[Coco] Another Radio Shack Article

[Arthur Flexser]

>From a software developer standpoint, a new version of a machine that
has backward compatibility with the old presents an opportunity,
typically.  You get to keep selling your old software, while at the
same time you put out a newer, spiffier version along with it that
takes advantages of the newer machine's capabilities.  A lot of your
old customers will want the new version for their new machine if they
liked the old version, and you get a whole new revenue stream.
At the same time, those customers are not overwhelmed by having to
replace everything at once, as would be the case if the new machine
couldn't run any of the old software.

Art

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 11:11 PM, Richard E Crislip <rcrislip at neo.rr.com> wrote:
> At the risk of coming off as a little Charlie Brownish, I get both points.
> The C-128 had a lot of potential that was never realized because of that
> backward compatibility with the C-64 which was still THE dominate platform.
> So if was were writing software, I'd for sure pursue the largest market.
> YET, the C-128 would not have sold as many as it did were it not for that
> very compatibility reason. User at that time were clamouring, loudly, for
> interesystem compatibility.
>
> On 01/05/2014 01:47 PM, Arthur Flexser wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>>>
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