Best keyboards you've used ever!

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Sat Aug 28 20:04:57 2004

Rumor has it that Tony Duell may have mentioned these words:
> > > Eh? The CoCo 3 has all 4 arrows on it (I'm looking at one). It's also
> > > scanned in software (unlike the Apple ][) so can produce lower case if
> > > required. The CoCo 2 can't _display_ lower case as standard...

Some could -- later versions had a "B" version to the chipset with updated
character ROMs that had true lower-case - it could be brought out with a
couple of peeks/pokes in RS-Basic, but OS-9 could automagically tell if it
was a capable machine & display accordingly.

> > Sorry. My bad. But didn't it still lack something crucial, like a CTRL
> > key or something equally obvious? I remember bitching about this a while
>
>The CoCo 1 and 2 lack a CTRL key (it was common to use the down-arrow for
>this, though). The CoCo 3 has a CTRL and an ALT key (and, indeed, f1 and
>f2 keys, but no more). There's no Caps Lock on any of the CoCos, but that
>could be taken as an advantage :-)

As there is no standard <shift> character for the zero key (parens were
<shift> 8 & 9), most (all?) software used <shift><zero> for "cap-lock" --
It wasn't denoted on the keyboard, but it was rather prominent in the
documentation.

Granted, if you got your CoCo 2nd hand and somehow got it into "lower-case
mode" without knowing how & no manuals to reference, it could be a bugger
to find out how to accept commands again, as the basic couldn't handle the
lower-case characters...

> > ago and you coming to its defence :)
>
>I will admit to having a soft spot for the CoCo. It was the machine I
>used my first real OS on (OS-9, of course), and I learnt a lot from
>writing device drivers, etc.

I had no idea assembly language could be hard until I started looking at
books about x86 assembly... It just seems so "natural" on the 6809...
(altho I'd really like to try my hand at 6309... But first, I'd *need* a
6309... ;-)

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch_at_30below.com
What do you do when Life gives you lemons,
and you don't *like* lemonade?????????????
Received on Sat Aug 28 2004 - 20:04:57 BST

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