CoCo

This book is subtitled "The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer". It chronicles the TRS-80 Color Computer from Tandy / Radio Shack. This was the first computer that my family owned. It was created in the 1980s among competitors like the Apple II, Atari ST, and Commodore 64.

The computer has a Motorola 6809 chip as the CPU. It had a cartridge slot on the side. Initially you could load and store programs from cassette tape. It ran at less than 1Mgz. The original version had 4k of RAM. You could upgrade to 16k or 32k. It had Microsoft BASIC in its ROM. There was an optional Extended BASIC that gave you better graphics, and a Disk Extended BASIC for floppy drive access.

My family upgraded to the CoCo 3 later on. This was a computer still based on the 6809 chip. There was more memory (128K by default). Although not all the memory could be accessed at once. The CoCo 3 had an enhanced GIME chip for graphics. Around the same time, an upgraded joystick was released.

The Rainbow Magazine was dedicated to the color computer. There was a host of companies providing third party support for hardware and software. The legion of Radio Shack stores carried the computer and official Tandy software. There was talk about a CoCo 4. But there were delays and not enough demand.

They Both Die at the End

Matteo is a recluse. He lives alone in an apartment. His dad is in a coma at the hospital. He has one friend that is a single mother. He gets a call that he is going to die today.

Rufus is an orphan. He is part of a gang. He wants to beat up the new boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend. His parents and sister previously died in a car accident. Rufus gets a call that he is going to die today.

There is a service for people who are going to die that allows them to meet up with other people. These two guys from really different backgrounds do meet and spend their last day alive together.

The title gives away the ending of the book. There is a nasty surprise towards the end of the book. It seemed out of place based on the background of the two characters that have been developed throughout the whole book. I give this book a thumbs down.

Confessions of a Curious Bookseller

Fawn Birchill is the owner of an old book store in West Philadelphia. She has a couple employees. Her business is failing. As a youth, she was forced to work at her father's general store. Her father is now in the hospital on his deathbed. Fawn will not visit him.

Fawn lives in the bookstore building. She has a tenant Jane who is elderly. Fawn often visits Jane and watches TV with her. Fawn eventually rents a room to Rainbow, a magician who wants to eventually perform in Las Vegas.

Fawn corresponds with a gentleman named Gregory. Fawn pretends to be a rich British heiress when writing to Gregory. Fawn also emails her mom and sister. Her sister is married with children. Fawn is also a frequent poster to a local blog.

Mark opens another bookstore close to Fawn's and became very successful. Eventually Fawn's employees either quit or are fired, and they end up working for Mark. This leaves Fawn running the store by herself until she gets a volunteer named Jack.

Jack is a bit slow. But it turns out his family is rich. Fawn's father dies. While at the funeral, Jack texts her that the store is falling into a sinkhole. Fawn immediately leaves the funeral to find out it is her competitor Mark's store that was destroyed. As Fawn realizes she cannot afford to maintain her bookstore building, she decides to sell it to Mark. Then Fawn takes off to travel the world with Greg, who also was embellishing the truth about himself.

Running for my Life

This is a book about NFL football player Warrick Dunn. His mom was a police offer who was killed while acting as security after hours. This occurred when Dunn was 18 years old. He had many younger siblings who became orphans. He decided to continue with his college plans. He spent 4 years in Florida playing football.

Dunn was a smaller running back. He played for the Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He started a charity where they hook deserving families up with new houses. They require the families to do many hours of training. They make the down payment on the house. They also fill the house with all the things a family will need to be successful.

Dunn was for more than 10,000 yards in his career. He won the Walter Payton Player of the Year award. He served as the adult in his family while away at school and in the NFL. His younger brother and grandmother were the on sight guardians of his siblings.

Bad Blood - Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

Bad Blood chronicles the tale of startup company Theranos. CEO Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford to start the company. Her premise was to produce a small machine that could produce all kinds of blood tests from a single drop of blood from a finger prick.

Normally you need to take a lot of blood from the body, and have a lab perform tons of tests requested by doctors. Holmes created a machine that in theory could analyze one variety of blood tests. But the machine was faulty. The real crime was putting the testing in production with real patients.

Plenty of employees determined that there was outright fraud going on. All were either fired or quit. They were muzzled by top lawyers for the company. Luckily a Wall Street Journal reported was tipped off and published a series of inditements against the company in his newspaper. He is the author of this book.

The Man Who Quit Money

Danielo Suelo is a guy who refuses to work for money. He does not like the monetary system at all. This does not mean that he never works. He just refuses to be paid for it. This is his way of life.

Daniel has minimal possessions. You might find him living in a cave in the wilderness. But it won't usually be that far away from a town. He likes to get leftover food that stores or restaurants want to throw away. Daniel is also sometime content to live off the land.

Suelo was brought up as a Fundamentalist Christian. He went off when older to find the secrets of God. I think he turned into an athiest. But that was not until surveying assorted religions around the world, and trying some of them out in different countries.

I do give Suelo credit that he is living the life he professes. He does live off the kindness of others, and the generousity of businesses that hand out leftovers. He does face problems when having to pay for things like dentistry or health care.

There were many highlights in this book about Suelo's life. One was when he and a new friend headed North and crossed a frozen lake to become stranded on a private island. Suelo had to swim back in icy waters, and beg the hotel owner who also owned the land for help.

Uncommon Type

This book is the first from Tom Hanks. Compared to the drivel I previously read, this book was top notch. It is a collection of short stories. They each tie in the use of a typewriter into the story. However that is not the main point of any of the stories.

There are recurring characters in some of the stories. There is a guy and his three friends. Two friends are guys who start off working at Home Depot: MDash and Steve Wong. MDash recently became a citizen of the USA. Steve Wong is a bowling prodigy who has multiple confirmed perfect games in a row. The third friend is Anna, who the main guy dates for a while. Anna is too high strung, high maintenance, and high velocity. He is not he man for her. They all remain friends to the end though.