durham_2@husc4.UUCP (01/19/87)
In article <365@umnd-cs-gw.umnd-cs.UUCP> rhealey@umn-d-ub.UUCP (Rob Healey) writes: >In article <9601V3R@PSUVMA> V3R@PSUVMA.BITNET writes: >>How can you say the CoCo's days are numbered when Tandy just released the new >>CoCo III? > Unfortunately, like many other companys, Tandy has taken the position > of PC all the way and give them a stop gap till they buy a PC. My main > point is that 8 bitters like the CoCo and the 4 should not be back seat > to the Intel junk, they fullfill a need. How much PR have you heard from > Tandy on the CoCo 3? All the Stores/Centers I've been in have the CoCo's > stashed in the corner and the PC compatables on prominant display. > If Tandy was 100% behind the CoCo why are they shoved in the corner and > not as well advertised as the PC gang? Tandy just had 1/2 price sales > on CoCo hardware and software; we all know what THAT means. Tandy IS dropping the RS232 pak; they are getting rid of some slow moving software as they normally do (seen Quasar Commander or Dino Wars lately?); rumors say a CoCo3-ready multipak is coming. > > I say the CoCo's days are numbered because of the lack of advertisement > space given to CoCo's and the fact that they are being stuffed in the > corner. Walk into a Computer center and ask to see a home computer, what > computer will they show you first? I don't think the salesperson will > first show you a CoCo, they should. Why should anyone want to buy a CoCo3 right now? (wait a minute, let me finish...) No Level II, no software that takes advantage of it (at least not from Tandy, & most people don't know of 3d party). If Tandy had really trumpeted the CoCo3 last fall and at Christmas it would have been a BIG embarrassment. People would have talked about the lack of software, Tandy's tardiness with Level II (now scheduled for 2/15), and the machine would have been doomed. In a sense, Tandy has done the right thing-- though possibly not intentionally. They have brought CoCo3's to the most active part of the CoCo community-- only the people who read Rainbow or see this newsgroup or are on Delphi or Compuserve know enough about the CoCo3 to understand what it means. Tandy's catalogs, as usual, have been wishy washy talking about it. So only the most active of us have CoCo3's. A decent proportion of us will write software for them (I know I might), and bring that to market. When OS-9 Level II, the developers package, and Multi-View (or however you spell it!!) have been out for a couple of months, THEN Tandy should get on the ball and talk about the new machine AND the software it will be running. And we, the current CoCo community, will have, in a sense, inside info. If CoCo3 makes it big (which is possible, maybe not likely), it will be as if Tandy made prototypes available to every interested developer a year before the machine went public. (It's hard to say it's public now). So... when the machine is ready to go public, when Tandy has a bunch of software for it, when we current CoCo owners make more software available, THEN Tandy should go ALL OUT, and let the world know about 512K, disk, windows, all for under $700 plus monitor. AND about good, inexpensive software. THEN maybe the CoCo3 will make it big. If Tandy were to go all out before then, the machine would almost surely flop. Pete Durham _ UNIX: durham_2@husc4.harvard.edu COMPUSERVE: 73177,1215 seismo!harvard!husc4!durham_2 DELPHI: PEDXING ______ / / / / Tandy / / / / Color Computer 3 and Microware's OS-9 /_/_/_/