[Coco] CoCo Progression...

[Mark McDougall]

Steve Batson wrote:

> I can see if someone wants to do it for the fun of it or the 
> challenge....but it really doesn't seem practical to connect these high 
> speed devices to the CoCo from a usage standpoint. 

I disagree here Steve. For example, there's no way the CoCo could push data 
in/out of an ethernet card at 10Mbps, but that's not the point - the point 
is to have the network *capability*. So although you're "wasting" 90% of the 
bandwidth, it's *not* a pointless exercise as you suggest, and I don't see 
how that "diminishes the value" of the e/net card?!?

Besides, have you tried recently to buy a 2GB hard-drive? There's plenty of 
embedded systems out there utilising 5% of their hard-disk space because you 
simply can't buy anything less than 10GB now. Likewise with the network card 
- if you want to trickle IP packets to a CoCo at a few hundred Kbps you have 
no choice but to use a 10/100Mbps e/net card!

> I know there are emulators out there, Jeff Vavasour's is pretty decent 
> along with some others. I also know people have talked about projects to
>  create a next generation CoCo (I don't know what happened to that). My 
> question is, wouldn't it make more sense to design emulators that will be
> 99.9% compatible (nothing's perfect) with the real thing and allow 
> plug-in code to enhance/extend the CoCo features and interface to the PC
>  hardware. 

As others have pointed out in this thread, emus are great and are certainly 
capable of reproducing 95% of the experience - but for people who grew up 
with a CoCo you just can't emulate the experience of powering up that same 
little silver box you used 15 years ago, or typing on the chiclet keyboard 
or using a tandy joystick. My father's first Model I still sits in my garage 
- I have no idea whether or not it works, but I'll never throw it away and 
hope to someday have the room to set it up and (if need be) lovingly restore 
it. But I still fire up Robot Attack occasionally on the emus.

As for your comments about obsolete components, I agree. It's a very real 
problem with arcade games right now - there are components which you simply 
can't buy any more. I'd love to do a CoCo implementation in hardware (I've 
done a simple TRS-80 Model III already) - but is this any more "real" than 
an emulator on a PC? Interesting question that I won't attempt to go into 
right now. But the idea of a portable CoCo the size of a PDA is pretty 
cool... then I think to myself, how is that different to a PDA running a 
CoCo emulator (and they're certainly powerful enough to do that now)?

I think it's great that people love to tinker with the old stuff, and make 
all manner of emulations and retro-fitting new peripherals to the old 
machines. We do it for nostalgia, for fun and to learn things! The best 
thing is - it doesn't *have* to make sense!

Regards,

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