[Coco] Coco Newby

[jdaggett at gate.net]

David 

The comment about "D" was interesting. I had heard of it but never saw or heard of 
enyone using it. If I remember correctly Unix was first written in "B". The 
predecessor to "C". A Computers in Business class I took in 1971 used PLIII and 
wrote a programs punched out on old IBM cards. Largest one I wrote was about 100 
cards. Saw a person dropped their deck of about 300+ cards. Those were the days. 
get one card out of order and the whole program bombed. Sometimes had to wait 
an hour to just find out that you made a stupid typo. Punch a new card and make 
sure it was in the right order.
  
Enough of that. I can state that after learning the Basic09 compiler for the CoCo 3 
and OS9,  it made learning Fortran 77 a breeze. I was amazed as how similar the 
two were in syntax. 

I would not mind having an F77 compiler for OS9. Did a few engineering program 
for filter response and design using F77. 

james


On 1 Dec 2003 at 23:22, Aaron Banerjee wrote:

> David,
>     Speaking on behalf of those whose first computer was a TRS-80
>     Color
> Computer (which by the way, is still operational), and now program for
> a living, I'd have to say that the Coco is an excellent starting
> point.  For one thing, the computer is relatively simple, and the
> books are awesome. Since you already know BASIC, you probably don't
> need "Getting Started With Color Basic", or "Going Ahead With Extended
> Color BASIC", but if you're into assembly, William Barden's "TRS-80
> Color Computer Assembly Language Programming" is probably the best ML
> book I've ever seen.
>    I was very impressed with the Coco documentation from the start. 
>    When
> I worked at the Patent Office, we'd call such references "enabling"
> (meaning that someone who didn't know anything at all about cocos, but
> otherwise had a good head on their shoulders could figure out what the
> book was saying).  For example, the book which came with my coco disk
> drive starts out by saying how disk is better than cassette, but by
> the end of the (relatively short) book, you know about the file
> allocation tables... (which are very similar to the PC -- or were at
> least).
>    Currently, I program in a variety of languages (C, C++, Ada,
>    Fortran,
> and D {yes, there really is a "language" called D}).  Most computer
> languages have the same sort of "thinking", which is most easily
> learned with a simple computer.  The old addage of "Everything I
> needed to know I learned in kindergarten" sort of applies.  I've found
> my coco knowledge most useful when doing low-level stuff, like
> assembly.
>    I actually used a coco for work purposes in a former job.  I was
> testing rechargable batteries and used a coco as a "smart" recharger.
> Battery voltage was measured via the joystick port, and the charging
> current was controlled via the cassette relay.  Since I'd used up the
> cassette port, I had to load my program using the DLOAD command (and
> probably became the only person in history ever to actually use DLOAD)
> from a PC.
>    In summary, the coco is a great choice if you really want to
>    understand
> the computer you are using.  Get the following books/references if you
> don't have them already (if anyone else on the list wants to help me
> out here, please do)..
> 
>      1.  Getting Started With Color BASIC
>      2.  Going Ahead With Extended Color BASIC
>      3.  TRS-80 Color Computer Technical Reference Manual (use the
>      memory 
>          map at the beginning of the book.  POKE around and play with
>          your computer).
>      4.  Barden, William.  "TRS-80 Color Computer Assembly Language
>          Programming".  Radio Shack.  1983.
> 
>    I hope this helps.
>               - Aaron Banerjee
> 
> 
> On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 arikboke at yahoo.com wrote:
> 
> > Hello Coconuts,
> > 
> > I'm David from California, USA.  My first computer experience was
> > with a "trash80" model III in junior high, and my first home
> > computer was a Coco2.  I was hunkering for an Atari 800 but my
> > friend's dad (an electrical engineer) advised me to get a "good"
> > computer, the kind he had, a Coco1 with chiclet keyboard! (he
> > actually designed circuits on contract with that machine).
> > 
> > Fortunately, Radio Shack didn't sell that model anymore, and so I
> > found salvation in the form of a Coco2 and my own cassette recorder.
> >  It was somewhat of a painful experience, as the screen was always
> > fuzzy due to interference, the machine routinely burned the screens
> > of all the color tvs in our house and cassette operation was a
> > nightmare.  But I loved what a few simple commands in BASIC could
> > make the computer do.  It seemed so empowering ...
> > 
> > Well, near two decades later, I've a BS in microbiology and am
> > planning to get my MS in biostatistics -- not exactly a PhD in CIS
> > :)  However, I recently ran across Nicolar Marentes' Workshop site
> > and I began to wonder what my life would have been like if I had
> > followed my passion back then.
> > 
> > I wish to know more about machine coding and digital electronics and
> > I wonder if learning the (relatively) less complex Coco would help
> > me in this direction.
> >  Or perhaps I should just jump on the Intel Inside bandwagon?  I'm
> >  not sure and
> > perhaps the old coconuts who have learned both systems can give me
> > the proper direction.  If the Coco route, what books and tools do I
> > need to buy?  If the Wintel route, which books and tools should I
> > purchase?  I should note that I've already taken BASIC, Pascal, C,
> > Javascript, and HTML.
> > 
> > I will not be using this knowledge directly, but as I am going
> > towards the field of biostats and possibly bioinformatics, having a
> > decent knowledge of computer systems (and possibly intefacing) would
> > be very helpful.  I'm sorry this is so long-winded, but I just
> > didn't expect to be able to communicate with a group of (still alive
> > and thrashing) coco users.  I would appreciate any and all feedback.
> >  Thanks.
> > 
> > Sincerely,
> > David
> > 
> > -- 
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> > 
> 
> 
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