[Coco] ReactOS...

[Sean]

I wish BeOS would have made it. That was a neat one 10 years ago.  Ran
the Intel demo version, never had the money to invest in a BeBox.
Personally I would have called it the spiritual sucessor to the CoCo.
(for one, just because not enough people loved it. :)
It's multitasking could run circles around Windows at the time: 3D
demos, while playing multiple video and audio files at the same time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS_R5

The demo would run well on a Pentium or PII system, with a standard
VGA card, and sound most likely through older Soundblaster cards.
http://www.bebits.com/app/2680


On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 1:19 AM, Mike Pepe <lamune at doki-doki.net> wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-
>> bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Michael Robinson
>> Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 6:55 PM
>> To: coco at maltedmedia.com
>> Subject: [Coco] ReactOS...
>>
>> For those who hate Linux or those who need to run Windows
>> software that don't want to pay $400+ for a software license,
>> check out ReactOS.  Please don't pirate Windows, that is hard
>> on competitors.  ReactOS needs people who can do C system
>> programming.  ReactOS is licensed under the GNU GPL.
>> See http://www.reactos.org if you are interested.
>> I assume that at least some of you, if not most, are using
>> Microsoft Windows right now and I know this because Microsoft
>> has a monopoly.
>>
>> This monopoly makes me wonder, what if a successor to the coco
>> that takes the coco far enough forward to compete with the PC
>> came out?  Imagine a COCO clone that is downward compatible
>> running either ReactOS or Linux as optional OSes with a
>> more Extended basic as the default language.
>>
>> Be aware that ReactOS isn't out of alpha state yet and it
>> lacks even stable file system support.
>>
>
> Well, I hate to sound like one of those guys who shits all over
> someone's ideas, but I'd like to share my opinion on this if I may. And
> I'm going to go right past the Linux and Windows stuff because, hey, I'm
> just biased that way.
>
> Certainly count me in as someone who would LOVE to see a "what-if" the
> CoCo architecture had been extended into modern times like the PC ended
> up. These are great thought experiments and certainly interesting forays
> into the theories and fundamentals of computer science and computer
> engineering.
>
> If I may make an analogy though, I kind of see what you are proposing as
> something like this:
>
> "as a kid I loved my Radio Flyer wagon, and I was thinking- if Radio
> Flyer had just expanded their product line a bit by stretching the wagon
> somewhat, adding a hundred seats, enclosing the top, throwing on some
> jet engines and wings, we could have had something that competes with
> airplanes!"
>
> The end result there being, of course, an airplane- which is something
> we already have- and redoing it presumably at far greater expense than
> just buying the plane outright.
>
> So putting on my engineering hat, I don't really see that anyone would
> be willing to bankroll the huge cost of developing the hardware and
> software for a platform that would presumably be able to do what we're
> already able to do with our PCs and Macs.
>
> Unless you're proposing some huge shift in the way people use a computer
> with this project, I don't think even the most rabid CoCo fans here
> would think it makes sense.
>
> If a project like this were to get anywhere, I would expect it to be
> something that is a VM that runs on a PC. Certainly something fun and
> interesting from a computer science and CoCo perspective without a
> doubt- and not worthless; I'm sure those involved would gather a great
> deal of knowledge and experience. I just don't think the masses would be
> very interested.
>
> -Mike
>
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