[Coco] Software offer and Drive Pak solution

[Roger Taylor]

At 09:18 AM 9/18/2010, you wrote:
>I'm just going to throw my two cents on this fire, so ignore where 
>appropriate.
>
>First off, I want to say thanks to Roger, Cloud-9, and anybody else 
>who has helped to keep the CoCo alive for far longer than I ever 
>expected; I started out with my CoCo 2 when I was 10 years old; here 
>I am 27 years later, somehow. I may not have my CoCo "up and 
>running" at this moment, but someday I'll bring it back on-line again.
>
>Now, Roger, I know in the past I have asked you about porting the 
>Rainbow IDE to Linux, etc - I won't rehash that with Phoenix. While 
>it would've been nice to see something done in a more cross-platform 
>manner (wxWindows/wxWidgets and GCC, perhaps? Or Java?), it is what 
>it is, and your choice, ultimately.
>
>What I don't want to see, though, is a future date where, should 
>development on these platforms need or want to be done, it can't 
>because the software only runs on a version of Windows that is no 
>longer supported, and may not even run on the hardware of that 
>future date (because perhaps the hardware isn't even based on 
>80x86). Of course, maybe I am worrying for nothing; perhaps at that 
>time nobody will be around to care, much like there aren't many 
>today crying in their beer over not being able to run their IBM/360 
>code or something like that...
>
>I do wish I had some way to do CoCo development on my Linux box; not 
>that I currently have the time or a project in mind, much - but 
>knowing I had that option would be nice. Maybe the Rainbow IDE would 
>run under Wine? Or, maybe Phoenix will work with Mono (have you had 
>a chance to try?). As it is, my best bet would be to run SDL-MESS 
>and dev directly on the emulated CoCo using CoCo tools, and then 
>re-test with actual hardware (and other emulators). Not the ideal 
>situation, but possible.
>
>I'm not really griping here - as I've noted, I don't have any 
>projects or need for doing CoCo dev at the moment, and I don't even 
>know if I'll have that need in 5 years, let alone at any sooner. 
>I'll just continue to sit back, and see what comes up in the CoCo 
>community (and honestly, I would rather see the fruits of labor that 
>come from using your IDEs, rather than the IDE alone - games, and 
>other fun stuff of that nature).
>
>Thanks again...
>
>-- Andrew L. Ayers, Glendale, Arizona


Yes, the Rainbow IDE will run under the Wine Windows emulator in Linux.

I think quite a bit of CoCo games and programs have been created 
using my IDEs.  Rainbow has sold to many non-CoCo users.  Portal-9 is 
basically a simple CoCo IDE with emulation support, then Rainbow 
added much more support, and Phoenix has major plans.


-- 
~ Roger Taylor