[Coco] The COCO vs The Apple II

[RETRO Innovations]

On 1/10/2015 2:11 AM, Tony Cappellini wrote:
> I am just dismayed at how primitive the Basic & DOS are compared to the
> Coco's.
> I had to run a binary program from disk just to copy files between
> floppies. This sounds like CP/M.
Not all 65XX machines are so primitive :-)  Commodore's do not require 
DOS on disk, etc.

> I was trying to setup a loop using by decrementing a 2-Byte number in a
> 6502 register. It wasn't working. The 6502 has only 3 (general purpose)
> 8-Bit registers, compared to the 6809's 5, 16-Bit registers. (I'm not
> counting PC, Stack ptr,and flags because I don't consider them to be
> general purpose, even though they can be used by the user for esoteric
> things) WTH!!
self modifying code and zpage can be your friend :-)

That said, it's a bit unfair to compare a newer CPU like the 6809 with 
the 6502, which is comparable to the 6800, correct?  Had the 6502 
evolved (MOS under Tramiel had no appetite to do so), I think a 
comparable 65XX would have appeared (The '816 has some neat 16 bit 
features, but it's still not as elegant as the '09)

But, I know you knew that, and yes, the 6502 can be a beast to program 
given years of programmers thinking of CPUs as being register based (the 
6502 wants you to think of zpage as a 256 byte register file, but it 
require a bit different thinking to get there).


>
> I'm having fun though, learning all of this, but it begs the question..
>
> How did the Apple II being having such a primitive basic, DOS, & CPU outsell
> and be so much more popular than the Coco? The Apple II was approximately
> 3-4 times the cost of the Coco.
Then as now... Marketing!  The move to put them in schools was genius, IMHO.
Jim