[Coco] Another Radio Shack Article

[Arthur Flexser]

Boisy, where in the book are the Roach and Patterson quotes you're
referring to? Either they did not stand out in my mind, or else they
are in the second half of the book that I haven't gotten to yet.  (I
again have occasion to lament your indexer's lack of diligence in not
including any names of people.)

I think a lot of the reason why the CoCo in the early days attracted a
lot of tech-minded hobbyists was twofold:

1.  Microsoft did an excellent job on the Basic ROMs.  Way too good,
in terms of features crammed in to the limited ROM space, to be
congruent with Tandy's very narrow conception of the CoCo's role.

2.  The choice of the 6809E processor stands out also.  Its inclusion
seems less an "interesting gamble" on Tandy's part, as you
characterize it in the book, than an accidental byproduct of the
CoCo's descent from the Videotex terminal, which I presume also had a
6809E.

Art

On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Boisy Pitre <boisy at tee-boy.com> wrote:
> Art,
>
> The former Radio Shack/Tandy higher-ups that I interviewed for the book pretty much conceded that fact. . John Roach’s quote in the book says it all, in my opinion.
>
> The fact that people were using the original CoCo for things other than games initially surprised them. Dr. John Patterson makes that obvious in his quote in the book too.
>