[Coco] The evolution of the Coco..

[David Hazelton]

Roger Merchberger wrote:
> Rumor has it that Steve Bjork may have mentioned these words:
> 
> [[ putting the rulers away for a second... ]]
> 
>> As for the operating system to use, my vote goes to windows XP Pro.
> 
> 
> You've got to be joking. Isn't that like using a 12 pound (5.5kg) 
> sledgehammer to swat flies? Personally speaking, I would not want to 
> *have* to outfit a machine with 512Meg RAM just to run a CoCo emulator, 
> and I'd also prefer not to have to reactivate the rascal every time I 
> diddle with the hardware... etc.
> 
> Speaking of hardware, can you say "Hardware Abstraction Layer?" Thats 
> the thingydoo that doesn't let user-mode applications diddle with the 
> hardware directly -- that's why most emulators don't work well in NT/2K/XP.
> 
> If we're gonna have to write the extra video drivers and stuff by hand 
> anyway, why not go with something free, like FreeDOS or somesuch? A 
> *lot* lower hardware requirements, the DOS can "get out of the way" of 
> the emulator much more easily, and one heckuva lot more documentation 
> available.

I've never seen a XP box run more than a month without a reboot and/or 
crash.  At work or At home.  I guess if nothing is loaded on it or it's 
not being used.  It's one reason why industry still runs W98.  Not that 
XP is bad, it is more stable than W2000. At least on the desktop.  I 
have an Athlon system at home, that with XP it crashes weekly, just out 
of the box OS..pure microsoft.  It didn't handle W2000 pro either...No 
problem with 98 or any version of Mandrake Linux...Actually just moved 
it over to Solaris 10 to check that out. I want to see how stable it is.
...
OT....Solaris 10 is slow! compared to W98 and Linux..go figure.

I vote for Freedos, if an emulator will run under it.

> Besides, WRT motherboard choices, I was thinking a 1GHz Via (Cyrix) core 
> on a Mini-ITX board. No fans necessary (if using an external PS brick) 
> so it's quiet; small enough to fit in a CoCo case if you so choose (tho 
> I don't think _I_ would, as that would make fitting a CDRom Drive 
> difficult), fast enough yet for an emulator in DOS to make a great 
> platform, and the specs for Mini-ITX have been out long enough  that the 
> boards themselves aren't that expensive or proprietary -- lots of 3rd 
> party cases, PSs, etc. A full machine can be built for around $500, less 
> if you forgo DVD and big HD.

I have seen these as little at $300.00 with CD-rom and 20gig HD without OS
> 

> There's no such thing as a perfect OS -- Granted, IMHO, OS-9 and VMS 
> come pretty close, if you ask me. However, I ( for one ) would not want 
> a "hackable" emulator system, if the core OS for it was inherently 
> "unhackable."
> 
>>  Best of all, every new hardware product these days has drivers for 
>> Window XP.  Yes, I know, I would have to use a hard drive with XP.  
>> But is that truly a problem?
> 
> 
> My $0.0000000000000000002,
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
> 
> -- 
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me
> zmerch at 30below.com.         |
> SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
> 
> 

My $0.02 worth if that.

~David Hazelton