[Coco] [COCO} VCC 1.43beta release

[Bill Pierce]

Aaron,
Even I just recently sent Joeseph an email requesting permission to release the binaries and never heard from him. That's 4 emails this year he hasn't answered after conversing with me for 3 or 4 previously.
And yes, he told me the same thing that he had all intentions of releasing Vcc as open source. His main holdback was to fix his "snide" remarks in the comments and remove the RS roms as he felt they were not his to release. Last I talked with him, he said he had it "almost" ready for release that it would be 2 weeks at the most. That's when the emails stopped.

Bill Pierce
My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
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-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Thu, Apr 18, 2013 1:48 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] [COCO} VCC 1.43beta release


On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 1:18 PM, David Ladd <drencor at gamepixel.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 11:51 AM, Roy Lores <cyberpunk at prtc.net> wrote:
>
>> Is there a link to download this version and is there a plan to support
>> the Speeech pak on VCC now that a newer version is being churned out after
>> all this time? Also will VCC become Open Source or what?
>
> Link to website is:
> http://vcc.cococoding.com/
>
> As far as the Speech Pak, not sure.
>
> As far as it going open source. Have no clue till Joseph gets around to
> doing it.  I sadly haven't gotten permission to release the source to
> public.
>
>

I'll elaborate a little (from my point of view, at least :)

David has been in touch with Joseph (the author) on and off, but it
has been difficult to communicate with him for some time.  Joseph has
indicated quite clearly that he intended to make VCC open source.  The
problem is that there were a few things he wanted to do first
(presumably clean up the source, documentation etc), and for several
months now that has not happened.

We discussed the situation and decided releasing a binary with our
additions would be a safe way to test the waters.. if anyone has a
problem with us moving forward, hopefully this will give them the
opportunity to let us know before the source "gets out".  If after
some time nobody squawks, then perhaps it will be OK to proceed with
releasing the code.  Both David and myself are very concerned about
offending or going against Joseph's wishes.

As for future development or additional features... I don't see myself
doing any but I'd love to help move forward with releasing the code in
case someone else wants to.

David and I worked on adding the Becker port functionality simply
because we both had an immediate use for it, but long term I don't see
Vcc as a very good option.  I am not saying Vcc isn't a good emulator,
because it is.  However, it is rather old code that is tightly bound
to outdated win32 APIs.  It is difficult even to locate the libraries
needed to build from the source.  Even if one did put in the work to
revamp with modern libraries (which I think would be considerable), it
would still be Windows only.

So Vcc is a nice short term solution, but we have another great
emulator that is cross platform, clearly open source, and actively
maintained by it's author.  This is XRoar, and its a pretty awesome
project.  Currently it supports only CoCo 1 and 2, but I have no doubt
adding CoCo 3 to XRoar would be easier than bringing Vcc into current
shape.   I believe Ciaran has already done some of the CoCo 3
emulation.  In my opinion, XRoar is the "emulator of the future", and I plan
to contribute whatever time I have towards it's advancement.

-Aaron

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