At 23:59 28/04/2004 +0100, you wrote:
>> case, an inadaquate keyboard (CoCo1) and artifically limiting system software (for
>> example, the CoCo ROM's required DP to be "Page Zero" - and hogged most of it).
>
>But the ROM could be switched out and the machine run with a RAM-only
>memory map. If you had any sense you booted OS-9 which did this and which
>gave you a multi-tasking OS, the best I/O system I've ever come across,
>and some very nice languages (a decent C, ISO level 0 PASCAL, and the
>best BASIC I have ever used on a micro [1]).
Yes, absolutely - and I did run OS/9 on my CoCo sometimes when it was an "in use"
machine... however I do recall that when initially getting going with the machine
"out of the box" it was frustrating to figure out why they had done some of the
things they did - I guess the real problem is that the CoCo was designed "on the
cheap" and did not have things like a real serial port, and relied on a lot of ROM
software to make other devices work.
It's funny - in a way you've made my argument for me - That you needed to run a
completely separate third-party system in order to allow the CPU to be used anywhere
near it's potential is pretty much the point I was making.
Btw, I did not buy my first CoCo to run OS/9 - I wanted to put my own os (CUBIX) on
it, and I found it required much more learning/understanding to get to the point where
I could "take over" the machine than it did with other systems (Boot puts one sector
from disk-0 here, here's the disk controller, here are serial ports to talk to terminal
- a bit of typeing and you are up and running...). Having the ability to make use of
existing ROM code for the devices - at least initially - would have helped.
All I'm saying is that this ROM heavy/limiting design was one factor (and only one
in a larger list) that prevented the machine from widespread acceptance/third party
support. This is consistant with the CoCo's design as a "cost is everything" home
"appliance" console, not a serious business/scientific machine which is what the 6809
CPU was worthy of.
And this is not necesarily a complaint - just an observation as to some of the reasons
a decent machine with an outstanding CPU didn't do better than it did. Unfortunately
it is the only common machine using the 09 that most people knew of, and this did not
help to win 09 supporters.
I believe SWTP made a nicer 6809 machine, however I never did get my hands on one :-(
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Vintage computing equipment collector.
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
Received on Wed Apr 28 2004 - 19:46:12 BST