[Coco] Re: The typical CoCo user is aged...?!?

[Torsten Dittel]

> Like you I had a CoCo first and then an ST.  The one thing that I didn't 
> like about the ST when compared to the CoCo, was that there was no real 
> expansion bus, and what was there was pretty much closed to the end user.

What I didn't like about it: It was to powerfull to titillate me to 
start hardcore coding like on the CoCo. On the CoCo, there was always 
the challenge to do things which "weren't possible" on an 1MHz 64KB 
8-bit machine (Sockmaster, you know what I'm talking about ;-)). On the 
ST there were hundreds and thousands of run-of-the-mill shareware 
programmers who used  BASIC compilers to produce all the applications I 
ever needed to be a "just user" user.

What I liked about it: it's MIDI ports and the great high resolution 
sequencer software (I still have all this C-LAB Notator, Creator and 
Unitor stuff).

And not to forget all the fun we had with the two player mode of the 
OXYD series games (programmed by a German IT student in Modula 2) with 
two STs connected by the MIDI ports (try http://www.nongnu.org/enigma/ 
to play something similar on an PC)

And MIDI Maze II (a German product too): A 3D-Doomlike-Shoot'm-Up-Pacman 
game. We played it with 16 people on 16 STs all connected to a 
MIDI-ring-network. http://www.midimaze.de

And of course SIGNUM!2 by Application Systems Heidelberg (German), a 
great WYSIWYG word processor which used to print in nice fonts with 
360dpi on my NEC P6plus 24-needle printer.

And CALAMUS, a professional DTP system (AFAIR this was from Germany too, 
could it be the ST was quite popular in Germany? ;-)).

And, and, and.... nah, wasn't too bad that beast. ;-)

Torsten