[Coco] The Tri-Annual CoCo 4 Thread

[Bill Loguidice]

Is it possible you're misremembering how much your CoCo 3 gift was? Even
when it was brand new, it would have been incredibly difficult to come up
with a $2000 configuration, no matter how much you loaded it up. It really
wasn't designed to exceed $1000 even in its most extravagant configuration.
Also, no one is expecting the CoCo 4 to have any type of mainstream
success. It won't. It won't even have Raspberry Pi success, which is the
biggest hit for these types of hobbyist systems (and a lot of that has to
do with the extraordinary price). The "new CoCo" (I hesitate to call it a
CoCo 4) has to be targeted to the CoCo fans like the ones on this list,
and, preferably (more maximum impact) the Dragon fans. I'd say sales of a
few hundred units at $150 - $300 would be reasonable if it hit enough
checkpoints on most wishlists, but numbers beyond that would be wildly (and
baselessly) optimistic. There's a LOT of competition out there in this
hobbyist category, and has been stated time and again, not a great deal of
nostalgia for the CoCo to help drive anything remotely like mass
production. Obviously we're all trying to change that (the book, the new
homebrew projects, etc.), but we've got a LONG way to go.

-Bill

===================================================
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
===================================================
Authored Books<http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
===================================================


On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 8:55 PM, Michael Robinson
<deemcr at robinson-west.com>wrote:

>
> Explain to me how a faster modern 6309/6809 successor can be built
> without introducing: direct memory access, interrupts, memory protection
> hardware, etcetera?  For a COCO 4 to be popular, really popular, it has
> to compete with Playstation 3, Wii U, and XBOX.  Unlike XBOX and
> Playstation 3, a COCO 4 can have an improved version of COCO basic in
> ROM and like the COCO3, a COCO4 should operate with or without a hard
> disk/floppy disk/etcetera.  The biggest problem, ultimately, is the
> operating system.  Build a more modern 6309/6809E plus GIME chip based
> computer, this can be readily done, but the complexity of the machine
> will necessarily be greater than the complexity of a COCO 3.
>
> As far as will it be a COCO, yes if it is downward compatible and can be
> operated without an OS installed on a hard drive or other low mean time
> between failures media device.  A solid 32 bit OS with a GUI will fit in
> 32 megabytes or less.  A 128 gig SSD now is under $100.
>
> When I got my COCO 3 as a Christmas present, it was a $2k computer.
> Fortunately, the cost of memory and integrated circuits in general has
> plummeted.
>
> A 1+ Ghz computer without memory protection, hardware expansion support
> via interrupts, and the ability to address 4 gigabytes or more of memory
> is going to be awfully limited.  Anyone can run a COCO emulator on any
> computer, but people who want a COCO 4 want something that feels simple
> even if it isn't.  Emulators don't offer the same feeling that hardware
> offers.
>
> My older brother who is an electrical engineer says the COCO3 can be
> cloned easily using Xylinx or Microchip or Texas Instruments processors.
> I'd say that the person who is serious about cloning the COCO 3 and
> going further has to first duplicate the functionality of the COCO 3 in
> hardware.  It has been easily 20 years since Radio Shack stopped making
> Color Computers.  Once a prototype works that provides the level
> of functionality that a COCO 3 does, decide what additional
> instructions and hardware are needed and start building from that
> prototype.
>
> The market will probably accept $150-$300 US for a COCO 4.  Don't
> despair, in today's tech that is more substantial than what was
> possible 20 years ago.
>
>
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>