[Coco] CoCo TALK #18 an introduction to OS9

[James Jones]

Hmmm. I would have to say I can't recall any OS-9 user who wasn't/isn't
willing to share information and help someone get started or get ahead with
OS-9. The things that Kip, Curtis, and more other people than I can name
offhand are doing and have done are evidence thereof, and they have my
thanks and respect.

Acting so as to keep the community small and exclusive would be and is
counterproductive, and would've been especially so back in the day--all the
software intimately tied to every wart of the CoCo hardware is a large part
of what precluded improvements to the CoCo, so you want as many people
comfortable with OS-9 and writing software for OS-9 as possible.

Remember back when Microsoft Windows started coming with Internet Explorer,
making it far easier, especially in the days of modems when we were all
amazed when it only took *four minutes* to download a whole megabyte of
data, to just go along with IE and not bother to install those other
browsers, so that Joe Average thought IE *was* the Internet? And how it was
close to impossible to buy a prebuilt computer that didn't just come with
Windows, so that Joe Average didn't have to do anything to run Windows, and
thought Windows was free? In the same way, the CoCo just came with whatever
flavor of Color BASIC. If Tandy had really been interested in promoting
OS-9, the CoCo 3 would by default have come with OS-9 on ROM--to make it
sort of a better equivalent of what people were used to, it could boot up
in BASIC09, and have some option so that later on as a user gained
experience and wanted to customize, one could boot from a floppy. (Still
want to use Color BASIC? Pay extra to get the ROMs with it and get them
swapped in.)