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CoCo1 composite video

When I got the CoCo, one of the big problems was the super-smeary, snowy video on the RF-out. Even though composite video is generated internally by the video circuitry of the computer, Tandy didn’t end up breaking it out to an actual port. Lots of other 8-bit machines of the era are in the same boat. Luckily, adding a composite video port to the CoCo is very straightforward! So straightforward, in fact, that I did it twice.

I have seen some other mods where they leave cables dangling out through the case, but this looks shabby to me and is likely to get broken in future years as the machine is stored and retrieved. Showing off the CoCo’s fuzzy RF would just take away from the effect, so it was time to finally get off my butt and install that composite video board I’d had lying around on my desk for years. For the +5V required for the Aquarius composite board, I rooted around with the very same continuity mode until I found an axial capacitor whose positive side appeared to be connected to +5V.

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