[Coco] 8-Bit Microcomputers

[John Guin]

Well, one bone of contention I had with the original C64 was the cassette
port operated at 300 baud.  It also saved each program twice in order to
increase reliability, so the effective rate was only 150 baud.

The original disk drives were serial, not parallel, and were about twice as
fast as the Coco cassette port.  My last complaint about it was the use of
proprietary hardware such as printers and such since Commodore did not use
standard voltages for IO.  It used the 6502 CPU, which was a bear to program
in assembly.  Looking at the docs for it nowadays, I can't see how anything
got done...

On the flip side, the stock C64 had a screen editor which I always loved
more than the Coco line editor, a 40 character wide screen, better sound,
and hardware support for sprites, so it was a much better game machine.
Check out lemon64.com for a good list of all the games for it.

I still have my original 64, but it's not hooked up.

I never used an Atari computer either.  Haven't even seen a running emulator
for one.

John


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brad Grier" <bradgrier at cox.net>
To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 2:58 PM
Subject: [Coco] 8-Bit Microcomputers


> A few questions...
>
> Were there any other home computers based on the 6809 besides the CoCo?
> I know there were quite a few arcade games. Perhaps some failed platform
> or something used outside of the United States?
>
> I've never used an Atari 400/800 or Commodore 64 in my life. How do
> these machines compare to the Coco? Specifically, I'm interested in the
> graphics capabilites and the processors. Which had the better games?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brad
>
>
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