[Coco] Super IDE vs. Drive Pak

[gene heskett]

On Wednesday, November 16, 2011 06:37:52 PM Boisy G. Pitre did opine:

> Ok.  As Frank says, I probably spew out a chuckle when he asks... gotta
> love his persistence!
> 
> So, as has been mentioned, adding extra functionality to HDB-DOS would
> push it out of its comfy little 8K spot into a 16K footprint.
> 
> Here's why this is bad, in my opinion:
> 
> 1. Legacy disk controllers like the FD-500, FD-501 and FD-502 which only
> can accommodate 8K ROMs. 2. Moving to a 16K EPROM breaks some legacy
> M/L programs (don't remember which ones, but this was a big reason back
> in the day for RGB-DOS (now HDB-DOS) to stay small)
> 
> One can argue if these are really "good" reasons, seeing that everyone
> is pretty much interested in running new software on new devices
> now-a-days, but then there are other considerations:
> 
> 1. Adding this functionality would require syntax changes that I haven't
> fully explored the ramifications of.  Preserving existing syntax might
> be a challenge, might not... 2. It would require a lot of time for both
> development and testing.  Time is something I don't have much of
> anymore...
> 
> So, let me segue into another point of discussion: if I were to release
> the source code to HDB-DOS, would anyone be willing to take it and
> expand upon it?
> 
> Frankly, I'm thinking of doing just that.  As far as I know, we don't
> have a true community open source Disk BASIC DOS.  HDB-DOS has been
> around for a long time and the source is well commented.  It has room
> to grow, as others have mentioned...
> 
> If more than one person can put forth a good argument for me to do it,
> and, more importantly, promise to work on it, I may do just that...
> 
> Best Regards,
> Boisy G. Pitre

Boisy, I think that would be a jolly great idea, but I won't promise to 
work on it as I know very little about the disk basic internals, going 
straight to os9 from power up for the last 25 years.

Cheers, Gene
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