Sorry about the delay. Computer is still locking up while trying to write in the blog. Seemingly randomly, too, which is always fun to try to track down. Working on it, and no worries... Should be back up to speed again soon.
In the meantime, ponder this one sent in by dragon dragon:
TI 99/8 "Armadillo" Computer - Rare - Never Released!
This vintage machine has almost mythical status and sold for nearly US$3200.00. Yow! Okay, not directly CoCo related. But it gets me thinking...
What would someone pay for a prototype Color Computer? Would you pay $3200.00???
(I have to somewhat guiltily admit, if I had the money, yeah... probably. heh!)
There's plenty of quasi-mythical beasts in the CoCo's past. A prototype Project Green Thumb machine. The prototypes for the CoCo 1, 2, and 3. The CoCo 4. The vehmenently denied, then defended, then denied A and B board CoCo 1s. (I heard enough stories about the latter to say with absolute firmness that they probably might have could not have not existed. So there ya go.)
Any others?
Angel's Luck,
Capt.
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6 comments:
Hi Amigo,
If i had the moolah for a coco 4 prototype, I would buy it no probs, yeah they denied ever making it, But it was true, they did have certain amount built, Since I recall reading that Lonnie Falk, Had seen 1, So I would rather believe Mr Falk, than what Tandy has to say on the prototype coco 4.
Since we know how Tandy shafted us coconuts.
laters
Briza
Oh, I'm pretty sure they were working on something Motorola based. For Tandy, going Intel was smart, though. For awhile they were right at the top of the IBM PC-clone market and the 1000 series was brillant. The pinnacle was the 80286/16 Tandy 1000 TL/2. I loved that machine. But alas, they floundered in that market and lost the edge. As for the CoCo... In some ways, I think Tandy bolting from that market was a wise move. As much as I wish it wasn't so, it did let them create an outstanding line of PCs with extra features (sound and graphics) that were adopted by the developer industry. Every game that came out in that time period was IBM/Tandy compatible. The CoCo just didn't have a place in their market plan. :/
That doesn't mean the CoCo didn't get shafted. heh... From beginning to end, they never really supported the machine as well as they could have (particularly in the beginning). CoCo users made the CoCo a success. Tandy, with a few noted exceptions, mostly just built them.
Angel's Luck,
Capt.
Hi Captcpu,
To be truthful, I never much got into the Tandy 1000 range, comparing the speeds between the 2, when it came to Bench mark tests, The coco 3 running OS-9 level 2, was quicker, this coming from a 8-16 bit type Cpu, while the T-1000 had a full blown 16 bit cpu.
And look at the sierra games, They were designed for a 16 bit computer, But we could play the games on the 8bit coco 3, with a bit of work, We could play Kings Quest 1,2,3, space quest 1 and 2, and some others, Not bad for a 8bit.
So I Disagree to a certain point, The Coco 3, was way superior in being a very powerful small Business computer or Games machine. And it's still being used to this day.
laters
Briza
Quite true! The CoCo 3 did have strengths that beat any IBM-clone of the day. But... I'm just saying as far as marketing goes, Tandy made a choice that, at the time, wasn't necessary a bad one. For the company, that is. The PC market was reaching critical mass, or the tipping point in today's corporate parlance. One has to wonder if Tandy, as big a player as they were, had the marketing muscle to punch an OS-9 based system into promenance against the onslaught of DOS/Windows based clones (HP, Compaq, Acer, Tandy, Micron, etc, etc, etc). Honestly, could they have even pushed such a system hard enough to register even a blip on the market? Perhaps, but it would have been a bet the company strategy... and most big corps won't take that kind of risk. Tandy certainly wasn't going to, so they went the safer and more immediatley profitable route. (And for a few years, they pulled it off.)
I also wonder, though, if some other strategy regarding the CoCo could have been successful. For example, Tandy (and Radio Shack, Corp. today) turned from their hobbyist, electronic guru, high quality audiophile roots right around that time. Was that necessary? In my opinion, no. They could have sold the CoCo as a botique specialty computer (think Amiga and Apple of the day), for instance. An entirely do-able plan because it wouldn't take a terrible amount of resources. Hell, just produce the new machine, market it as a UNIX user's/eletronics wizard's eletronic super box, and let the 3rd party market carry it... that's what they had done before and they made a bundle off of selling CoCos.
I definately think Tandy made a mistake stoping development and production of the CoCo. There are plenty of directions they could have taken it, including take a swipe at Apple (graphics) and the Amiga (video and sound). I don't think the CoCo could have made many inroads into the business market at that time, even if it was technically superior. The clone was too entrenched on corporate desktops. In the end, Tandy just followed the market and the money. Unfortunately, they've been following ever since.
And yes, that the CoCo is still an outstanding computing platform even today is a testament to its design and the people and companies that DID support it. It's one of the reasons I post this stuff... I hope more CoCos will sell and more people will get envolved, so that the CoCo can continue to be the premier hobbyist computer it is. The more of them in use out there, the better!
Angel's Luck,
Capt.
If Tandy hadn't been so anal about marketing the cc3 and put some effort into the cc4, their computer division would never have been bought by AST and then flushed down the porcelin fixture...
It's a shame either way. Still there's hope. Anything all active cocoists can do to stir up more interest and add members to the community will help. An open source CoCo (I was just re-reading an article in make magazine (http://www.makezine.com/ the most seriously amazing magazine I've ever read, serious drool factor) about open source hardware. It's an interesting concept and certainly do-able for a CoCo 4. It's a matter of getting enough people with the technical know-how interested in doing it. Someday... :)
Angel's Luck,
Capt
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