[Coco] torn on getting a coco...

[Frank Swygert]

Mike, you make some good points. In fact, all the points you made about 
floppy drives are true EXCEPT "720K media is standard for the CoCo3". 
The CoCo (Tandy) has never officially supported 720K drives. Only OS-9 
will support 720K drives. It's just coincidence (and our good luck) that 
the standard Tandy controller will support 720K drives. But you are 
missing a glaringly obvious fact -- anything done with the CoCo as far 
as hardware is concerned can be considered "retro" computing. So the way 
to go IS to get comfortable with dying hardware -- if you have a CoCo 
you're already there! We all know that the CoCo is an ancient machine as 
far as computers go. What you are doing is tantamount to complaining 
that an original IBM PC won't run Vista. General computing left the CoCo 
behind a long time ago. There is hardware available that updates the 
CoCo somewhat, but there are serious limitations to what the thing can 
do. It can still be a fun machine to play with, but most are doing just 
that -- playing with it. Some of the "play" is semi-serious 
experimenting and/or small jobs, like one lister's mini CNC mill run by 
a CoCo, but nothing commercially viable or "heavy duty". There's just 
not enough processing power to do a whole lot! The main virtue of the 
CoCo is that it's simple to program and learn, and can be easily 
interfaced with the real world -- both can be difficult and/or expensive 
using more powerful computers. You might be better off with a PIC 
microcontroller development system running on a PC. Consider the Rainbow 
IDE, that might be more of what you seem to want -- that and/or an 
emulator running on a PC instead of a real CoCo. You also make one good 
point in all this. Since a lot of CoCo enthusiasts spend a good deal of 
time on emulators, I don't see why software distribution via .dsk files 
on CD-ROM can't be an option. It shouldn't be the main method of 
distribution as most actual CoCo users still use floppies, whether you 
want to or not. You have to cater to the crowd in a niche market! I 
don't see a big deal with creating a .dsk image of a floppy and storing 
it on a PC, then sending it out on a CD-ROM on request. That's up to the 
vendor though, and you shouldn't be putting down a vendor for not 
wanting to go through the trouble for one or two people. Most of 
Cloud-9's stuff is hardware related, very little is software unless it's 
to support the hardware -- the exception being Drivewire. While you make 
a good point for distributing it as a .dsk file (at least as an option), 
Mark counters that many customers have problems converting from .dsk to 
real floppies, which most of them have and are familiar with. So it 
looks like a stalemate. Please don't continue to ruin a nice hobby for 
most of the folks here. Try making your point without pointing fingers 
and complaining. That or just leave. I'm not trying to be rude, but the 
tone and number of your negative posts are starting to get annoying. I'd 
love to welcome you to the crowd, but it really sounds like you're not 
going to be satisfied with a computer this old. If I'm wrong, stick 
around and ask questions when you have problems. Just realize that a lot 
of the answers will involve ancient technology... -------------- Date: 
Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:27:31 -0800 From: Michael Robinson 
<deemcr at robinson-west.com> (reply edited for brevity) I don't want to 
support 5 1/4" disks in this day and age and here is why: (expense)

At least someone is finally offering one for less than $150.  
Even so, this is approaching $50 shipped.  The prices I see 
right now range from $29 to about $89, minus the shipping 
of course.

I don't know about everyone else on here, but $13 for a 1.44 meg drive
at your local electronics store is way less then $50.  $50 is getting 
close to the price of a COCO 3, which can be had from cloud-9 for $60.

Now then, 360k drives aren't the only choice.  There are also, drum
roll. 720k drives.  Let's take a look at those.

720k media is standard for the COCO 3 by the way.

A show of hands, how many people who have bought a new PC or Mac 
lately have noticed that it doesn't have a disk drive at all?  
These days if you want a disk drive, you generally go with a 
USB one ( especially if your computer is a laptop ).


In summary:

1) Floppy disks are unreliable.
2) Floppy disks are getting harder to acquire.
3) Floppy drives are getting expensive, especially low density ones.
4) CD-R, CD-RW, usb stick, flash memory is getting better and cheaper 
   per meg.
5) Being comfortable with a dying technology that is getting expensive,
   is that the way to go?

People say they are comfortable with floppy disks.  Why?  Aside from
drivewire there are alternative possibilities.  One possibility is to
send a usb stick or flash card to cloud-9 when you buy software.

I've had problems with software on disks because my disk drives are 
bad.  I bought a drivewire rom pack, I don't want to turn around and
buy used disk drives as well.  I would appreciate dsk images of the
software from cloud-9 on cdrom that I can load into drivewire, if I
want to purchase any more software.

** Any low density disk drive that I buy is going to be used. **


-- 
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html
(free download available!)