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

[gene heskett]

On Tuesday, November 15, 2011 11:40:37 PM Brian Blake did opine:

> 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...
> 
> > 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...
> 
> > 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.
> 
OTOH, Brian, for wide use, you have to shoot for the lowest common 
denominator because while there are enough coco users who have added hard 
drives etc to their systems to make it practical for someone to design & 
build the hardware, not all of the coco lovers out there have expanded 
their machines to well beyond what Tandy peddled about 25 years ago.  From 
comments not made on this list, I've had to assume I am the only one still 
active with one of Tony's 2 meg kits.  Few have more than one hard drive, I 
have 2 1GB scsi drives both spinning right now.  Few have a serial mouse.  
Most are still running on the 6809, and on the OEM internal power supply, 
while I have a 63C09 in mine and all running on a truely ancient AT power 
supply.  So nearly everything about mine is a 'hack job', and what runs on 
mine may well not run on a stocker.

> > 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...
> 
> 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.

I would argue that this limitation is far more related to the limits of 
coco graphics, eg a hardware problem.  Given enough memory, there is very 
little our coco cannot do, except run a tcpip stack, or draw the autocad 
like graphics, while at the same time showing enough of the project to grok 
it.  This gfx limit extends to the printed output too, and just the linux 
driver for a modern 4 color ink jet can exceed 50 megabytes, so the chance 
of getting the output into hardcopy is nil.

IMO, bringing something like autocad into the argument ranges somewhere 
beyond a reasonable argument.

> If I'm right about Roger's plans,
> I can't wait to see how he accomplishes it.

Roger has some talent, I have faith that he WILL find a way.

> As I said earlier, I could
> be dead wrong...

As could I.
 
> I don't know if my opinion is interesting... hostile, maybe...
> 
Lets call it argumentative, then we are both being described. :-)

Cheers, Gene
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