[Coco] [Color Computer] USB Anyone?

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that John R. Hogerhuis may have mentioned these words:

>On Fri, 2005-04-15 at 23:52 -0600, Glen VanDenBiggelaar wrote:
> >
> > This would be great, but evryone would have to agree on the set of primary
> > drivers. we would have to think about what devices would be most imprtant
> > first (maybe a 3.5' floppy or a hard drive?) we could all debate for hours
> > whats the most important stuff to hook up.
> > -Glen
>
>Programmers are lazy. The dominoes will likely fall in order of "easiest 
>first."

;-)

>So I'd expect a USB joystick, a USB keyboard, a USB mouse, and then
>maybe a USB Serial or USB Parallel Port.

The problem with USB Serial at least, is it seems every device is a little 
different -- there's no "standard interface." Just look at the list of USB 
Serial device drivers in the Linux Kernel.

Either people would have to write their own driver based on devices they 
already own, or if someone wrote a driver for it, everyone would have to go 
out and buy *that particular device* to use that function.

And altho the HID for USB exists, I wouldn't use it myself - it's darned 
tough to find a *real* USB keyboard (read: IBM Model 'M' ;-) and when(if) 
you do find 'em, they ain't cheap. I'd just rather go with an internal AT 
keyboard adapter, as they'd be more "invisible" to RS-BASIC anyhow; and I 
have 4-5 spare Model 'M's already (and always grab more if they become 
available :-).

I just sold my backhoe and taxes are due back soon... ;-) The wifey just 
got a *new* couch... hehehehe

>Then perhaps a USB storage device, like a key drive.

Tiny drives (8-16 Meg) are dirt cheap nowadays (and huge for the CoCo)  and 
the interface is standardized - so even if it wasn't quite the easiest to 
do first, there wouldn't be nearly as much "replication of effort" as once 
the driver is done, you won't have to customize it if the driver was 
written for a sandisk drive but you own a lexar. A "Wider, quicker" 
acceptance of use within the community, as it were.

The USB floppy drives seem to be pretty standardized as well, and that 
could be a way of easily accessing 1.4M floppies...

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch at 30below.com

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