIDE D'INSTRUCTIONS DE L'ÉDITEUR ASSEMBLEUR url: http://alice32.free.fr/doc/index.html cover: null text: |- [**GUIDE D'INSTRUCTIONS DE L'ÉDITEUR ASSEMBLEUR**](http://alice32.free.fr/doc/index.html)written by Matra & Hachette  compiled/archived by Daniel Coulom\  type of document : DJV\  source : [DCAlice website](http://alice32.free.fr/) - title: ALLER PLUS LOIN AVEC ALICE url: http://alice32.free.fr/doc/index.html cover: null text: |- [**ALLER PLUS LOIN AVEC ALICE**](http://alice32.free.fr/doc/index.html)written by Ediciel / Matra & Hachette  compiled/archived by Daniel Coulom\  type of document : DJV\  source : [DCAlice website](http://alice32.free.fr/) - title: MC-10 SERVICE MANUAL url: '#' cover: null text: |- **MC-10 SERVICE MANUAL**\ written by Radio Shack  compiled/archived by Jim Marek\  type of document : PDF - title: TP-10 OPERATION MANUAL url: http://themc10archive.com/node/44 cover: null text: |- [**TP-10 OPERATION MANUAL**](http://themc10archive.com/node/44)written by Tandy  compiled/archived by Gary (JaGF)\  type of document : PDF\  source : [The MC10 archive](http://themc10archive.com) comments: - author: Stefan Schomburg (Germany) date: Sunday 23rd June 2019 text: Carl, could you plese share details about the differences? Your link doesn''t work for me. - author: Carl (France) date: Saturday 25th February 2017 text: |- Dear all,\ You can read everywhere that MC10 is the same Matra Alice 4K ... but there is a difference, the tape connector are not connecting In the same way... more information :\ http://forum.system-cfg.com/viewtopic.php?f$18$t$7700$p$126208$p126208 Kind regards\ Carl - author: Paradroyd (USA) date: Wednesday 5th October 2016 text: |- I have one of these that I recently acquired from Ebay. I just installed a composite video interface in it (replacing the RF output). There''s an expansion called the MCX-128 for this that adds 128K static RAM, updated ROM with greatly upgraded BASIC, and it ads the ability to use drive space on a host computer (Mac or Windows) over serial / USB. This stuff is all available from here:\ https://sites.google.com/site/thezippsterzone/ - author: Paul (USA) date: Tuesday 13rd January 2015 text: This was a short-lived, uncommon machine. When I worked at a Radio Shack Computer Center in 1985 (admittedly, it was in a business district so home machines were not our focus) there was no MC-10s in our inventory whatsoever. We had some crazy number of the 16K RAM modules, maybe 30 of them... we kept them for a year or so until they were finally struck from the inventory. I think we threw them out. - author: Chuck Rose (Vermont, USA) date: Saturday 27th December 2014 text: After my T/S 1000 got boring, I gathered enough saving to buy one of these in the summer of 1983 along with a 16k RAM pack. This gave 20k of memory (\~18k after OS overhead). I wrote tons of game software for this in Color BASIC and machine code (poke it into memory and then exec it. No assembler or even monitor here (though I did eventually write a monitor program in BASIC to save debugging and coding time). This machine was head and shoulders above the TS/1000 and had undocumented graphics modes that you could use by directly manipulating the video chip in machine language. Unfortunately BASIC didn''t have any native commands to use the higher res modes (Just the 64X48 mode). - author: Jim Gerrie (Canada) date: Wednesday 17th December 2014 text: |- Just to let people know, the web page where you can find all our software for the MC-10 has been moved to:\ http://faculty.cbu.ca/jgerrie/Home/jgames.html - author: Jim Gerrie (Canada) date: Saturday 25th January 2014 text: |- I''ve made lots of software for this computer in recent years. It was my first computer and I had lots of fun back in late ''83 fooling around with it. Come see what we have made and relive the early 8-bit years:\ http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/jimgerrie/jsoft.html - author: JamesD (USA) date: Tuesday 14th February 2012 text: |- You couldn''t fully take advantage of the higher resolution graphics modes without internal modifications because some of the address lines on the 6847 weren''t attached and address decoding is a cheap design. As a result, the last 1/3 of the screen is a mirror of the first 1/3 in the highest resolution modes. To make matters worse, the ROM interrupt vectors point to locations that are in the screen address range used by higher res modes. - author: JamesD (USA) date: Tuesday 14th February 2012 text: |- You couldn''t fully take advantage of the higher resolution graphics modes without internal modifications because some of the address lines on the 6847 weren''t attached and address decoding is a cheap design. As a result, the last 1/3 of the screen is a mirror of the first 1/3 in the highest resolution modes. To make matters worse, the ROM interrupt vectors point to locations that are in the screen address range used by higher res modes. - author: Richard (Belgium) date: Sunday 23rd May 2010 text: Jeff, you mentioned that you also have/had a floppy for the MC-10 ? Strange, because I never heard about a floppy based system for the MC-10. The only backup was a tape-recorder system. - author: Ed (USA) date: Monday 17th May 2010 text: |- Gary, I have both the MC-10 and a CoCo 2 with EDASM+. Do you mind sharing your information about the 6803 opcodes that need to be added and which advanced 6809 features need to be avoided? Thanks,\ Ed - author: Gary (USA) date: Friday 7th May 2010 text: |- I bought one of these on clearances along with the 16k memory upgrade and the thermal printer. I used it until I could afford the more usable Color Computer 2.\ At one point, I got into writing assembly language programs for the MC-10. Since there was no support from Radio Shack, I had to analyse the Rom to find useful routines.