Coco (was: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Christopher Smith wrote: Yes, it had a serial port. with a 4 pin DIN? It was clearly described in their literature as being "RS-232". Unfortunately, that stood for "RADIO SHACK 232". No more or less so than any other computer. Like any other computer, you can use it to keep track of notes, receipts, appointments, etc. (all of which can usually be done as well, or better, by a refrigerator door.) As a terminal or word processor, it was badly limited by the screen configuration. There were numerous fixes, some good, some bad. (such as 3 x 6 character matrix to get more characters on the screen) So? Is your "Hi-Fi" ALSO all in one box? Or is it a group of separate components? You're not capable of reboxing a computer? A friend, and business associate, used to repackage computers into Halliburton attache cases. He made a portable Coco with drives, 5" screen (and connection for external), as well as a number of other models. His "BMC-80" one piece portable CP/M machine was introduced (at my booth) at the West Coast Computer Faire a day before Osborne's introduction. That did not stop Adam from calling his "first and only" even though he had already spent half an hour admiring ours before his was introduced. That's all right. His booth had ~$50K of chrome and black plexiglass; WE had cold beer (which repeatedly got us free ink in Jerry Pournelle's column). -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com