Greeting CoCoNutz, it has been a while. When I moved to Maine in 2017, I basically sold out of my CoCo collection, transferred my fan site to another person, and basically disappeared for a while.
That didn't mean I wanted to be gone forever. In fact, a few fellow 'nutz strongly encouraged me to stay on as a Facebook admin, participate in discussion, etc...
I'm sure some will accuse me of choosing sides after reading this. If so, all that does is put their reading comprehension skills into question.
When I first found out the good ol' CoCo still had a following, I was stunned. This was late 2005, and the main resources for information was Roger Taylor's coco3.com and the mailing list ran by Dennis. Another guy named Cris had a website, blog and forum as well.
Online resources were available, yet far from organized; Cloud-9 was one of the VERY few makers of new hardware devices; memory upgrades, hard disk adapters, MPI service and updates. Chris Hawkes had an S-video device and Roy Justus was the first to make a VGA adapter.
Needless to say, a lot has changed in thirteen years. There's more vendors doing hardware now - the most prolific of the new producers being Ed Snider. I know I'm skipping over some, but, this post would read like a novel if I touched on every single hardware developer out there.
On the software side, there were some very cool releases. Roger's Bejeweled clone, Jeweled. Sock Master stunned the entire retro world in 2007 with his release of the Donkey Kong emulator for the CoCo3 - then did it again a few years later with Donkey Kong Remix. Nick Marentes came back to the CoCo world with PopStar Pilot, and now Gunstar; and the Glen Hewlett transcode of Pac-Man recently has continued a slow but steady stream of impressive releases.
John Linville started a craze with his Fahrfall game. It was written specifically for the CoCo 1 or 2, and not the CoCo 3. Then he re-released it on his Game Master Cartridge, adding music and more SFX. This essentially started lots of discussion about sound add-ons. Ed Snider has implemented a sound chip in his Mega-Mini MPI as well, and Jim Brain has stated he has a project in development as well. The Mega-Mini and I think even a product announced by Jim spawned a lot of whining about wanting the addition of an RTC module. The seemingly never ending constant in many hardware projects seems to be a desire for design by committee.
The irony in all of this, regarding sound hardware, is the GMC seems to be the only available design that's actually having any software support (Fahrfall and a game under development by Steve Bamford). Truthfully though, the GMC isn't a sound card as much as it is a platform - maybe John will correct me if he disagrees. Much like you could get certain games on the Genesis and SNES with custom chips to boost those systems performance, the GMC adds much better sound capabilities to games or software. The caveat being, as a cart, the software must have a ROM onboard the cart, and be written to take advantage of the features. I'm unsure if a disk game can be written to utilize the hardware in the GMC as it's designed right now.
Historically speaking, most of the events/products mentioned above have the following in common: they all sparked very opinionated, and in some cases hatefully opinionated comments. To be honest, we're all fans of the CoCo, yet to an extent only rivaled in politics, we cannot seem to agree to disagree. Some feel the necessity to browbeat others into submission. It almost seems as though their lives are so miserable they have to make others feel bad just to feel good.
Lately there has been a LOT of not so pleasant discourse regarding similar products being dropped into the market. Rightly so, one question asked was about why there is so much duplication of existing products. Honestly, it does show a lack of imagination for coming up with something new. However, we are a free market capitalist society, so people really can make and sell what they want to.
Even in a free market society, it seems that fair competition and discussion of etiquette can sometimes be controversial. The CoCo universe is relatively small. When last I checked, it had about 4,000 followers on Facebook - yet active members seem to be a small percentage of that. In comparison, the Atariage group has more than 24,000 members, a Commodre 64 group has 88,000 members, one Amiga group has 22,000 members.
On two occasions I can remember, when CoCoFest! time was approaching, Mark Marlette released a chart comparing one of his products with a competing product. On both occasions, members of the insta-rage gang that hides out on the Facebook page went nuts. Why? In a free market society, you should expect product comparisons, and if yours comes in on the low end, you have a choice to make: improve it or accept the situation as is.
The latest case of this was when Mark compared his 2MB TRIAD+ board to the 2MB Boomerang board. Some of the chart info was incorrect - which wasn't Mark's fault since the updated information was not public knowledge - sorry but just because something is spoken about among the 18 or so Discord members that were chatting that night doesn't make it public.
