[Coco] The COCO vs The Apple II

[James C. Hrubik]

On Jan 10, 2015, at 4:26 AM, Nick Marentes <nickma2 at optusnet.com.au> wrote:

> On 10/01/2015 6:11 PM, Tony Cappellini wrote:
>> How did the Apple II being having such a primitive basic, DOS, & CPU outsell
>> and be so much more popular than the Coco? The Apple II was approximately
>> 3-4 times the cost of the Coco.
>> 
>> 
> 
> The Apple targeted a more "mature" market. It looked more like a "real" computer (it had a real keyboard and connected to a monitor) and hardware folks loved the 6 expansion slots, all internal to the machine yet hidden inside to preserve the professional looks.
> 
> The Apple had a disk drive available (you pretty well had to have one) and Visicalc was released. An 80 column card was available for business use.
> 
> The CoCo had the chiclet keyboard. It was smaller with no expamsion slots except for the cartridge slot. It was marketed by Tandy as a home computer. It had a glorious 32x16 VDG screen in green on a TV set.
> 
> No Visicalc or real business programs so it was not a business computer.
> 
> We had OS-9 Level 1 but with no "killer ap" to lure the outside world, is still even unknown today to people outside of the CoCo circle.
> 
> We had a great Extended Basic and a 6809 CPU but not everyone was a programmer... they wanted great games and the Apple had lots of the leading games at the time.
> 
> I'm actually surprised the CoCo got anywhere at all, a testament to having such a large distribution channel via Radio Shack and also the Rainbow magazine.
> 
> I know for me, if it weren't for those 2 factors, I would have gone elsewhere. Radio Shack finally got me interested with the CoCo3...if only they did it 2 years earlier.
> 
> Nick
> 

I picked up my first CoCo in Edmonton in 1985; it was CDN$295 whereas a MacPlus with a HD was nearly CDN$3000 at the time.  I bought it because (1) I just wanted to do some simple word processing and filing (Color Scripsit and Color File were sufficient for a month or two) and (2) it didn’t _need_ a disk drive (those were more expensive than the computer) — I could use my cassette tape recorder.  But then I started to play with BASIC, and the ads in some of the computer magazines mentioned “DynaCalc”.  So I sprang for the disk drive and discovered OS-9 Level 1.  (I built my first OS-9 system from the DynaCalc boot file, and bought the Level 1 system disks later.)  To say that the CoCo had no real business programs is not correct.  You just needed to step up to the real power under the hood.

Once I started to get the hang of OS-9, the sledding was all downhill.

You have to keep in mind that the big concern in the early 80’s was “IBM compatible”.  Anything that ran MSDOS was supposed to be that, but there was more incompatibility hidden in some of the machines than anyone in computer sales wanted to admit.  Not even the Tandy 1000/2000 series was 100% “IBM compatible” (I know — I worked part-time for Radio Shack in the late 80’s and we always had some customer unhappy with programs not running right).  Nevertheless, that lie won out and MSDOS became dominant, even though the computers and software were still way overpriced.

Marketing was the key.  When people started looking seriously at the CoCos in the store, regional management wanted us to steer them to the 1000s.  I sold CoCos.  My store manager hired me for that specific purpose (he realized that some people would not have the money for anything more, and a little fish was better than no fish).  The other guys sold 1000s and made big commissions.  I got laid off after every Christmas season and hired back on in November.

Cost does not equal value.  The CoCo was the best value out there; you just could not explain that to people who thought that going to the store in a BMW instead of a Pinto made the groceries taste better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If you hold to my teaching, 
you are really my disciples.  
Then you will know the truth, 
and the truth will set you free.”  
Jn 8:31-32.