Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Found this old Radio Shack Christmas commercial and it is a genuinely accurate snapshot of how home computers got marketed to families in the mid 80s.
This is advertising the TRS-80 Color Computer 2, which Radio Shack announced back on September 9, 1983, built around the Motorola 6809E processor, an unusually capable chip for the price that had some design touches closer to a 16 bit processor even though it ran at under 1 megahertz. Unlike the original TRS-80 line which used a completely different Zilog Z80 chip, the Color Computer series was its own thing entirely, with color graphics through a dedicated Motorola video chip and Microsoft's own Color BASIC built right into the ROM, so you really could start programming the moment you plugged it in.
The educational angle in this ad was not just marketing spin either. Creative Computing actually ranked the Color Computer as the top computer of 1984 in one of their year end roundups, specifically praising the quality of its educational software even though Commodore had more titles available overall. Whether a family bought this one purely for games, or genuinely wanted their kids learning to code over Christmas break, Radio Shack's pitch here held up better than most computer ads from this era.
Did you or anyone in your family ever unwrap a Color Computer II on Christmas morning? Let me know down below.
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#trs80 #colorcomputer #radioshack #tandy #retrocomputing #cocotwo #80scomputers #vintagecomputing #retrogaming #80snostalgia #classiccomputing #motorola6809 #retrotech #christmasnostalgia #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
Found this old Radio Shack Christmas commercial and it is a genuinely accurate snapshot of how home computers got marketed to families in the mid 80s.
This is advertising the TRS-80 Color Computer 2, which Radio Shack announced back on September 9, 1983, built around the Motorola 6809E processor, an unusually capable chip for the price that had some design touches closer to a 16 bit processor even though it ran at under 1 megahertz. Unlike the original TRS-80 line which used a completely different Zilog Z80 chip, the Color Computer series was its own thing entirely, with color graphics through a dedicated Motorola video chip and Microsoft's own Color BASIC built right into the ROM, so you really could start programming the moment you plugged it in.
The educational angle in this ad was not just marketing spin either. Creative Computing actually ranked the Color Computer as the top computer of 1984 in one of their year end roundups, specifically praising the quality of its educational software even though Commodore had more titles available overall. Whether a family bought this one purely for games, or genuinely wanted their kids learning to code over Christmas break, Radio Shack's pitch here held up better than most computer ads from this era.
Did you or anyone in your family ever unwrap a Color Computer II on Christmas morning? Let me know down below.
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#trs80 #colorcomputer #radioshack #tandy #retrocomputing #cocotwo #80scomputers #vintagecomputing #retrogaming #80snostalgia #classiccomputing #motorola6809 #retrotech #christmasnostalgia #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
