[Coco] Drive Pak early review, and other stuff

[Sean]

Here, I'll provide a new thread to get some productive discussion going... :)

Greetings!

First, I must just say how thrilled I am to have the MicroSD DrivePak
just a little sooner thanks to Roger's hard work.
I pre-ordered one as soon as he announced his project, realizing how
much of a game-changer this could be. He was extra kind to get me one
before I hit the Midwest Gaming Classic this coming weekend.   Just to
set things straight, I'm not a sponsor or vendor in it for any money,
just a volunteer enthusiast displaying my CoCo equipment in the
'Museum' section of the show.

This isn't beta software or hardware, functionally it is good to go.
Roger is just busy tweaking the menus and layouts to make sure
everyone will get an awesome experience.   It just required a bit more
learning on my end than what everyone else is going to get. (And a
near-empty card compared to the software he'll be including on the
official product)

Once you get the hang of swapping between floppies and partitions, it
works flawlessly. (For me, part of the 'learning commands' entailed
'relearning to type on the CoCo keyboard, after 15 years of heavy PC
use' - I sure remember it being a lot easier!)
It's of course much faster than an actual floppy.  He's even included
activity LEDs to know when it's reading and writing.

Second, I have recently received Hawksoft's RGB to S-Video converter.
I've been testing it on a 24" LCD TV.  So far the experience is great.
 I am using it with this TV without any major issues:
Some odd things, are that the TV seems intelligent enough to
differentiate between some video modes...  Standard 32 columns make a
square in the middle of the TV.  The "width 80" command actually makes
the TV go into widescreen mode, and fills the whole screen.  It's
neat, and completely readable.

And of course, anyone near Milwaukee should hit the Midwest Gaming
Classic this coming weekend.  I think the hit is going to be Sock
Master's Donkey Kong.  I was shocked how awesome this conversion is!

Sean