[Coco] What if the next CoCo is made into a Tablet?

[Frank Pittel]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 12:10:03PM +1000, Mark McDougall wrote:
> On 12/07/2011 9:08 AM, Bill Loguidice wrote:
> 
> >Seriously, it's a lovely thought, just in no way practical. It would take
> >years for enthusiasts to engineer something like that and it would already
> >be out-of-date and severely overpriced. Take a look at the drama with the
> >Pandora handheld or any other hobbyist/enthusiast/semi-pro endeavor of
> >reasonable complexity and you see all kinds of issues. Heck, most companies
> >outside of Apple can't design a decent tablet, and they have huge R&D
> >budgets...
> 
> Gotta side with Bill on this one. It's probably the absolute *last*
> form factor in which you'd consider producing a 'Coco4'.
> 
> A tablet is nothing more than PC hardware in fancy plastics and a
> snazzy touch screen. All the engineering effort is in the ergonomics
> and the power supply. They've been around for years and years, and
> Apple have merely bided their time waiting for battery and touch
> screen technology to reach the right price-point before making it
> sexy to own one. I'm still amazed that Apple fanboyz don't seem to
> have a problem being told what they can, and can't, run on their own
> PC, but I won't get into that here...
> 
> As Bill alluded to, this type of design problem is something that
> requires massive capital resources to develop, well outside the
> realms of hobbyists like us. The Pandora didn't get off the ground
> until it had 4,000 pre-orders, and is over 2 *years* late, and still
> having production problems, mainly with the mechanicals. [I'm
> waiting for the 2nd batch to start production myself before I
> decided whether or not the hardware design is simply too long in the
> tooth. On the plus side, it's probably powerful enough to emulate
> nearly everything I want anyway, and the 'Pandora 2' would likely be
> 4 years away at least!]
> 
> I simply don't see any reason why I'd want to carry around a Coco
> tablet with primitive word processing and no internet connectivity.
> Much more sensible is a powerful Windows/Linux-based tablet with all
> the modern connectivity, that can run a Coco emulator if I really
> want to play Zaxxon - though even then I'd question the practicality
> of touch-screen controls. And writing an 'OS' for the Coco tablet
> would be a considerable undertaking, and also a serious drain on cpu
> resources.
> 
> The Coco4 is, I'm afraid, consigned to lab/study benches with PS/2
> and VGA connectors poking out of generic enclosures, or perhaps
> residing inside gutted Coco cases. It'll only ever appeal to anyone
> that owned one, and furthermore, is still passionate about them. And
> I suspect that numbers in the dozens at best. It's a pity that
> Richard Branson isn't a CocoNut...
> 
> Regards,
> 

I don't know. I kind of like the way my coco4 board uses standoffs with plastic
caps as legs. Don't see any reason to hide it in a "generic enclosure". :-) The
only thing it's missing is an MPI but even so it has more space in flash to hold
every coco cartridge I have and still have plenty of room to spare!!

While it's not "put the batteries in and use", it's not that hard to get working
and there are a growing number of people on this list using it. Fact is while
others talk about how to make a better coco only one person is actually putting
that talk into action. I think we need to support those efforts.

The Other Frank