[Coco] What if the next CoCo is made into a Tablet?

[Steve Batson]

See my comments below :)

> Gotta side with Bill on this one. It's probably the absolute *last* form 

> factor in which you'd consider producing a 'Coco4'.

> A tablet is nothing more than PC hardware in fancy plastics and a snazzy 

> touch screen. All the engineering effort is in the ergonomics and the 
power 
> supply. They've been around for years and years, and Apple have merely 
bided 
> their time waiting for battery and touch screen technology to reach the 
> right price-point before making it sexy to own one. I'm still amazed that 

> Apple fanboyz don't seem to have a problem being told what they can, and 

> can't, run on their own PC, but I won't get into that here...

I have to disagree at least in part to that statement. It depends on what 
tablet you are talking about. The iPad and the copycats are not PCs in 
tablet form. They are scaled down with lower powered processors. Granted, 
they are more powerful than PCs a few years ago, but they are NOT PCs and 
have limitations. The processors are slower and just don't decide you will 
run Windows on most of them, you need the special OS designed for them. And 
yes I know, there are some tablets hitting the market that are more like a 
laptop and there are some laptops (mostly netbooks like systems using an 
Intel Atom which is certainly not a high performance processor) that are 
convertible where you flip the screen and it looks like a tablet even if it 
is a lot bulkier than then an iPad. The iPad is nothing more than an 
oversized iPod Touch for the most part and neither are able to run the full 
Mac OS or Windows (which isn't going to happen since they are not using an 
Intel or compatible Processor) most of the iPad Copycats are also scaled 
down with slower processors that run another Tablet designed OS such as 
Android.

I do agree with your comment about Apple waiting for the right time and the 
Apple Fanboy comment too :D  I have a Mac, and a number of PCs and Laptops. 
I love the Mac, but I don't just follow Apple like I'm in a 
trance....That's why I don't even own an iPad...I just don't see the need 
and I don't want the limitations. I'd rather carry around a netbook that 
can run so much more than spend more on an iPad that is much more 
restrictive in what you and do and run.

> I simply don't see any reason why I'd want to carry around a Coco tablet 

> with primitive word processing and no internet connectivity. Much more 
> sensible is a powerful Windows/Linux-based tablet with all the modern 
> connectivity, that can run a Coco emulator if I really want to play 
Zaxxon - 
> though even then I'd question the practicality of touch-screen controls. 
And 
> writing an 'OS' for the Coco tablet would be a considerable undertaking, 
and 
> also a serious drain on cpu resources.

I fully agree. In the next generation or so, their should be tablets using 
newer, faster Atom Processors that can run Windows or Linus where an 
emulator might make sense. Would be interesting to see how the touch screen 
could be handeled. If the tablet had a USB port, maybe a USB controller 
could solve the game problems with the emulator.