[Coco] philosphical ... discussions

[Mark McDougall]

James Dessart wrote:

> 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. 

Funny how some platforms really grab the hobbiest market, whilst others are 
almost ignored. I'm still incredulous that the NES (Nintendo Entertainment 
System) still has an active homebrew development market (as does the A2600) 
but its successor the SNES has absolutely nothing!

I originally owned a TRS-80 Model I and knew plenty of 'hackers' tinkering 
in both hardware and software. When I became involved in the CoCo scene 
there was none of that at all - people were either simply playing games or 
actually using it for the applications! I even subsequently returned to the 
Model 4P myself to do serious hacking...

> 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.

 From what I understand, gcc doesn't lend itself very well to 8-bit micros - 
it really needs a 16-bit micro to work 'well'?!? I've used sdcc for the 8051 
with some success - I'd imagine a 6809 version would be quite capable. And 
as you hinted, you're probably not going to get any OS support built in.

> 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. 

Heh, I've got such a wide interest in retro-computing I'm currently juggling 
several projects and have about a dozen more on my to-do list, so I know 
exactly what you mean!!!

I was considering doing a 'port' of an arcade game to the CoCo, much like I 
did with my Space Invaders project...
<http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug/sitrs/index.html>

Unfortunately, there's only a handful of games with a single 6809, such as 
I,Robot and YieArKungFu (although there's probably more that have a 2nd CPU 
for sound only that could be done). And the 2MHz CPU is a problem - trying 
to squeeze tilemap & sprite emulation into, say, a 1.5MHz game is a big ask!

But it'd be pretty cool!!!
Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
| <http://members.optushome.com.au/msmcdoug> |   with less resistance!"