[Coco] Any news on the so called CoCo4 or NextCoCo projectthatBjork was heading?

[Sean]

I remember seeing the MM/1 at the '91 Rainbowfest in IL, and wanting
one.    I was just a poor high school student at the time.  If I was
in the position I am now, I'm absolutely sure I would have bought one.
 I remember being torn between the MM/1, and the other 68k boxes being
shown at that show - I think the TC-9 was one of them, was that Frank
Hogg?

Somewhat proof of my willingness for beta devices would be that I'm
still on the waiting list for a Pandora.  (www.openpandora.org).
Homebrew originated, taking much longer than promised, etc....

But I also have a netbook thanks to my job, and that works just fine
as an emulator box, and weighs a lot less than a CoCo.  So I would
agree that 'coco 4' hardware might be kind of silly.


On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 9:44 PM, Boisy G. Pitre <boisy at tee-boy.com> wrote:
> Aside from your stance on software emulation (I prefer an FPGA based hardware solution), this is a great post and right on target.  The MM/1 was a dream that was just too laborious to realize, and several people sunk a lot of effort only to realize little gain.  The one who I believe was most affected was the creator himself, Paul K. Ward.  My understanding is that he put a lot of his money on the MM/1 and ended up loosing it all, including his marriage.  Suppliers (including Microware, as I was told when I worked there) got paid little or nothing from IMS. As tough a lesson as it must have been for him, I admire that he did it.  Trying to follow an act like Tandy just felt like a loosing proposition at the time, but you have to hand it to him.... he tried.
>
> I still have my old MM/1 VHS video that Paul shipped to me back in late 1990.  Holy cow, it's been 20 years already!  I recently digitized it an aside from some bad spots and skips, it's pretty watchable.  I should put it up on YouTube.
>
> Fast forward to now, and we have computational power that can emulate the MM/1 40 times over.  It's a different world now... a software world, where hardware is a commodity.  Building good software is enough of a job without adding hardware to the mix.
> --
> Boisy G. Pitre
> http://www.tee-boy.com/
>
> On Oct 20, 2010, at 8:31 PM, Paul Fitch wrote:
>
>> I think the FPGA route is the only realistic method available to do this in
>> hardware.  I'm just not that interested in a hardware project.  Doing it in
>> emulation (the Coco4) however, has had me wishing very hard that I could
>> program at that level.  I just don't see spending hundreds of dollars on
>> duplicating hardware that in most any matchup would be inferior to the stuff
>> found on every bargin basement Windows 7 starter computer available today
>> for under $400.00.  And that's just the brand new stuff.
>>
>> I would love to be able fire up VCC v2.0 and get a 1024 x 768, 64k color
>> screen under Uber-DECB or Nitros9 v3.0.  With native USB awareness built in,
>> I would run it on my netbook, it would talk to my X-10 stuff, it would get
>> my email, I would surf the web.
>>
>> The thing about that (now dead) Coco4 wishlist is it could all have been
>> realized two or three years ago fully in software, without the thousands of
>> hours necessary to design hardware to run it.  Then finding the money to get
>> it into production, then the need to convince 50 or 60 or 100 people, out of
>> how many of us are there left these days, 400-500 tops, to buy it?
>>
>> It reminds me so much of what the MM/1 guys went thru.  They spent their
>> dreams trying to get the hardware available at the time to live up to their
>> (and mine, and everyone elses) expectations.  Today you don't need that
>> hardware headache.  The hardware is here, it's a software problem.
>>
>> I dearly wish someone would code a solution.  I wish even more I had the
>> skills to do it myself.
>>
>> I'm not interested in a hardware Coco4, but I would buy the emulation.
>>