Rainbow

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Home / Publications - Rainbow

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Rainbow

MISSING PHOTO
Name	Rainbow
Year	1981
Location	Prospect, KY
Notes	NOTES NEEDED
Info Source	INFO SOURCE NEEDED
About the Publication Info Box

The Rainbow was a monthly magazine for the TRS-80 Color Computer by the Tandy Corporation (now RadioShack). It was started by Lawrence C. Falk (commonly known as Lonnie Falk) and was published from July 1981 to May 1993 by Falk's company, Falsoft, which was based in Prospect, Kentucky.

The CoCo Chronicles tell about The Rainbow's first issues:

The Rainbow's first issue was all of two pages in length (both sides, of course) and you could tell immediately by the typeset (LP VII), that no expense was spared in putting together this latest collection of Color Computer information. The debut issue was photocopied at the corner drug store and after the first 25 copies sold out ($1.00 each), another trip to the drugstore was needed for an additional 10 copies.

Containing the usual assortment of Color Computer articles, comments, tips, and program listings, the Rainbow became "legit" by the third issue with its first ads from The Micro Works and from Jarb Software.

Thanks Lonnie!

Jarb Software was a contributor of many software and hardware articles in early issues of The Rainbow. Starting with the first anniversary issue, the magazine was professionally typeset and had full color covers. The December 1982 issue was the first with a square binding.

The magazine featured articles, columns, reviews, tutorials, letters from readers, and advertisements. Many articles presented BASIC or assembly language program listings. Readers had to type these programs in by hand, unless they ordered a cassette or diskette containing these programs, through the Rainbow on Tape or Rainbow on Disk service. The BASIC programs were printed in a fixed font with 32 characters per line so that they would show up just as they did on the CoCo's standard 32×16 text screen.

The magazine provided a small program called Rainbow Check Plus which helped users type in the listings accurately. The program would count the number and values of characters which the user typed in. A small box accompanying a program listing would serve as a checksum system. It was a two-column table that specified what checksum value was expected for a few chosen lines in the program. For example, after line 140, the checksum was expected to be 149, then after line 290, it was expected to be 21, etc. This system required the user to type the listing exactly as it appeared, including all spaces and possible typographical errors. Some users preferred to edit and improve the program as they typed it, at the risk of making hard-to-find mistakes.

The publication's style was informal. It was mostly geared towards beginners and hobbyists. Articles were often accompanied by colorful illustrations, and so was each month's cover. There was also a comic strip whose main character was called the CoCo Cat.

Among the columnists were:

• William Barden, Jr. (Barden's Buffer): technical articles often involving low-level assembly language programming;
• Tony DiStefano (Turn of the Screw): hardware projects;
• Joseph Kolar (BASIC Training): tutorials on BASIC language programming;
• Cray Augsburg (Delphi Bureau): coverage of the CoCo community on the Delphi online service;
• Fred B. Scerbo (Wishing Well): BASIC programs based on ideas submitted by readers;
• Dale L. Puckett (KISSable OS-9): coverage of the OS-9 multitasking operating system;
• Steve Blyn (Education Notes): coverage of educational software;
• Marty Goodman (CoCo Consultations), Richard E. Esposito (Doctor ASCII), Dan Downard (Downloads): answers to technical questions from the readers;
• Dennis Lewandowski (The Assembly Corner): assembly language programming.
• Charles J. Roslund (Charlie's Machine)

Lonnie Falk wrote a monthly editorial titled Print#-2, (with a comma at the end of the title, because it was part of the syntax of the CoCo BASIC's PRINT command when targeting the printer).

The advertisements came from some large companies like Tandy but mostly from small software and hardware vendors. While Tandy would have full-page color ads, the small vendors' ads would be smaller and much more modest in style. This reflected the fact that it was relatively easier at the time to start a business in the computer field. The barrier to entry in today's computer industry is arguably higher.

Software and hardware reviews would appear in each issue. The Rainbow Certification Seal was awarded to a product to certify that it had been seen by the Rainbow staff and that it did exist. It was not however a guarantee of satisfaction since it did not say anything about the quality of the product. The reviews were supposed to fill that role. The certification program started in The Rainbow's second year.

In 1983, The Rainbow started a series of CoCo conventions under the name Rainbowfest.

The magazine had a department called the Rainbow Scorecard which registered high scores achieved by readers playing CoCo video games.

Each issue of the magazine had a theme that was typically associated with the calendar month. The December issue was the Holiday issue, while the January issue was the Beginners issue and was meant as an introduction to the CoCo world for readers who had received a Color Computer for Christmas. August was the Games issue, September was Education, November was Telecommunications, and July was the Anniversary issue.

Lonnie Falk was elected mayor of Prospect in November 1993 and was still in office as of April 2005. Falk died in 2006.

Magazine Details

• Rainbow Magazine 1981

July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1982

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1983

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1984

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1985

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1986

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1987

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1988

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1989

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1990

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1991

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1992

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Rainbow Magazine 1993

January, February, March, April, May

Articles Details

For now, 1981-July to 1984-July

Issues of The RAINBOW Magazine available online

• The RAINBOW Magazine 1981
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1982
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1983
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1984
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1985
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1986
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1987
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1988
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1989
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1990
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1991
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1992
• The RAINBOW Magazine 1993

When created, the links above are to scans available on the Internet Archive and were chosen for this initial effort because
1) The Internet Archive is an entire not-for-profit (501c3) organization devoted to providing all manner of digital media to the world to view and use via the Internet, at no cost,
2) The Internet Archive prioritizes staying available and online (enormous effort and expense is devoted to high bandwidth and high reliability), and
3) The Internet Archive includes with its scans of documents (including magazines) a variety of file type downloads besides an "image-only" PDF, such as DAISY (for print-disabled users), EPUB, Full Text, and others.
About the Internet Archive

When this section was created, yes, some of these scans are "rough" - some of the original copies, as scanned, were dirty (poorly stored), had duct tape on their bindings, etc. There are other scanned sets of The RAINBOW available (including alternate scans on the Internet Archive), and as time permits, those scans will be examined and if merited, links for a particular issue will updated to different, better scans.

Links to other scanned sets of The RAINBOW:
(Thanks to the participants on the CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts for these pointers!)

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CoCoCoding - Home>Magazines>Rainbow section
MALTED/MEDIA - /coco/MAGAZINES/Rainbow/
TRS-80 Color Computer Archive - Root / Documents / Magazines / Rainbow, The (Clearscan)
(There may be others.)

Articles classified

• CPU Speedup
• More Memory for Basic
• Printer Status

External links

• The "CoCo" Chronicles
• Rainbow On Disc Break
• Rainbow Magazine in Archive.org in PDF and TEXTPDF]