[Coco] Mark Siegel found?

[Steve Bjork]

Nick,

Mark Siegel is a common name in America and quick Google search is not 
going to be too helpful.

I did have Mark's home phone number but after he left Tandy, he move and 
never gave me his new number.

Also, Mark is far from being the Father of the CoCo since started 
working for Tandy years after the CoCo hit the market.  But he did have 
something to do with getting OS-9 for the CoCo and some specifications 
for the CoCo 3.  He was a project manager when he worked with me at 
Datasoft and was not a programmer or hardware engineer.

For the record, the nonexistent "256 color" of the CoCo 3 was Marks 
idea.  But the limits on cost for the Coco 3 kept it out of the design.  
His final 256 color design (never used thank god) was a joke with only 
80 dots (more like blocks) per scan line.  Even that mode could never 
work because the Video DAC was only 2 bits per color for a total of 64 
colors.  Even years later, he would tell CoCo users that there was a 256 
mode hidden inside the GIME.  Why,  who knows?

The stuff I was fighting for in the design for the CoCo 3 was real UART 
for true RS-232 port and simple sound system that could play a few notes 
at once.  But in the end I had to be happy with a programmable timer 
with interrupt to "fake" the UART and sound chip.

Steve Bjork

On 1/8/2011 8:51 PM, Nick Marentes wrote:
> Can anyone verify if the Mark Siegel in the article on the webpage 
> link below, is the Mark Siegel, "father of the CoCo" who worked at 
> Radio Shack?
>
> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178118/Apple_AT_T_sell_out_iPhone_4_pre_order_supplies 
>
>
>
> Nick Marentes
>
> -- 
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>