[Coco] CoCo4! 50% done!

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Feb 5, 2014 2:05 PM, "Nick Marentes" <nickma at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
> Mark Marlette <mmarlette at ...> writes:
>
> > So what is reasonable? $100, $200, $400??? What is reasonable to one is
> unreasonable to another.
> >
> > The amount NRE involved in the development of these platforms is
> staggering.... If Altera is charging what
> > they are for their DE-1 or SOCs can you imagine what the pricing would
be
> for each on a 100 unit run?
>
>
> What we're looking at is a price that most people would be prepared to pay
> in order to get enough units out there to encourage software development
of
> new products.
>
> That is not a price based on what the cost to develop and produce but what
> the market percieves it to be worth to them.
>
> The reality is that even $400 is really a reasonable price. I remember
> paying around $400 for my CoCo3 back in the 80's and that didn't include a
> disk drive, so the FPGA CoCo is good value considering it has SD card
> storage, more colors and runs much faster.
>
> But are people prepared to pay that for a retro hobby computer when you
can
> buy a laptop with built in LCD and hard drive for less nowadays?
>
> I think the magic price point is somewhere in the vicinity of $200.
Anything
> more than that and people will question what they really want it for when
> there is no software that particularly uses the new features.
>

I agree $200 is about the limit for such a device.  There is the same
chicken and egg problem that prevented any of the original "coco 4"
attempts from seeing success.  People don't write software for platforms
without users, and users don't buy platforms without software.  We also
have the same issue of competing with the well established CoCo 3 standard
for mindshare... if the platform isn't significantly better then why
upgrade at all, yet if the platform is too different then its "not a coco".

Personally I think most of the upgrades seen in CoCo3FPGA are the low
hanging fruit that makes the most sense.  A 25Mhz NitrOS9 system is really
nice and doesn't require new software.  Everybody likes having the same
thing only faster :)  Same for vga output, ps/2 keyboard, high speed
drivewire, built in sound, etc.  That stuff just makes things you do now on
a coco 3 easier or faster.  But once you get into new video modes, a better
MMU or RAM subsystem, all the things that require significant changes on
the software side.. it gets much harder to provide something people
appreciate or can agree on or even use.  I am not saying we shouldn't
pursue those things, they would be awesome to have.  I just don't think
they can provide support for a platform on their own.  If we have a $200
solution that is easy to use and provides a very good CoCo 3 without new
software, it could in turn provide the user base to support new
directions.  A great aspect of the FPGA platform is that you don't have to
commit to a single definition.  For example if CoCo3FPGA decided to
implement a new MMU, nobody with a DE1 now has to buy new hardware, its
just reprogram the FPGA to be the new MMU, and the party has started.
That flexibility eliminates many difficult choices you would have to make
if one were to design a coco 4 using traditional components, and I think
that provides the best real hope we have of seeing a standard platform.

> Nick
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