[Coco] Mark Seigel Found?

[Brian Blake]

Hehe... Dunno why that cracked me up, but, it did. All of this 'Mark Seigel
did' stuff is kinda a long the lines of Al Gore inventing the internet...



On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:

> Mark Siegel also claimed to be the one who added the DOS command to Disk
> Basic 1.1.  Believable, since it is coded horribly.
>
> Art
> On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 3:18 PM, Nick Marentes <nickma at optusnet.com.au
> >wrote:
>
> > >Mark Siegel is a common name in America and quick Google search is not
> > >going to be too helpful.
> >
> > True, but we need to start somewhere. This one is a spokesman for AT&T in
> > Texas.
> > His e-mail address is here...
> http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=1916
> > Anyone know how to draft a suitable e-mail to ask him if he is who we are
> > looking for?   :)
> >
> > >Also, Mark is far from being the Father of the CoCo since started
> > >working for Tandy years after the CoCo hit the market. But he did have
> > >something to do with getting OS-9 for the CoCo and some specifications
> > >for the CoCo 3. He was a project manager when he worked with me at
> > >Datasoft and was not a programmer or hardware engineer.
> >
> > "Father of the CoCo" were *his* words when I interviewed him in March
> 1999.
> > Isn't it funny how some people like to gain total ownership of things.
> :)
> >
> > >For the record, the nonexistent "256 color" of the CoCo 3 was Marks
> > >idea. But the limits on cost for the Coco 3 kept it out of the design.
> > >His final 256 color design (never used thank god) was a joke with only
> > >80 dots (more like blocks) per scan line. Even that mode could never
> > >work because the Video DAC was only 2 bits per color for a total of 64
> > >colors. Even years later, he would tell CoCo users that there was a 256
> > >mode hidden inside the GIME. Why, who knows?
> >
> > I agree with the video DAC limitations preventing 256 colors... via RGB
> > anyway. I've been long saying that someone should at least analyse Al
> > Huffman's prototype boards to confirm if it has a high DAC bit count.
> Also,
> > to see if the 512 byte ROM that this board contains could actually be a
> 256
> > color palette ROM. For some reason, this prototype board remains locked
> away
> > from analysis.
> >
> > I agree, I'm sceptical of it's existance in the GIME chip. I would like
> to
> > know if it existed in the original prototype that Al Huffman has and it
> > would be good to corner the "Father of the CoCo"  and question him a bit
> > more about his claims that he had activated this mode on a production
> GIME
> > chip.
> >
> > Another name that would be good to interview regarding the development of
> > the CoCo is Dale Chatham - Director of hardware engineering at Radio
> Shack
> > back then and involved with the CoCo design. Anyone got any links?
> >
> > >The stuff I was fighting for in the design for the CoCo 3 was real UART
> > >for true RS-232 port and simple sound system that could play a few notes
> > >at once. But in the end I had to be happy with a programmable timer
> > >with interrupt to "fake" the UART and sound chip.
> >
> > Cost was the factor here and I guess that Radio Shack felt the CoCo had
> > these already in the form of the "Deluxe RS-232" and "Sound and Speech"
> > paks. Yes, I would have preferred that these were built in and a standard
> > part of the design rather than an add-on requiring that dreadful
> multi-pak.
> > I guess Radio Shack were a marketing company and opted to go this way to
> > make more money selling the add-ons.
> >
> > Nick Marentes
> >
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
>
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> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>



-- 
Ohioan by birth, Floridian by the grace of U-Haul and a bad economy...