[Coco] philosphical ... discussions

[James Dessart]

On Thu, 7 Oct 2004, Charlie wrote:

> I'll say it again, I would support mostly any new CoCo games that get made.

I think the problem is that there's not enough of a hobbyist mentality in
the CoCo community. It's still in a consumer/producer kind of mode, unlike
the C64 community. Piles of free and low cost pops up, simply because
people are doing it for fun, not for money.

So the barriers to entry are much higher, simply because it costs money to
get what you need. I have nothing against money being made, it's just that
there should be free alternatives, even if they're harder to use.

> Personally I'd like to see OS-9 software. A graphical adventure under OS-9
> would be great. White Fire of Eternity, or even Dallas Quest as examples.

What I think would spur a lot of development is a modern C compiler that
can be hosted on a modern desktop computer. As fun as assembler is, no one
really ends up learning it these days. Lots of people say they're going
to, but a) there are only 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week and b) it's
not easy.

Which is why I've tried to get the gcc stuff going. Unfortunately, because
of a) above, I can't work on it much, if any. Definitely not the kind of
rewrite that would be necessary to bring OS-9 support. Then there's the
sdcc alternative. It might possibly be easier, but it has to be done, it
wont do itself.

I guess what I'm getting at is, never stop doing something because someone
else might be doing it, or because there may not be any monetary gains to
be had, or else some of the things the CoCo might need just aren't going
to be there. If someone else is doing what you're doing, fine, it doesn't
matter. Do it for yourself, do it for the heck of it, do it because you
can.

One other problem is that it seems that those of us with the know how are
also the ones with the least time to devote to our CoCo projects. But even
if you're not a professional software developer or hardware engineer, it
doesn't matter. It's a hobby, it doesn't need to be perfect, or even work
at all. Sometimes just getting a project started will spur interest in
someone else who might be missing the skills to get the ball rolling, but
has the skills to finish it off.

To summarize, if you want CoCo software, you're probably going to have to
write it yourself. Don't worry if it's a mess, you're not making a
product, you're having fun. So go out, have fun, learn something new, and
the CoCo community will love you for it.

James