[Coco] Games that don't fit on floppies (was Super IDE vs. Drive Pak)

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Brian Blake <random.rodder at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/15/2011 10:21 PM, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 10:02 PM, Brian Blake<random.rodder at gmail.com>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> data throughput increases; the  making of very large games with lots of
>>> digitized and sampled sounds only makes sense to me - I could be WAAYYYY
>>> off
>>> on this...
>>
>> This recalls a topic that was recently discussed on the CoCo IRC
>> channel.  We were talking about a new CoCo game that would benefit
>> from mass storage, possibly only be practical with some form mass
>> storage.  Some folks felt a CoCo game should run from standard CoCo
>> floppies, or it wasn't a true (pure/proper/faithful/??) game.  Not
>> sure what the proper word would be.. basically if it didn't run on a
>> stock CoCo with FDD, it was sort of cheating.
>
> Seriously?! I think that whole train of thought is absolutely ridiculous.
> People in this group have spent years trying to extend the CoCo past it's
> original boundaries, and now someone actually believes that if you don't
> have have something that runs on a stock CoCo with stock FD its cheating?
> That kind of thinking is dangerously old fashioned. Every retro group out
> there is looking for new ways to extend their systems well beyond what was
> possible in the '80's. Trying to re-constrain it now seems ludicrous...
>

well... I was on the side of "it's fine to use mass storage" so I
can't claim to completely understand the other side of the discussion
we had, but I think I get the gist of it.  Basically, it's about what
is a coco and what isn't.. a question that comes up in various forms
fairly often I guess.  How much can you change a system before it's
not the same system anymore.  Mass storage is probably in the more
"acceptable" range even for a purist I'd think.  Using a modern PC to
provide services to the coco is more towards the other end.  Like any
hobby, I guess there are some bounds to what is enjoyable, and making
it too easy by using modern stuff threatens the enjoyment in some
situations.  Some hobbies are full of rules about what is or isn't
allowed, i'm certainly not in favor of anything like that.   There is
a limit somewhere though.. for an extreme example look at the recent
"new Commodore" for instance... it's a PC in a c64 case.  Thats well
beyond where I'd stop considering something as part of the hobby.

>
>> I wonder how other folks feel about that.  Where do you draw the line
>> on what is right and what is not I guess.  It's a concept I struggle
>> with in DriveWire a lot, where we can often do things either on the
>> CoCo side or the PC side (and it's usually a lot easier to do them on
>> the PC side, but it feels wrong).  There have to be some lines drawn
>> somewhere I guess.
>
> Not really, lines aren't necessary. You've made the app do what you wanted
> it to do. You graciously released it for public consumption, took input and
> ideas and expanded on the original. The decision is up to you to add
> functionality that you feel may be cheating - it's up to the user to decide
> if they want to use it in that manner, or if they feel it's a cheat...
>

The example that comes to mind is a set of API calls I removed after
reconsidering things.. there used to be calls to fetch web pages, just
send the command and DW returned the HTML.  However, that really
didn't seem right to me, for whatever reason.  So, now a program on
the CoCo has to open a TCP socket, speak HTTP to the web server, and
parse the returned data itself.  Maybe a subtle difference, but it
felt like the first case was having the PC do too much for the CoCo...
cheating i guess, even though it made writing OS9 programs that deal
with web content a bit easier.

>
>> Personally, I think a game that requires mass storage is OK and "true"
>> since there were mass storage options available in the CoCo's heyday,
>> even if they never gained much popularity.  However, I can see the
>> point that there have to be some limits or what you have isn't a
>> "coco" anymore.
>
> I'm throwing the bull$9!7 flag on this.. if it's running on a CoCo,
> regardless of what mass storage device is used, it's STILL a CoCo.
>
>> It would have been impractical to release a game
>> requiring anything beyond FDD back in the day I think, since the
>> installed base was far to small to support software requiring anything
>> more.. so maybe I'm wrong.  Anyway I thought there might be some
>> interesting opinions on that in this group.
>
> Actually, I think it was technically infeasible to introduce a game of other
> software that went beyond the limits.  People like Roger and Nick (and
> probably Steve) have fought with that for years - how to cram all 5,000
> features you want into a space that can hold 500. Been reading Rainbow a lot
> lately for a few articles I'm working on - from the clubs advertised, the
> CoCo had a pretty good installed base - but was always held back by Tandy,
> and without proper support from your parent company, well...
>

Yes, squeezing functionality out of the CoCo is a big part of the fun
and history.  Maybe using mass storage is seen as a cop out or
avoiding part of the challenge.. if you can't make the game work from
floppy, you haven't properly embraced the systems limitations?  Not
entirely sure, like I said I was on the other side of the discussion.

> I remember AutoCAD 2.62 - installed it on my first PC - took 10 SD/HD
> floppies. The CoCo's OS couldn't handle programs like that, which is why we
> are stuck with vdisks to this day. If I'm right about Roger's plans, I can't
> wait to see how he accomplishes it. As I said earlier, I could be dead
> wrong...
>
> I don't know if my opinion is interesting... hostile, maybe...

Stronger reaction than I would have expected, but interesting.

>
>
>
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