[Coco] The early days of Hacking and Coding a CoCo Was: Here's a CoCo 1 ...

[Bill Loguidice]

I "replaced" (more like repurposes them) an Asus Windows 8 touchscreen
ultrabook and iPad 2 in my bag with a Surface Pro 2. It has a slightly
larger footprint than the iPad 2, particularly with the magnetic keyboard
case, but it's something I can have with me at all times. When it's ideal
to use a tablet - like reading on the Kindle app at lunch or at the gym -
it serves that purpose. When it's ideal to use it as a laptop - like
writing in Word - it serves that purpose. It's obviously not perfect - few
hybrids ever are - but it does point to one possible future where yes, a
"tablet" can be your every day machine. Certainly the Surface Pro 2 is *my*
perfect mobile device, since I can consume content at my leisure, but also
get serious work done (and it doesn't hurt it's powerful enough to play
"real" games too).

We also shouldn't really delude ourselves about what people used classic
computers like the CoCo for. Sure, there was a vocal minority that did
really cool, powerful things with the machine, and a slightly larger
percentage that programmed in languages like BASIC, but I bet more people
used the platform to mostly play games than anything else. Those people
were consumers just as much as today's tablet users are. There's just more
people in the technological pool these days and the barrier to entry is
lower than it used to be.

===================================================
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
===================================================
Authored Books<http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
===================================================


On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 9:46 PM, Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Jan 20, 2014 9:25 PM, "Allen Huffman" <alsplace at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > > online documentation while working on a remote linux box via SSH.  On
> > > a tablet you can never see all three at the same time!
> >
> > I can see how that would be a problem. But the resolution of my tablet is
> higher than the resolution of my laptop, so I can't really complain about
> lack of screen real estate. (Screen is smaller, though, since I have a
> larger laptop than I used to have.)
> >
>
> High resolution is nice, and can be very pretty.  I'd trade it in an
> instant for multiple windows/views when I need to actually get anything
> done.  DPI doesn't help me use SSH, type documents, write code, or really
> much of anything productive.
>
> >
> > True, true... But I wonder: how many pictures do folks take with their
> digital camera, versus their phones? It doesn't matter how great the device
> is if you never have it with you. I think if I had an Ultrabook, which
> would still be twice as bulky, I might "almost" see myself carrying
> something like that around.
> >
>
> Personally I find carrying even a 7 inch tablet to be inconvenient.  If
> you've given up the "fits in my pocket" factor, I can't see much difference
> between carrying a bag with a tablet and keyboard and mouse inside it vs a
> bag with a small laptop inside it.  If you have to carry a bag, its a fail
> (for me :).  And if I have to carry a bag, you can be sure it's going to
> contain as much computing power as I can fit in that bag, which again means
> not a tablet.
>
> > > Cringley's vision of the future may be spot on, but today's tech isn't
> > > delivering that experience.
> >
> > That sounds like a software issue then, more than a hardware issue. We
> use three netbook computers (Atom processors) to run three attractions in
> Haunted Houses, and those things are so slow and limited compared to a
> modern tablet, but they are enough to do the job. Unforunately, their
> screen is so tiny and the keyboards are crap, it's harder to type on them
> than an iPad and bluetooth keyboard.
>
> Could you not use the same Bluetooth keyboard with the netbook that you use
> with the iPad?  Considering that the three netbooks together probably cost
> about the same as one ipad you're still probably ahead (and that's ignoring
> that the software you need to run the haunted house probably doesn't run on
> the ipad).
>
> > The times they are a changing, and us "old folks" (welcome to the club)
> are going to be holding on to our quaint keyboards and "mice" while a new
> generation is coming up wondering why we touch things to use them :)
>
> Things are certainly changing.. they always have been since I first met my
> first CoCo.  Where I think we disagree is whether the tablet phase is going
> to be some sort of long lived plateau.   In my opinion, they are just too
> limited to be a big deal.
> They are worse than what we already had prior in terms of productivity, so
> it's only a matter of time until something delivers their benefits without
> the step backwards.
>
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