Certain members of the Facebook group cried foul at just the creation of the chart. Others calmly, and others no so calmly, pointed out the discrepancy. Basically, some seemed to want free market capitalism, but, without giving producers a way to talk about and compare competing products. Perhaps next year, the CoCoFest! should have a WWE ring set up?
There's been discussion for a long time about projects, and selling products that compete. It's a gray area for sure, and opinions are strong. The general consensus for the two sides are as follows:
1. Anybody can sell anything they want, for whatever price they want.
2. Does it really help the CoCo Universe to have multiple products, with the same features, that serve the same purpose? And why not discuss and possibly collaborate if you're going to introduce a competing product?
Now group (1) is certainly free market capitalism - impossible to dispute that.
Group (2) type thoughts have been attacked as anti-competitive, I think someone even compared it to a violation of antitrust laws - which it's most certainly not.
Boisy Pitre wrote an article about it - the response was mixed. Certain people respected where it came from. Others compared it to trampling ideas, silencing others and claims of trying to control the market, all the way to being un-American.
But is it really? Looking at the size and potential market share of any device, sure, there's probably enough room in the CoCo-verse for competing memory upgrades. But doesn't that show, as I commented earlier, a lack of imagination?
Mark has had 512K memory upgrades for years - dating back to the late '90's. Few years ago, he produced a 512K SRAM upgrade - the TRIAD. At CoCoFest! 2018 Mark demonstrated a 2MB version of the TRIAD, and admitted he didn't like the design and was working on refining it. Shortly after, the 2MB Boomerang was released to the public. This might be considered a coincidence if it were not for the developer of the Boomerang attending the Fest - it would be surprising if he weren't aware of the Cloud-9's product. But, was it wrong or just good business strategy to be first to market? Since there have been several revisions of said product, the argument could go either way as to if being first to the market is a good thing or not.
The people in Group (2) would like to see some courtesy displayed to long time developers of both hardware and software. If you're working on a competing product, reach out to discuss it and see if there's a way to collaborate - ways to make an existing product better, or just to say 'hey, I have this idea on a new SRAM upgrade'. If there's room for collaboration, great. If not, nothing and nobody is trying to stop another from creating a widget or game. At least the attempt was made, and a little respect was shown, and likely earned.
If that's anti-competitive and anti-American, then I'll claim the development and quick release of the 2MB Boomerang is tantamount to corporate espionage. However, I would be just as incorrect - it was a window of opportunity that was taken. By bringing it to market, though, some expectations of product comparison should not be surprising. Hysterical rants brought on by product comparisons help nobody.
John Linville recently posted a video asking people to calm down, take a breath, and try to remember we're all fans of the CoCo. Not surprisingly he was attacked for it. Think about that a minute. The fact he took the time to make and post a video like that, I'm sure he did a little self reflection as well. Then to be attacked for it. Are those people even capable of self reflection?
Unfortunately, where I see all of this leading is to a fractured group. Those whom are first to attack, also seem to be the easiest to offend if they're called out. Once that happens, certain individuals get in rage mode, and any type of logical, rational discussion goes out the window. In some ways it's humorous, in others it's very, very sad.
We cannot even agree to disagree. There was a response to Boisy's article that took his exact format, and attempted a point by point rebuke, by changing paragraph wording to reflect their view. However, there was nothing serious about it, and ended up being nothing more than a pathetic mockery attempt. In fairness, there was some decent discussion on the topic as well.
However, mockery seems to be a tool being utilized by several people, and I'll admit I've done so as well - I'm not proud if it, but, at least I'm man enough to admit it. I'm also still capable of fighting the mockery or hysterics fires with like fire - I've raised five daughters and a son, trust me, I've seen hysterics and mockery. Let's not go there - try to be grown up, and not keyboard warriors.
In closing I'd like to say this: is all the infighting and hysterics worth it? Because you disagree with someone, does it make you feel better when you beat them into submission? This is a retro computing HOBBY. We're supposed to be having fun, not trying to neuter people with words. If all you have to offer is a combative personality, seek help. In all seriousness, if you're so much of an asshole that you have to browbeat and be condescending to others to feel good about yourself, SEEK HELP.
Finally, if you disagree with someone, debate the topic, don't insult or berate the person - you have no idea what the person is like in the real world. Just because you have differing opinions doesn't mean the other person is evil. That same person might pull you out of a burning car or building. You never know...
