[Coco] MESS needs a C++ programmer dedicated to the Coco

[Nick Marentes]

 > 'Significant'? I had a coco myself back in the day and am as fond of it
 > as anyone but claiming a 'significant' contribution is a looking back
 > with rose-coloured glasses IMHO. Now Apple & Commodore - significant.

I have to agree with Mark on this one.

Yes, back in it's heyday, there were a lot of CoCo users which can be 
attributed to Radio Shack/Tandy's wide reaching number of stores. The 
Rainbow (and others) magazines also had an important role in the CoCo's 
success.

We had games, utilities, productivity and hardware coming out. It was a 
great time to be a CoCo user.

But this compared to what the Apples and Commodores had was small, not 
insignificant but we paled by comparison.

I would always look at the products, especially games, coming out for 
these machines and wished the CoCo had this kind of momentum. Anytime 
computers were mentioned in the media, it was always the other brands 
that had the limelight. The CoCo rarely got a mention. Even today, when 
"retro computers" are the topic, no CoCo.

So why did I stick with the CoCo? Technical and marketing reasons. 
Technical because it had the better CPU and better BASIC. Marketing 
because of the wide Tandy/Radio Shack distribution channel which I 
dreamed of tapping into to sell my games.

It's the same today. We have some fine hardware projects, utilities and 
the occassional game coming out from the remaining small but loyal 
community but one only needs to do a web crawl and you will find that 
there is more of these coming out for the Amstrads, Spectrums and 
Commodore 64's from their loyal fanbase.

I don't see this changing unless we can get new people interested in our 
computer. If we can promote the things we do to the world via the net, 
maybe we can get a few new people into our small community.  I get the 
impression that there is a bit of a resurgence in "retro computing" and 
this would be a good time to try and make the CoCo grow.

(getting off my sandbox now )    :)
Nick Marentes