Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!sjcst2 From: sjcst2@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Scott J. Corley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809 Subject: Re: COCO upgrade Message-ID: <89855@unix.cis.pitt.edu> Date: 10 Feb 91 02:57:27 GMT References: <1991Feb7.142856.10328@engin.umich.edu> <1991Feb7.164611.29356@cbnewse.att.com> Reply-To: sjcst2@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Scott J. Corley) Distribution: na Organization: University of Pittsburgh, CIS Lines: 98 Gilbert , the reason that COCO Max wont work on the Coco 3 is that the special input pak that you need to use with it is located at memory addresses which were unused in the Coco 1 & 2 but are now occupied by the Coco 3's GIME chip. As for your other questions. 1) There really isnt a RSDOS 2.0 or RSDOS 2.1. Unlike the old Coco's the Coco 3 copies the information in the RSDOS ROMS to RAM and then patches it like the some of the programs for 64k Coco's used to do. One of the things they patch is the version number of the RSDOS ROM ,changing the version number from RSDOS 1.0 or 1.1 to RSDOS 2.0 or 2.1. The reason Tandy decided to load RSDOS into RAM and then patch it is that they wanted to add new features to RSBASIC but didnt want to pay Microsoft ,who wrote RSBASIC and owns the rights to it , to upgrade it. Copyright law prevents someone other than the copyright holder from modifying a program stored in a fixed , permanent form like ROM and marketing it. Instead Tandy hired Microware to add enhancements to RSBASIC and they did so by loading the Microsoft RSBASIC code into RAM and then patching it to add new features like support for 40/80 column screens , a On Error Goto statement , etc. Its legal because the modified code is stored in RAM which is not a permanent form of storage because it loses all information when you turn the power off. 2) I have the Max-10 wordprocessor which is what I assume you are talking about when you mention the "Coco 10" wordprocessor. If you've ever seen the wordprocessor MacWrite for the Macintosh , then you've seen Max-10 for the Coco 3. Max-10 was written to be as close a clone of MacWrite as is possible on the Coco 3. Having used both programs , I think that the author did a pretty good job. Instead of using the 40 or 80 column text screen of the Coco for its display Max-10 uses the high resolution graphics screen for its display like Telewriter 64 & VIP Writer did on the old Coco 1 & 2. But the display and speed of Max-10 is much better than on those old Coco 1 & 2 programs because of the extra features of the Coco 3 like its resolution (640x192 vs 256x192) , double clock speed mode ,etc. Because Max-10 uses the high resolution graphics screen for its display , you can import and print pictures in it along with your text. It comes with utilities that will import most Coco graphics format and convert them for use with Max-10. Some of those formats are Coco Max II & III , Color Max , PMODE 4 ,etc. Max-10 is controlled by a joystick or mouse just like Coco Max II and uses icons, drop down menus ,etc so it is very easy to learn and use. The biggest advantage that Max-10 has over other Coco wordprocessors it that it has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) display. The display on the screen looks exactly like what you will see if you perform a print out. No more guessing what your text's going to look like when its printed out. No more wondering about where page and paragraph breaks are going to fall, etc. You can see exactly how your formatting is going to look. No more imbedding printer control codes in order to get page breaks , type face and so on. If you want bold face type you simply select bold face from a menu and you'll see it right on the screen. Same goes for Italic type and others. Max-10 uses its own fonts in both its display and its printout. and this has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that the fonts on the screen and the fonts on a printout will be exactly the same. Another advantage is that Max-10 thus allows you to use Font sizes and styles that arent available on most printers. The disadvantages are that some of the fonts included with Max-10 dont look that good when printed out and you cant use the printer's builtin fonts without losing the WYSIWYG display. If you do use the printers's built in fonts the print out of your text will look nothing like the display of Max-10. The biggest disadvantage of Max-10 is that it is very slow in printing because it uses its own fonts. In order to use its own fonts Max-10 uses the graphics mode of the printer in order to print. In other words , Max-10 performs a screen dump in order to print anything out and as you undoubtedly know screen dumps can take a long time. In normal mode , Max-10 can take 10 min to print a page. If you are using the special high quality printout mode , Max-10 can take 45 min to print a page but the quality of the printout looks fantastic (with the right fonts). If you want ease of use , WYSIWYG display , ability to use lots of different fonts and good looking printouts then give Max-10 a try. If you need speedy printouts , ability to use builtin printer fonts effectively , ability to write large documents (Max-10 only allocates 64k of memory for holding text even with 512k of memory) get something else. The reason that MulitiPaks are so hard to find is that Tandy stopped making them and selling them 3 years ago. A lot of people want them but they are not available except on the used market. A few companies , Howard Medical , Hawksoft have come out with crude imitations of it though. The reason that Tandy's selling the Coco 3 for $99 is that they are closing them out. They stopped making them some time ago and are just selling off their old stock. There wont be a Coco 4 because it would compete with Tandy's low cost PC clones. Scott Corley