Would that be 'floppy drive'
I've still got a Commodore Plus4 with floppy drive somewhere, and my original MicroTan Tangerine computer I built from a kit.
Not necessarily - you could get small hard drives for the Color Computer back in the day (mostly MFM, some SCSI); most people used them for running OS-9. Since
futz also claims to own a MM/1 (which, IIRC, used OS68K - the 68000 version of OS-9), it is possible he had a hard drive for his CoCo. But only
futz could clear that up (and you generally had a floppy drive anyhow - you needed someway to get the software onto the hard drive).
futz - are you at all active on the maltedmedia listserv and/or coco3.com forums? If not, head over there and ask some questions; we could help you get that old CoCo system back up and running (and you might even be pleasantly surprised at what has transpired on the CoCo since you last used it!).
Now - regarding this product, I think it's pretty cool, though I am not a PIC fan (that has more to do with lack of compilers for my OS of choice, versus anything having to do with the chip itself). I recently found a site that sells a "mini Altair" clone (I think it used a PIC32, too). The thing is so cute; looks just like a real Altair 8800, but much smaller (and it has built in ports and such). The same site also sells a VT100 terminal emulator board that you plug a vga monitor and keyboard into (great for interfacing to old machines like the Altair and other S-100 bus boxen).
Then there's the site I found that is selling a full-sized Altair 8800 clone (AFAICT, there's no trickery or emulation involved on it - its a true clone, using new parts that match closely to the original's specs).
Apparently, there's a growing interest in these small computing platforms; I think it has something to do with wanting to "get back to roots", nostalgia for some, and also the fact that these platforms are simple enough to understand completely, unlike today's modern PCs (no matter the operating system). Whether it's a fad or not, only time will tell. I've found that my Arduino is in a much similar area; don't get me wrong, I enjoy coding on my Ubuntu workstation (though I don't do anything fancy like OS or drivers or such, just ordinary things in Perl, Python, and PHP), but sometimes it is nice to be able to play around with simpler systems.
...and, if I get really nostalgic, I can always boot up my old TRS-80 Color Computer 3!