[CoCo] sidetracks

[James C. Hrubik, Sr.]

For all my friends who are wrangling over file format, etc. :  please, 
let's not miss the forest for the trees.

Stop a moment and think about what has been proposed.  Michael Harwood 
obtained a license agreement from Lonnie to republish Rainbow in 
digital format.  Rainbow is THE Color Computer magazine.  It cost $3.95 
a copy ( the fatter  ones, anyway), and still did not have the reader 
base that it could have.  Why?  Because of the demographics of the CoCo 
community.  Remember...

I saw my options for a computer in terms of affordability.  I wanted 
the most advanced machine I could get, but was limited with my 
finances.  I would have gone with a Mac, but they cost too much at the 
time.  So I chose the CoCo.  I bought  a machine.  I used a TV for a 
monitor.  I used a GE cassette player to save and load programs.  
Little by little I expanded the machine's peripherals.  Why?  I 
couldn't afford to do otherwise.

I have sat back and watched this debate turn into something akin to a 
religious war.  Perhaps the CoCo community is now so financially mature 
that nobody considers cost to be much of an issue.  The Rainbow was 
around for 12 years (volumes).  Much has been said about issuing the 
entire collection on one DVD -- the arguments about file format 
originally revolved around size.  But ... if you had the choice of 
buying one DVD at, say $60 plus shipping, or individually purchasing 
the volumes over time ( at say, $6 each plus shipping -- Michael will 
be the ultimate judge of the end cost of each DVD ), which would you 
choose?

If you are still of the CoCo mindset -- get started, add to your 
collection as you can -- you may prefer to buy your Rainbow as separate 
volume issues.  A tad more expensive that way, but more likely to 
produce a higher number of sales.  I, personally, have no need to buy a 
Rainbow DVD.  I have nearly all the issues, because I took advantage of 
Lonnie's offer before he closed shop to buy the back issues I was 
missing.  I'm still missing a few issues, and would probably buy the 
volumes that contained those.

Michael, I would suggest that you poll the community in some way to 
find out what they would buy.  Figure out the approximate cost of 1 
DVD, and the approximate cost of a 12 volume set ( or maybe 10 volume 
set, since the latter issues shrank considerably in number of pages), 
and find out what your market base prefers.  If the larger portion of 
your market would buy their Rainbow in a set on a per volume basis ( 
which I suspect might be the case), then those who want the whole thing 
on one drive can copy each volume to a drive for that purpose.

The main thing is to get the mags digitized and archived.  Twenty years 
ago we didn't have DVDs, CDs, or solid state hard drives.  This whole 
project will fit on a small iPod, regardless the file format.  The 
technology of tomorrow will make the whole argument even sillier.  Why 
not even offer the issues for download on a per issue cost, like the 
iTunes music store, at 50 cents or 99 cents a pop?  I'll bet you'd sell 
more that way than anything else.  Target your market.  Give it some 
thought.

+||||||||||###########################|||||||||||+
+|||||||||  HRUBIK APPRAISAL SERVICES  ||||||||||+
+||||||||   James C. Hrubik, Sr., RAA   |||||||||+
+|||||||  Appraisal & Appraisal Review   ||||||||+
+||||||  Consulting & Litigation Support  |||||||+
+|||||||        V/F-(330)745-8435        ||||||||+
+||||||||    jimhrubik at earthlink.net    |||||||||+
+|||||||||#############################||||||||||+