[Coco] DriveWire is just a hobby (Was: DW4 on MAc & Linux)

[Boisy Pitre]

I don't read the list like I used too… I've been ultra busy of late and it shows no signs of stopping, but I will occasionally scan the topics and see what is interesting. This one caught my eye :)

Some historical perspective: the DriveWire protocol and initial product was my creation. It was based on something I saw back in the 1990s at a CoCoFest in Chicago. I designed the first servers for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and spent many hours putting this stuff together, eventually selling it as a complete product through Cloud-9. I extended HDB-DOS (not my creation, but I acquired the rights to it) to support DriveWire, as well as wrote the drivers for NitrOS-9. Darren Atkinson provided updated routines which made the product even better.

During the time DriveWire was sold, a manual was shipped and I paid attention to making sure documentation was adequate. Many people bought the product (including the cable), as well as the ROM Pak, and had little to no problems getting things going.

Then I got busy with other endeavors that, at least for me, rewarded my time with much more compensation. After talking it over with Mark Marlette, who sold DriveWire through Cloud-9, I decided to make HDB-DOS and DriveWire freely available. I even released other products that were formerly sold through Cloud-9, like SuperDriver, out in the wild.

At some point, Aaron Wolfe joined the CoCo community and on his own volition, created DriveWire 4, which way beyond what my then-availble DriveWire servers on the various personal computer platforms could do. I collaborated with him on extending DriveWire with networking capabilities, and after that, Aaron has pretty much carried the DriveWire mantle.

The documentation is not Aaron's fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. After deciding to make DriveWire freely available, I put up a web page on Cloud-9 (rather hurriedly perhaps) to provide some information on getting started.

At some point, I did some additional work folding the HDB-DOS and DriveWire ROM sources into the ToolShed project, where they reside to this day. I believe that should be the official place to improve both HDB-DOS and DriveWire going forward.

I am very proud that DriveWire has become the standard for the CoCo community, and I attribute this partly to my giving it away, and partly to Aaron's great work on the server side. Moreover, I see DriveWire as belonging to the wider CoCo community now. Take it and extend it, improve it, and yes, write better documentation for it.

No one is asking for their boots to be licked here, but on the same token, please understand and appreciate the work that went into this. Don't complain, but rather, take up the slack and help make it better.

Peace, and be well.
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Boisy G. Pitre | Founder
Phone 337.781.3570