\ The 6803 processor was backward compatible to the 6800, but included added features which which made it closer to the 6809 processor used in the color computers 1 through 3. When I upgraded to a color computer 2, I found it possible to use the EDASM+ cartridge on the Coco 2 to develop machine language prograns for the MC-10, by defining 5 opcodes unique to the 6803 and avoiding the advanced features of the 6809.\ The MC-10 used the same cassette tape format as the color computers, but the BASIC interpreter used different keyword tokens and the MC-10 was unable to load or save ascii format programs. It was also unable to use the serial port and the tape drive at the same time. - author: Jeff(USA) (Il/USA) date: Monday 29th March 2010 text: I have one of these still, along with floppy, and thermal printer. My first PC ever and loved it at the time. - author: Tom (UK) date: Friday 26th June 2009 text: Just recently aquired one of these babys for my collection. Didn''t come with any software, but I found a site that has every program released for the system plus a few homebrew games stored as WAV files. Shame the machine failed$ if Tandy had promoted it a bit better, it might have done well. - author: James (Canada) date: Tuesday 9th December 2008 text: I had one of these briefly in the 80''s but didn''t have the addons as RS had already cleared them out. Did write a few basic programs on tape. Would like to find one working condition if I could just to have something to fiddle with. james.m.alexander@gmail.com - author: Richard (Belgium) (Belgium) date: Tuesday 8th May 2007 text: The MC-10 also had the ability to connect a modem to the printer port. The modem had 300 baud speed, and there was even a simple communication program for it to use. I do not know if the modem was originally from Tandy or from 3rd party vendors. The graphics chip from the MC-10 is the same as in the Tandy Color Computer, but Tandy did not solder all connections, so the chip was limited in grafix. - author: Eric Murray (Pittsburgh, PA) date: Thursday 20th April 2006 text: My dad bought me this magical machine when I was 12 and got me hooked. Did a bunch of BASIC programming and even bought a COCO3 later, which died and was replaced by another COCO3 with Boxes of programs and add-ons. Still have the MC-10 in the original box, but have not power it on in over a decade... - author: Richard (Belgium) date: Tuesday 7th February 2006 text: |- I bougth my MC-10 color computer in 1983 or 1984 and there wasn't much support by Tandy corp. But I developed loads of programs for this tiny little computer. Some features that were not mentioned in the manual are:\ Several graphic modes up to 256x192 resolution with 2 colors and 128x 192 resolution in 4 color mode\ Synthesizer functions for the sound chip\ The ability to load data-files from tape to be used with programs like paint-programs, wordprocessors,etc. - author: Webmaster (France) date: Wednesday 17th November 2004 text: You should try to ask webmasters of MC10 dedicated websites such as http://www.geocities.com/simonsouth/mc10/index.html. They surely will be able to help you. - author: Jason (U.S.) date: Monday 15th November 2004 text: I was clearing out old stuff in my parents house, and found my MC-10. I can't find the power supply, but I did find the ram expansion module. Does anyone know where I can find the power supply specs. Also, I am not a collector, and may be selling this soon, where can I find value info? - author: Erik Keever (Earth) date: Tuesday 13rd August 2002 text: |- The sound for the MC-10 was generated through the TV. It could generate 255 tones, lasting 75 milliseconds to 19.125 seconds. On the TV I use, anything above tone 224 is just noise - too high for the speakers. The BASIC command for sound was SOUND tone, length where both values were 1 to 255. There was only one problem. While it is generating a tone, everything else freezes. - author: Shawn (Earth) date: Monday 8th July 2002 text: Although there wasn't one specifically desiganted for it, I believe the MC-10 could be used with any of the serial modems for the rest of the coco series. I don't have any such modem, so I can't test that out. Also, I read somewhere that one could POKE the serial port all the way up to 9600, not sure about that either though. - author: Shawn (US) date: Saturday 6th July 2002 text: Just purchased myself a slighty used MC-10. MY first system was an mc-10, but was lost long ago. Actually the systems & it's manual could probably stlle be used a a good into to programming concepts. (even with the GOTOs :-P ) related: - /museum/matra-hachette-alice - /museum/matra-hachette-alice-90 - /museum/sysdata-eletronica-microcolor oc_id: 163 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230608154729/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=163 date: '2023-06-08' --- The Tandy MC 10 (MC means Micro Color) was designed as an "initiation" computer to compete with the [Timex Sinclair 1000](/museum/timex-sinclair-1000/), the american version of the [Sinclair ZX-81](/museum/sinclair-zx-81/). It was more expensive than the Sinclair machine, but outpassed it in every category. It had sound, color, more memory and even a better keyboard. In fact, the MC-10 is basically a cut down version of the [Tandy "Coco" computers](/museum/tandy-radio-shack-color-computer/), but didn't have as much success as its big brothers. It is fully compatible with the first version of the [Matra Alice](/museum/matra-hachette-alice/) (a French computer). Actually both are the same computer (except for the case color, the Alice is red and the Tandy is white). --- **Richard Vermeulen** adds:\ The Tandy MC-10 micro color computer was not a commercial success. Tandy did not support this machine. In Basic you could only use 8 color and a graphic resolution of 64x32 dots. However, the MC-10 had much more capabilities: 2 color 256x192 graphics, 4 color 128x192 graphics and the sound-chip had synthesizer posibilities. If all these extra functions were mentioned in the manual, I bet that these machine would have sold much more.