Xref: utzoo comp.sys.m6809:870 comp.os.os9:96
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ihlpl!knudsen
From: knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809,comp.os.os9
Subject: Re: os9 level 2 woes!
Summary: 128K just as well now
Message-ID: <6365@ihlpl.ATT.COM>
Date: 22 Aug 88 18:13:48 GMT
References: <8808172042.AA01032@decwrl.dec.com> <726@mcrware.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 40

In article <726@mcrware.UUCP>, jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) writes:

> I personally don't understand why the stock CoCo 3 is sold with 128K, because
> windows can eat memory pretty quickly.  You should get more memory.

I used to feel the same way -- that the Shack should just solder
in the 512K chips and sell the Coco 3 for maybe $50 more than the
current units.

However, since Reagan reminded us of Peral Harbor and drove
RAM prices into orbit (compensating for NASA's impotence?),
Radio Shack would be in a quandary today -- they'd have to
hike Coco 3 prices by at least $100 to cover the cost of the
chips (just as upgrade kit prices have shot up).  That would make
it harder to sell Coco 3s at all.

Also, remember the Coco family is "modular" -- most buyers
don't start off with a floppy drive or MPI, let alone OS9.
The 128K runs all the new RomPak games just fine, and adds
the much better graphics to BASIC.  Also the competitors
(Apple, Commodore, Atari 8-bit) are 128K too.

I've heard some amazing figures about how most Cocos remain
toys for kids to learn Basic and blast aliens on; some TINY
percentage of Coco owners buy disks, MPIs, or RS232 Paks.
Thus these "necessities" (to us) get discontinued or not
properly supported.

But along James' line of opinion, I wondered why Tandy kept
pushing the old 16K Coco 2s for so long, instead of making them
all 64K (64K chips are still dirt cheap).  My best guess is they
just didn't shut down the old 16K production line soon enough
and got stuck with a big inventory.

If RAM prices had kept falling, by now there probably would be
a "native" 512K Coco 3.
Actually, what I wish is that the GIME DAT had used all 8 bits
to give us 16 blocks of 4K each, with an upper size limit of
1 Meg.  Somehow the Coco 3 would seem a lot more powerful
if advertised as a "Mega Coco."