[Coco] old backups, RESTORED!

[Lothan]

-----Original Message----- 
From: gene heskett
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2011 5:41 PM
To: coco at maltedmedia.com
Subject: Re: [Coco] old backups, RESTORED!

On Friday, January 07, 2011 05:38:35 pm Willard Goosey did opine:

>> OBCoCo:  I described Drivewire 4 to my ISP's sysadmin as a
>> point-to-point network (over serial) supporting block and character
>> devices, including the ability to telnet into the CoCo, since OS-9 has
>> been multi-user and multi-tasking since '79 or so.  I think his jaw is
>> *still* on the floor! :-)
>>
>> Willard
>
>Be careful & don't step on it or kick it.  I've used the 1984 time frame
>for that and been called a liar by many.  It was 85 when I discovered os9,
>and I was off the the races.

It was OS-9 that actually sold the CoCo in my case. I had been in the Radio 
Shack/Tandy Computer Center here several times and I just wasn't impressed 
with the "mainstream" TRS-80 line (Model I/II/whatever else was on display). 
My problem was that I had champagne taste with not much of a beer budget, 
meaning I wanted something like UNIX but knew darn well I would never be 
able to afford UNIX hardware. When I finally scraped the money together I 
decided to stop by the Computer Center one more time to see if they had 
anything new before heading over to a competitor to buy a computer. When I 
walked in the door, the salesman pulled a box off the shelf and asked if I 
might be interested in something like this. After browsing the manual for a 
few minutes, I walked out the door with a Color Computer F-board computer, 
disk drives, OS-9 Level 1, and (if I remember correctly) the C compiler.

Of course, the 6809 microprocessor really helped seal the deal as well. I 
had some experience with assembly language programming on the 6502, Z80, and 
6800 and didn't like the 6502 or Z80 that much.