🚀 go-pugleaf

Joel writes:
>     It's wierd, but when you're developing stuff on a cassette based
>system, you don't really mind or think about what a pain it is if you
>have not yet been spoiled by a disk system.  I know I used to write
>lots of stuff while I was learning how to program on tape systems for
>years and wondered why everyone shuddered when I mentioned I only had a
>tape drive... after I got a disk drive, though, I wondered how I lived
>before!  Same thing when I had my MM/1 but no hard drive for about a year.
>Since I never had a HD before, I really didn't mind waiting... now there's
>no way I could live without my HD!  :)
>
You know, I was that way too. For a LONG time, I only had a cassette coco
system. I had originaly gotten a 16K Standard Basic Coco 2. I had purchased
an Extended Basic ROM and installed it myself (it was NOT easy buying it
without purchasing installation for an extra $25!). After quite a while, I
soldered another 16K RAM set on top for a piggyback 32K machine. Almost
everyone else I heard about had 64K by then. By the time I got 64K in it,
most people were talking about OS-9 (which I didn't have) and even more memory.

Somewhere along the line, I aquired a pair of disk drives, but by then, all
the others were adding hard drives. I finally got a color tv for my Coco about
time most people got monitors. I finally got a Coco 3 just before they
dropped to $99 (was really bummed out too!) and people were talking about
how nice the 1 Meg upgrades were by the time I got my 512K upgrade. I never
did have a hard drive on my Coco.

I didn't get a monochrome monitor until after everyone was talking RGB
monitors on the coco 3. My first color monitor was purchased because I was
already planning to get an MM/1, and only had it on my Coco for about six
months.

Now, it seems kinda different. I was an early purchaser of an MM/1. I had
the hard drive for it about three months before I got the I/O board. I added
2 Meg to it early on. I also got the new backplane, and populated it right
away. Now I have one of the first four accelerators and have 11 Meg of RAM.
I have also played with OS-9 ver 2.5 and am going to give installing ver. 3.0
soon.

It's kinda weird how things change. I remember when advertising that a game
would run on a 4K Coco was a selling point. I had a huge collection of software
on tapes. I had gotten really good at tape stuff. I could tell a bad save
by listening to it! Now, I write applications that are over a megabyte in
size (Microware's Fastrak FtMake makefile editor for example), and only use
removable media for transport between home and work (and that is being
replaced by UUCP transfers!).

Well, now that I'm off on a nostalgia trip, I think I'll go home and dig
out my first Coco. Anyone know where I can get a set of RAM chips for a
Coco 2?

Scott
--
  When in danger,    |   If it has my name on it, it must be MY opinion!
  or in doubt,       |______________________________________________________
  run in circles,    |                   Email to:
  scream and shout!  |       smcgee@microware.com (Scott McGee)