[Coco] Coco to PC cable

[David Hazelton]

John W. Linville wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 02:31:10PM -0500, Boisy Pitre wrote:
>
>   
>> This is all, of course, your decision.  For me, there is no benefit or  
>> detriment to you choosing to adopt the DriveWire 3 protocol. Besides the 
>> benefits that I laid out above (additional server platform support, 
>> instant NitrOS-9 compatibility), the CoCo community would be the real 
>> winner here, and that's really what it's all about, right?
>>
>> Is there anyone else here who would see the benefit of Roger adopting  
>> the DriveWire 3 protocol for disk storage in his CoCoNet product if it  
>> meant greater interoperability, greater choice and greater flexibility?
>>     
>
> As a resident member of the open source crowd, I feel compelled
> to raise my hand. :-)  I think you have covered the major points
> benefiting the users (or "customers") of the two projects.  There is
> also the added benefit of developer cooperation -- for example,
> CoCoNet could grow printing functionality without having to spend
> development resources on the server.
>
> I'd like to commend Boisy for opening-up DriveWire sources, and I
> would also note that the DriveWire protocol has been well documented
> for some time.  IMHO everyone developing CoCo-related software could
> take that lesson to heart.  Afterall, no one is going to get rich
> off this community anyway. :-)
>
> Cooperative development is the way to go.  It exands the potential
> user base and the potential developer base, while not fragmenting
> the community any worse than it already is between RSDOS and NitrOS-9.
>
> John
>   
As my full discloser, I haven't "bought" into either.  I am looking at 
both though.  I see that since Roger has a different endgame, other than 
a Fileserver for the Coco his point.  How many times have we sat down 
and developed our own program because the canned software didn't cut 
it,  just didn't do exactly what we wanted the way we wanted.  how many 
bought VED instead of even trying TSedit.
I'm not comparing  Boisy's Drivewire to TSedit by any means,  Boisy's 
products are quality products, just that they are not what Roger 
envisions.  This reminds me of the my Vax days..Eve or Emacs.  Both very 
capable text editors,  but  (in my opinion) Emacs was more powerful or 
at least more in tune to the environment  that I was working in.  

Competition makes for better products.  If I remember right Roger's was 
working  on getting Print#-2 printing to go thru the server,  it wasn't 
in Drivewire's scope.  Shain Klammer already had a solution how he did 
it with a linux box and Frank Pittel wanted a solution.  Boisy  has a 
nitros-9 solution. ( Boisy quick question...since the DWP printers were 
daisy wheel and I'm assuming SCDWP is a daisy wheel driver, does your 
solution do graphics too or just Characters.? )  Not that I ever did  
anything outside of OS9, but  for some reason  the coco community is 
still split, between Disk Basic and OS9 (nitrOS-9). 

Now not seeing the products really close, but seeing what people have 
written. So if I'm wrong correct me. I  find Coconet more of an 
extension of Disk Basic, where HDB-DOS is a Disk Basic.  I can see why 
one would just want to add commands ...isn't that what Microware did to 
Extended Basic, instead of loading a new environment.  Now I do believe 
it would be handy for both to use an common protocol for common items; 
such as remote Disk I/O doing so could make Roger's job a lot harder; a 
Portion of his remote "networking" will not work unless you run his 
server  (Which only works on Windows).  This would make Roger's product 
look and act "sub standard" if you were to use it with a Linux server or 
a Mac server.  How many of us "hated" that Dload never worked.  kind of 
cheaped Extended Basic or the Coco 3's bit banger problems.  Things that 
worked on a Coco2 had problems on the 3.  Left me with a sour taste when 
I brought my Coco 3 home.  If Roger opened up his code and merged it 
into Drivewire.  It would become like MESS.  a good Emulator, but tied 
to too many other common machines, which makes VCC sometimes a better 
choice.

I hope Roger continues getting Coconet to what he wants Coconet to 
become.  I believe that  if he opens up his source when he releases it, 
That could benefit both the community and Roger as he has stated wants 
to bring the server to other platforms,  but this is his baby as 
Drivewire is Boisy's.  I find both products Coconet and Drivewire 3 
having a place, a different place in the coco community.  And after we 
have both products, I bet Boisy and Roger will add more features, some 
that are similiar and some that will define the differnces between the 
two products.

Now if only we could make it so we can have Coconet and HDB-DOS work 
together, so we can have both.  (What's another service on a PC anyways)

My two cents worth. 

David Hazelton