[Coco] Coco and Modern Printers

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Richard E. Crislip <rcrislip at neo.rr.com> wrote:
> On Saturday, September 15, 2012 05:24:06 PM Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>> On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 9:18 AM, Chad H <chadbh74 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > Yea, i would feel a little funny myself  dedicating a full PC just as a
>> > printer server, just as i did when i began trying out DriveWire in
>> > general.  CoCo felt like some sort of terminal, not very CoCo`ish. I
>> > know these things have their place, but when it comes to my CoCo im
>> > still kind of a purist.  I want to experience it the same way i remember
>> > it in the 80's, so i still use my trusty FD-502 drive as well as my
>> > CCR-81 cassette player, heck i even still do most of my CoCo stuff using
>> > DECB programs. I know a lot of people knock on DECB, floppies and such,
>> > but looks like they will keep on kicking after im gone.  Printers seem
>> > to have a slightly less life expectancy in my experience, but one can
>> > still acquire great ones with ink/toner cheaply enough that will run
>> > right off the old serial-parrallel interface, so guess ill be sticking
>> > with that.
>>
>> I really don't see it.  In the 80's people connected new things to
>> their CoCos all the time, no reason to stop connecting new things
>> today.  There were many Rainbow articles about how to add new
>> capabilities and how to interface with new types of hardware, etc.
>> Continuing the tradition of finding new ways to use the CoCo and new
>> ways to interface it with the outside world is the most pure
>> continuation of the CoCo spirit, IMHO.   To pick an arbitrary point in
>> time or an arbitrary level of technology that is allowed to
>> communicate with the coco seems decidedly contrary to what the CoCo
>> was always about to me.
>>
>> --
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>
> I agree. At the same time, I get what Chad said too. I only would like a
> little more time to play with my CoCo and yes the Amiga. My CoCo has a Cloud-9
> SD/SuperIDE attached to it and I (as you know) use Drive wire. The beauty of
> all this is, I also have my trusty ole FD502, FD501, and a couple Disto FD
> controllers along with the drives that go with them annnndd a several boxes of
> disks, 5.25 and 3.5. So I have the flexibility to relive the old times 8-).
> Other than time, the other reality that holds me back is the CoCo is a hobby
> that one only does in their spare time. Now I could still run my finances on
> the CoCo because I still have working copies of Sculptor and Dynacalc, but I
> use more recent machines and software. Maybe I should go back to the CoCo, I
> won't have to worry about hacker stealing my identity 8-).
>

Yeah, I think I understand what Chad's saying as well.  I wouldn't
have written back except for the bit where Chad said "when it comes to
my CoCo im still kind of a purist.".
I know it wasn't meant to be offensive but that bugs me, because (to
me) I am still doing today exactly what I did with my CoCo in the
1980s... I'm exploring and making it do new things.  Sometimes only
new to me, but still great fun.

I don't believe that my hobby is "impure" because the things I connect
to the CoCo, or the data I process with the CoCo, or the way I load
bytes into the CoCo has changed to include new technologies.  By that
logic, the only "pure" way to read a Rainbow is to have someone mail
you one a month and then run out to the mailbox every day hoping a new
one will be there :)