[Coco] [CoCo] Atari and Amiga comparison

[Mark McDougall]

RJRTTY at aol.com wrote:

> In the course of adapting my  converter to these machines I have had to
> acquire them for testing  purposes.    Because of this I have been able
> to compare them  personally with the coco3.
	(snip)
> Well I have them now and I have to tell you I am  not all that impressed.

I think we are all guilty of looking back on the machines we "grew up with" 
(even if only metaphorically) with rose-coloured glasses.

Our family had a TRS-80 Model I Level I 4K which over the course of the next 
6 or more years was upgraded until my father bought me a Model 4P for uni. 
Needless to say I spent quite a bit of time on it and of course playing the 
available games. No doubt you're aware of the graphical limitations of the 
Model I/III/4 series - but to me those games were awesome!

Had a friend who owned an Apple IIe. Only 2 games ever impressed me at the 
time - Space Invaders and Lode Runner. Yes, the hires graphics looked nice, 
but the playability just wasn't there.

Of course now that you can download the entire Apple II software collection 
from the net and have them up-and-running on an emulator in a matter of 
seconds, I've had the opportunity to play a bit more with Apple II games. I 
even found a real Apple IIe and IIGS to add to my collection.

My verdict - Apple games suck! Big time! All of them (except for the 
aforementioned 2 games). Seriously - I hate them! It escapes my 
comprehension that the entire catalogue for an 8-bit computer can be so bad. 
How can I possibly think that? I don't know, but I do!

Now can you imagine how Apple II users would rate TRS-80 Model I software?

Yes I had some great games on the CoCo - Tom Mix and Spectral Associates 
games spring to mind - but I would have to say that overall I had a lot more 
fun with the games on my Model I.

I'm sure there's only a handful of people on the planet that think the same 
way as I do - no doubt being those that had a similar induction to me into 
computers in the 80s... ;)

>  In my opinion,  the 6809 ( and 6309 now) was still a
> viable alternative during the 68000's  prime.  

Now that _is_ a stretch even for someone who loved their CoCo...

> What I am saying is I don't think I  missed much.  Looking back on it now
>  I am glad I was a coco  person.  No regrets.  See you all at the fest.

I owned a CoCo 1 and am the first to admit that I was never "into" it even 
as much as I was the TRS-80 Model I/4P, but the day I bought my Amiga A500 
was probably the last day I ever turned on my CoCo. Even with the benefit of 
seeing what people have achieved with the CoCo 3 over the last 20 years, I 
can't say that the CoCo ever held a candle to the Amiga - even the lowly A500.

All that aside, I still sorely regret the fact that my silver box with the 
worn front-end, upgraded keyboard, RAM-mod switches poking out the side and 
non-descript black metal disk controller are long gone. I recently acquired 
a Coco 3 but it's just not the same...

Regards,

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