[Coco] Coco to PC cable

[John W. Linville]

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:18:31AM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Tuesday 10 March 2009, Jim Hickle wrote:
> >--- On Tue, 3/10/09, Frank Pittel <fwp at deepthought.com> wrote:
> >>While I believe
> >>in competition I'm afraid that in this case it will divide the community
> >>and in
> >>the long run this will be a bad thing.
> >
> >Right.  It's bad enough that we right-thinking people, i.e., those with SCSI
> > controllers, have to endure the disunity brought about by the unwashed,
> > IDE-using rabble.
> >
> Shhh, Jim.  We aren't supposed to let on about that. :)

That is worth a chuckle, but in case it was intended as a serious
point...

It is one thing to require two drivers to enable using either kind of
available hardware.  After all, most people aren't building their own
hard drives, and there are reasons (including general availability)
to prefer one type over the other on an individual basis.  (FWIW,
I'd be happy to see a SATA adapter for the CoCo!)  But in that case
you are adapting to an outside reality to bring the community together
onto common platforms.

OTOH, requiring different software (both on the CoCo and on your
server) for two such similar services when they are both under
active development within the community is IMHO a waste of talent
and resources.  In this case you are forcing users to choose between
platforms or to maintain near-duplicate environments.  It just seems
unnecessary.

Make no mistake, Roger and Boisy are entitled to the fruits of their
own labor.  And everyone is entitled to support one or the other
(or both) as they so choose.  I'm just saying that we would all be
better off if these two projects could find a way to work together.

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.