[Coco] The Tri-Annual CoCo 4 Thread

[Richard E Crislip]

On Mon, 10 Feb 2014 09:10:21 +1100
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,
> 

THAT is exactly my conclusion! If you build it they will come. Trying
to get a consensus my not be a bad idea, but do it from the archives of
previous discussions, do not let the community know you are doing it
and then spring it on them when it is a finished viable product in what
ever form it is. My thoughts, yours will probably vary ;-).

Cheers