[Coco] The Tri-Annual CoCo 4 Thread

[Steve Batson]

Mark,

Trust me, I'm not looking through any type of rose colored glasses or believing that the diverse group of people is going to agree on everything. And I'm not going to loose sleep if nothing happens at all, I'm just expressing some thoughts. I do agree that the Raspberry PI is not the best solution because of it's limitations and speed. As you say, common sense and logic doesn't see to matter with these discussions. And totally agree that design by committee will NEVER work. I also agree it's going to take one or more individuals with the knowledge, skills and desire to come up with a design and just make it happen. 

I hear a lot about the low number of CoCo enthusiasts compared to other platforms. Attracting new users that aren't super CoCo savvy with a simple and easily used solution such as Good Emulators could be a way to grow those numbers. I know some people want their hardware, but that can get expensive and many people just aren't going to spring for it if it goes past the pain point. PC based emulation just seems the cheapest and most reasonable overall because just about everyone has a PC that could be used.

Here's a thought, what if there was a CoCo Emulator or even an OS that either ran on top of Windows or just booted up without the need another OS? It could have CoCo Compatibility and Brand New capabilities that take advantage of today's hardware. Might need to be done by selecting or changing modes, but seems like it could take out many roadblocks for new stuff. 

I'm just brainstorming here :)

At least there are some decent emulators and options out now to keep what people do have going until the CoCo Enthusiasts are all gone.


On Feb 9, 2014, at 2:10 PM, Mark McDougall <msmcdoug at iinet.net.au> wrote:

> On 10/02/2014 3:10 AM, Steve Batson wrote:
> 
>> I'm still amazed at the amount of disagreement that continues to go with
>> these CoCo Replacments and The CoCo 4, CoCo X, Super CoCo or whatever you
>> want to call it.
> 
> I'm not. Not in the slightest.
> 
>> Seriously, how many newbies do you think you can attract if you can't
>> provide a somewhat simple out of the box option for any of these new
>> creations?
> 
> You won't. It's not going to happen. This project is not for newbies. It's for Coco enthusiasts, to enhance their enjoyment and make things easier with connection to modern peripherals and putting the entire Coco software library at their fingertips. If you think a 6809-based computer is going to compete in this day-and-age against modern offerings, you need to remove those rose-coloured glasses.
> 
> And you simply will not get any sort of consensus here. Regardless of how considered, rational and 'common sense' your proposal is, it's simply not going to please everyone. I have absolutely ZERO interest in a Raspberry Pi solution, or any other software solution. And that really doesn't matter either, because there's just as many people that would be happy with it, even though secretly I know my solution is "The Best". ;)
> 
> Design by committee never works, and it won't here. What is going to work is a *number* of people actually building something, and sharing the design, and others can choose what they like and adopt it (Gary's Coco3FPGA is the perfect example). Hopefully we'll end up with (at least) a hardware solution, an embedded software solution, and a PC-based emulator solution.
> 
> IMHO the kind of consensus that we should be aiming for, are the specifications of any 'Coco4' enhancements. Standardise on, say, specific enhanced graphics modes, and then support them across all manner of implementations. That way there's (hopefully) enough users to promote software development utilising those enhancements.
> 
> And by all means throw your suggestions around; that's the fun of this hobby and you shouldn't be denied that. But please don't get surprised or disheartened by it all.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -- 
> |              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
> |  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"
> 
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