[Coco] Why DECB is important to OS-9 folk.

Stephen H. Fischer SFischer1 at MindSpring.com
Sun Sep 11 02:03:39 EDT 2005


Hi,

I do not understand your comments.

I wish to improve OS-9 and the CoCo. DECB too.

Where did you get the idea that I wish to make money? I do not.

Perhaps you are a person like those that love classic cars and go to great
extremes to judge them as being exactly as built by the factory or points
are taken off.

If you wish to follow a similar path with a "CoCo Classic" theme, that is
just fine with me.

Just please do not insist that all CoCoer's follow that path and allow our
free speech to continue.

Right from the beginning there have been a huge number of efforts to improve
the CoCo's hardware and software. I have an un built card for the CoCo 2 to
improve it's display. There was lots of more hardware projects all alone the
way. A huge amount of software for the CoCo has been written. With our
numbers down, that has slowed, but it surely has not stopped. Hardware
efforts have not stopped for sure.

For a long time the basic structure of OS-9 has remained the same. Too long,
there abounds a huge amount of ideas that we can apply to make it better.

You say "write it". Are you saying that a discussion first and the potential
signing on of others to the effort is forbidden. I hope not.

There seems to be a huge effort to stop any new project, any possible
problems are immediately detailed and there is a constant posting of reasons
to not go forward with anything. Resorting to personal attacks if the
project cannot be stopped by any other means.

I wonder if a string of failures of projects and the inability to get
anything some people want has changed to an attitude of, as I could not
succeed, I will work to make sure that no one does and no improvements ever
occur.

I hope that is not the case. I am beginning to believe it. When new projects
are welcomed and positive comments with real help to make all projects
succeed is the norm we will be a better group.

Perhaps putting "{CoCo Classic}" in the subject line for posts in line with
that theme and "{CoCo improvement }" for discussion of new stuff would help.
I have not committed to any "write it" beyond the CoCo 3 Color chart and the
DECB Preprocessor. I may not, but then yes I may. I am now more of a systems
architect than a coder. Having working on software that has been a huge
efforts by many people most of the time starting with the just the customers
requirements there are few system programmer tasks that I have not done
successfully before. OS-9 on the CoCo is a tiny computer and software when
compared to the ones I have worked on in the past. I take pride in always 
building things that work.

Stephen H. Fischer

Ward Griffiths wrote:
> On 09/10/2005 05:17 pm, Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
>
>> My solution under OS-9 would allow for a DECB runner, a full screen text
>> editor and an online Manual which could be switched to by using the
>> "clear" key. No huge delay like the switching of programs on DECB.
>
>> Another of my points that is being ignored. Why not build a system that
>> has the basic parts and floppy software so that all that would be
>> necessary for the user to answer questions about their disks and then
>> save that information. If they had an HD then that support would be
>> loaded into OS-9 dynamically. No need to build a new boot disk by old
>> timers or new OS-9 people.
>
> Which part of "this is a hobby and nobody who doesn't own a landfill has
> made real money from the Coco in close to fifteen years" did you miss?
> If you want a feature, write it.  Or at least ask politely, don't whine.
> --
> Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net





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