[Coco] CoCo-X is not dead

[Fedor Steeman]

Hi Mark and thank you for your interesting thoughts!

> What you won't see is a flood of 256-colour hires Coco games,
> so don't waste your time dreaming about them!

I am curious to hear why you think so. Too small a user base? Too much
effort for a single coder?

Cheers,
Fedor




On 30 April 2013 01:55, Mark McDougall <msmcdoug at iinet.net.au> wrote:

> On 30/04/2013 8:15 AM, John Donaldson wrote:
>
>  All of this is in the GIMI. What not change or upgrade it.
>>
>> 1. USE VGA instead of RGB
>> 2. Update number of colors to at least 8 if not 16 or 32
>> 3. increase screen resolution to 1024X768 VGA
>> 5. Total memory of min 1 Meg to 8Meg
>> 6. 2K paging blocks.
>>
>> IMHO None of these enhancements would in no way hinder compatibility with
>> existing software.
>>
>
> This whole topic gets debated ad-nausea every 3 months or so and people
> weigh in with a range of opinions ranging from a Coco 3 clone with VGA
> support right through to enhanced 6809-like processors running at 100MHz
> with XVGA video. I suggest anyone who is considering putting their case
> forward first go back and read the dozens - if not hundreds - of posts on
> this topic over the last few years.
>
> Nothing you've said here John is outside the realm of possibility, even
> within the parameters of Gary's Coco-X project IIUC. (To nitpick, VGA is
> RGB; what you mean to say is 31kHz rather than 15kHz), and I think VGA
> support goes without saying. Adding colours (to a palette) is trivial, as
> is adding memory and whatever paging scheme you desire. Slightly more
> effort, but still relatively straightforward, is adding colour depth and
> resolution. The trick is to preserve 100% backwards compatibility.
>
> As others have alluded to here, there's little point getting carried away
> with enhanced features if there's no software support; a Coco 4 with
> 256-colour 1024x768 graphics is nothing more than a curio if all you can do
> is display GIF files on it.
>
> I think the features that are most realistically going to get actual
> software support from people here are enhanced text modes, faster clock
> speeds and more memory for people running OS9. What you won't see is a
> flood of 256-colour hires Coco games, so don't waste your time dreaming
> about them!
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> |              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
> |  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~**msmcdoug<http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>>
>   |   with less resistance!"
>
>
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