[Coco] Another Radio Shack Article

[Arthur Flexser]

Bill, I'd strongly differ with your negative assessment of the
attractiveness of backwards compatibility.  Would a lot of Apple II
and Commodore 64 users have bothered to upgrade to the IIGS or C-128
if it meant discarding all their old software?  Would Windows still
have dominated the marketplace if you had to junk a lot of software
each time Microsoft brought out a new version?  Sure, preserving
backwards compatibility can place limits on a new machine, but I think
there's no question that the benefits typically greatly outweigh the
disadvantages.

I wonder if the CoCo 3 would have sold nearly as well if those
involved hadn't done a really excellent job in preserving
compatibility with software written for the earlier CoCo's?

Art

On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 1:09 PM, Bill Loguidice <bill at armchairarcade.com> wrote:
> I think historically we can look at backwards compatibility measures as not
> really being a big help in the vast majority of cases. It's arguable that
> the Apple IIGS, for instance, was as much hurt by being backwards
> compatible with the Apple II, as it helped. Same thing for the Commodore
> 128 being backwards compatible with the Commodore 64. Why support a new
> platform with few users, when you can just keep creating software for the
> old platform (that still works on the new platform) with far more users.
>