0ddd4c7c   
   From: et472@ncf.ca   
      
     This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable text,   
     while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.   
      
   On Sat, 11 Jul 2009, N Morrison wrote:   
      
   > On Jul 10, 6:40 pm, "Ferris Buehler"  wrote:   
   >   
   >> Tandy should never have sold it. It was a piece of junk.   
   >   
   > No, it was an OK computer. Just a bad marketing idea. Seeing what you   
   > can do with something that small and simple tests your skills.   
   >   
   Come on.  30 years ago, this past May, I got my first computer, a KIM-1   
   with all of 1k of RAM, a cassette interface, and some 7-segment readouts   
   and a calculator style keyboard.  That tested my skills quite well.   
      
   When I got my next computer in 1981, it had all of 8K of ram (well, 4k   
   was standard, and I splurged on more RAM to fill the sockets) and a video   
   interface and a real ascii keyboard.  Still a cassette interface.  It   
   wasn't a limited system, not at that time.   
      
   By the time the MC-10 came along, the trend was to full blown systems   
   like the Commodore 64 and the CoCo.  By then, there wasn't much reason   
   to not have capability of a full 64K of RAM, even if the computer didn't   
   come with it.  I can't remember the price of the MC-10, but I don't think   
   it was that much cheaper than the CoCo, and certainly the CoCo went on   
   sale quite a bit that lessened the differential further.  If you were    
   broke, you could get a CoCo with less than 64K of RAM, and upgrade it    
   later, for the cost of the RAM.  The MC-10 required a whole module to   
   upgrade, and even then it was limited.   
      
   But when you spent the money on the CoCo, you had that ability to expand    
   to 64K, you had a computer that had already sold well so there was a    
   decent user base that companies wanted to sell software to, and you could    
   expand it with a good selection of hardware, including a floppy disk.   
      
   The only advantage the MC-10 had was lower price, and that was not only   
   a relatively small step lower, but got lower as time progressed.  I bought   
   a CoCo merely because it had a better keyboard, and it was cheap enough   
   to not make me think twice.   
      
   Besides, now that computers are so much larger in capability, there isn't   
   that much a difference between 8k of RAM and 64K, it's only an 8:1 leap.   
   64Megs is now small, and that's an 8000:1 leap over the CoCo's 64K; this   
   computer has 8 times that 64megs.   
      
      Michael   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)