[Coco] Serial to USB adaptor compatible with CoCo?

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that Boisy G. Pitre may have mentioned these words:

>On Dec 9, 2005, at 12:46 PM, Roger Taylor wrote:
>
>>I noticed a Serial to USB adaptor in Wal-Mart yesterday and I
>>stared at it for a while trying to figure out if this could be the
>>key to networking the CoCo to the PC using some sort of homemade
>>protocol or something.  Maybe more projects are possible if the
>>data rate can be 9600 or whatever the CoCo 3 can keep up with.
>
>Roger,
>
>It sounds like you're describing DriveWire.  We've pushed the CoCo 2
>to 38400 bps reliably, and a CoCo 3 to 57600 bps using the
>bitbanger.  Both NitrOS-9 and Disk BASIC environments support the
>protocol for disk access.  The protocol is documented and available
>from www.cloud9tech.com on our support page.
>
>What do you have in mind?

If he's thinking "Nuthin' but 'Net" (i.e. Internet access or somesuch) 
about the only (simple...ish) way that I could think of would be to run the 
serial port into a Linux box and have the Linux box do all the TCP/IP 
management just feeding the raw data back to the CoCo.

They have dedicated ethernet to rs232 devices, but from what I read, you 
have to install a speshul driver on a Winders box which gives you some type 
of "tunneled COM port" -- i.e. it's still just RS232 commo, just done at 
ethernet distances.

Either way, one would still have to write any/all software on the CoCo to 
do what you want, and quite possibly some custom Linux/Winders code to play 
gateway / traffic cop for the CoCo. The thought of connecting with a CoCo 
straight to RTSI and download a program sounds neat, and the project could 
be fun to work on (I just happen to have a PCMCIA (for wireless access, but 
I wonder if it could handle memory) / ethernet / RS232 gateway gizmo to 
play with) but IMHO, it would be a lot of work for not a lot of reward... 
but that's why it's a hobby, right? ;-)

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me
zmerch at 30below.com.         |
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers