[Coco] OS-9 is not for me

[Nick Marentes]

On 7/11/2014 7:02 AM, Bob Devries wrote:
> Hey, Nick.
>
> I'm surprised at you that you would give up so easily. It is really 
> not rocket science. It is after all an old OS.
>
I'm starting to believe it is!   :)

> By comparison, how much time did you spend looking for the elusive 256 
> colour mode?
>
That's a totally different subject... and I still believe the mode 
existed at the prototype stage (Allen Huffans board). I am convinced it 
never made it to the production GIME chip though.


I was one of the people first off the block to buy OS-9 Level 2 when it 
came out from Tandy in 1986. I was also maybe the first in Australia to 
buy the OS-9 Development System from Tandy. I was working at Tandy at 
the time plus I was already selling my games through Tandy. They knew I 
was a CoCo developer and I got a call from the software guy in Tandy 
Head Office to tell me the OS-9 Development Kit had just arrived.

I bought OS-9, the Dev kit and Multi-Vue. Everyone saw OS-9 as the 
second coming and I jumped at the chance to develop for it.

I struggled, battled and in the end I decided that OS-9 was in actual 
fact, a false prophet.

I could see that the apps being released under OS-9 where inferior to 
what I was already achieving in RS-DOS. Further investigation and hours 
of struggling to get it to work made me file all my originals on the 
shelf and I continued in RS-DOS world.

I tried to get in to it again about 10 years later, same results.

And now, 2014 I try again and find that things have not changed after 
almost 30 years.

So, I haven't given up lightly.

Remember, I'm not just trying to learn OS-9 so I can amaze my friends 
with my OS prowness. I'm actually looking at it from a software 
developer angle, judging it's ease of use and the expected outcomes I 
could achieve. I've evaluated it intensively and have come to the same 
conclusion.... thumbs down.

I know it's powerful, it's just not for me.

Nick