[Coco] 512K AND Beyond??? How FAR Beyond???

[Allen Huffman]

> On Dec 27, 2017, at 12:23 PM, Bill Pierce via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
> 
> Allen, true but they still didn't support them... Only 35trk, SSDD. 5 tracks and a whole side was wasted unless you patched your system with "un-official" patches.

When I dove in to RS-DOS and disks a few years ago (likely during CoCoSDC write-ups on my site), I learned more than I ever knew back then.

For Tandy, I suppose the issue would have been fragmenting their audience, so Little Timmy (with a 40 track drive) couldn’t give a disk to Little Bobby (who only had the old 35 track).

Did any other 8-bit systems have a drive issue like this, or was it just that the CoCo’s roots were so early (with those 35 track drives)?

Or was ONLY the original CoCo 1 drive (12v controller) 35 tracks, and everything beyond that 40 tracks?

It would have been nice to have the *option* of doing it, even if DECB 1.2 defaulted to 35-track mode.

Perhaps an approach like the Dragon had with it’s 64K systems... Boot up, and it’s the old layout. Type “EXEC” and it moved things around giving you more RAM for BASIC.

I suppose only advanced users even knew of this limitation. A disk was just what a disk was. Maybe Tandy just sided with the path of least upset-ness.

		— A