Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!saturn!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!sneezy From: sneezy@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Frank Farm) Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809 Subject: Re: CoCo 3 suggestions Keywords: Cyrus ROMpaks MPI Message-ID: <4503@saturn.ucsc.edu> Date: 13 Aug 88 10:29:57 GMT Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu Reply-To: sneezy@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Frank Farm) Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz; CATS Lines: 59 In article <1988Aug10.224033.8096@lsuc.uucp>, jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) wrote: > > Some recent discussions have arisen regarding what programs would >be worth writing. This actually happens fairly often, but it just >stuck in my mind this time: > >1. A new chess game in a cartridge. I have the first Chess > cartridge. I never got around to buying Cyruss chess, but > I was going to. Now I hear it won't run on the CoCo3 anyway. > I would certainly be in the market for a new chess cartridge! > ... The CARTRIDGE won't run on the CoCo 3, but I've been able to transfer it to disk and it works beautifully. The graphics are MUCH sharper in RGB! Although Cyrus is an EXCELLENT program, it could stand improvement, esp. with the CoCo 3 graphics. Edtasm+ and Cyrus are the ONLY cartridges I ever bought. I bought Edtasm+ because I didn't have drives at the time, and Cyrus because it was on sale for an incredibly cheap price. > By the way, you will notice that I am asking for *cartridges*! > ... > I *do* have the MultiPak, so cartridges are wonderful! > ... > I believe there is a really good future in cartridges with > around 32K bytes - 128K bytes. >... > >Cheers! -- Jim O. >... If there really IS a future in cartridges, it won't include me. I *don't* have the MultiPak. I'm certainly not going to risk plugging and unplugging my disk controller, and I'm not excited about paying for an MPI that will take up EVEN MORE of the limited desk space that I have simply to be able to play a game at the flick of a switch. And what happens after you've bought four or more game cartridges? Do the plug-unplug procedure again? Why buy the thing in the first place? You can plug and unplug to your heart's content WITHOUT the MPI. And then there're all the PAL chip complications; you have to buy a certain model MPI for it to work with a CoCo 3. And, if you still happen to have your original CoCo, GUESS WHAT?!!! It won't work with your MPI!!! Once I almost bought one, but luckily the salesperson confused me long enough for me to leave the store in a dazed state; I later realized how much more trouble (and $$) an MPI would be (for me) than it's worth. If Tandy wanted to "do it right," they should've given away the MPIs with every CoCo sold. That way, if one later got a disk system, s/he needn't worry each time the disk controller needed to be pulled out to stick in a cartridge and would still be open to purchasing ROMpaks as well as disk software. Asking $99 (or even $60, on sale) just to be kept "open" to ROMpak software after you've already spent several hundred dollars for a drive or two is presumptuous, considering the low price of the CoCo 3 itself. +-------------------------+ | Frank Farm | | sneezy@ucscb.ucsc.edu | +-------------------------+