[Coco] Coco and Modern Printers

[Richard E. Crislip]

On Saturday, September 15, 2012 05:24:06 PM Aaron Wolfe wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 9:18 AM, Chad H <chadbh74 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Yea, i would feel a little funny myself  dedicating a full PC just as a
> > printer server, just as i did when i began trying out DriveWire in
> > general.  CoCo felt like some sort of terminal, not very CoCo`ish. I
> > know these things have their place, but when it comes to my CoCo im
> > still kind of a purist.  I want to experience it the same way i remember
> > it in the 80's, so i still use my trusty FD-502 drive as well as my
> > CCR-81 cassette player, heck i even still do most of my CoCo stuff using
> > DECB programs. I know a lot of people knock on DECB, floppies and such,
> > but looks like they will keep on kicking after im gone.  Printers seem
> > to have a slightly less life expectancy in my experience, but one can
> > still acquire great ones with ink/toner cheaply enough that will run
> > right off the old serial-parrallel interface, so guess ill be sticking
> > with that.
> 
> I really don't see it.  In the 80's people connected new things to
> their CoCos all the time, no reason to stop connecting new things
> today.  There were many Rainbow articles about how to add new
> capabilities and how to interface with new types of hardware, etc.
> Continuing the tradition of finding new ways to use the CoCo and new
> ways to interface it with the outside world is the most pure
> continuation of the CoCo spirit, IMHO.   To pick an arbitrary point in
> time or an arbitrary level of technology that is allowed to
> communicate with the coco seems decidedly contrary to what the CoCo
> was always about to me.
> 
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I agree. At the same time, I get what Chad said too. I only would like a 
little more time to play with my CoCo and yes the Amiga. My CoCo has a Cloud-9 
SD/SuperIDE attached to it and I (as you know) use Drive wire. The beauty of 
all this is, I also have my trusty ole FD502, FD501, and a couple Disto FD 
controllers along with the drives that go with them annnndd a several boxes of 
disks, 5.25 and 3.5. So I have the flexibility to relive the old times 8-). 
Other than time, the other reality that holds me back is the CoCo is a hobby 
that one only does in their spare time. Now I could still run my finances on 
the CoCo because I still have working copies of Sculptor and Dynacalc, but I 
use more recent machines and software. Maybe I should go back to the CoCo, I 
won't have to worry about hacker stealing my identity 8-).