[Coco] CoCo TALK #18 an introduction to OS9

[Gregory Law]

I think this was mostly Radio Shack's fault because Radio Shack did 
about everything it could in the early years to keep the Color Computer 
in the education and games market so it wouldn't compete with the Model 
III, IV, and 16 even though the Color Computer have competed in the 
business market very nicely given a better case and software lineup in 
the stores.When the Color Computer 3 was introduced, Radio Shack started 
moving in this direction to try to make up for declining sales in the 
Z-80 platforms. In some ways I'm glad Radio Shack brought out the more 
capable Color Computer 3 instead of the Deluxe Color Computer, although 
I think it would have been nice to have a more business-like case like 
the Deluxe Color Computer.

I often wonder what might have happened if Radio Shack had introduced 
the Color Computer 3 in the existing entertainment/gaming market and 
pulled in a really nice 68000 system running OS-9/68000 into the 
business market. All this is just a pipe dream of course.

On 7/24/2017 3:17:40 AM, "Dave Philipsen" <dave at davebiz.com> wrote:

>My take on it is this: OS9 was an afterthought.  Tandy did not 
>originally design the CoCo with the idea that a disk operating system 
>would ever be used with it. Consequently, the ROMS really don't support 
>it. Disk BASIC is just a very, very crude system for saving files 
>that's just a little bit better than using cassette tapes. If Tandy 
>would have built a BIOS into the CoCo similar to what a PC uses we'd 
>have a lot easier time getting OS9 up and running.
>
>In addition to that, the CoCo was originally geared for people on a 
>fairly low budget.  Let's face it, OS9 really doesn't shine until you 
>start running it with a hard drive.  And when hard drives became 
>affordable to the average user there were too many companies out there 
>with their own ideas of how to make it work and they all worked 
>differently.  There was no BIOS to insulate those differences from the 
>end user.
>
>Another problem is that there's virtually no compatibility between OS9 
>and ROM BASIC. I can still open a DOS box on my Windows 7 computer and 
>run old DOS programs from way back. A lot of people did not like the 
>idea that all of their DECB stuff would not run under OS9. You 
>basically have to throw it all away and start anew.
>
>But I'll tell you this: the first time I booted Level 1 on my 64K CoCo 
>1 I knew it was going to be way cooler than anything I could do with 
>Color BASIC. Unfortunately, I didn't do that much with it until Level 2 
>rolled around and I had a CoCo 3.
>
>So now you've got all of these 'retro' folks who are playing around 
>with the CoCo for the nostalgia of it but they are not that interested 
>in OS9 now because they weren't interested in it back in the 80s. We 
>live in a capitalistic society and there is no money to be made in 
>developing for DECB or OS9 so it's just pretty much stagnant. There are 
>some very small niches where OS9 could be used for profit and the 
>people who would be developing for those niches aren't going to share 
>their work for free and even if they did most people wouldn't have the 
>desire or need for it because they are not involved in those niches.
>
>My renewed interest in OS9 these days basically leans more toward 
>embedded uses rather than a general purpose desktop computer. I 
>personally am not in the least bit interested in running an emulator on 
>a PC so that I can run OS9. I can just use Linux if I'm going to boot 
>up a PC. However, for me the CoCo3FPGA is very appealing because we now 
>have a small standalone computer that runs without having to boot up a 
>PC, it has roughly the speed and power of a 33-50 MHz '386, and it is 
>fully booted within about 2-3 seconds of pressing the power switch. If 
>only we had a few more people interested in this platform who were 
>willing to do a little hardware hacking and programming we could have a 
>nice hobbyist retro machine. Even with the few people who have taken 
>interest in it we are making small strides in the right direction. It 
>is my hope that soon we will be able to take more advantage of the 
>higher resolution graphics, audio capabilities, wifi, and high 
>resolution ADCs for joysticks all under OS9. Recently, Bill Pierce and 
>I wrote some fairly basic programs that display fairly large BMP files 
>with 256 colors and I was able to quickly cobble together a little 
>program that played a clip of a 44.1 KHz stereo wav file.  Under DECB 
>this is pretty much impossible to do with the limited amount of storage 
>available unless you do like Zippster and write your own routines to 
>access mass storage. I now have a 4GB SD card accessible as a single 
>volume on my CoCo3FPGA under OS9 and even though the hardware was not 
>available back in the 80s the capabilities were there in the operating 
>system.
>
>And, as a side note it will still pretty much run most software that 
>runs on a real CoCo 3 under Color BASIC!
>
>Dave Philipsen
>