[Coco] Cloud-9 Product Comments Wanted

[Mark Marlette]

At 08:35 PM 1/25/2005, you wrote:

Al,

I see your point but limiting the IDE to just CFs is not a true 
implementation of the IDE spec. You would loose backup devices, LS-120 
drive which would be a nice floppy substitute but needs to have more work 
done on the app side. Driver works fine. Cheap LS-120 allows high density 
floppy use, no floppy controller required.

If the board was made smaller you would loose the Super Expansion bus. So 
expansion boards for the SB would not have the ability to be in the Super 
product line. Though none are designed yet this was a feature for expansion 
to the unknown at design time.

The SuperIDE is also pushed the autorouter to the max on the double layer 
design. A lesson learned not to push it that hard and to go to multi-layer 
design. The SB will be multi-layer, no doubt.

Board spins are $$$$$ I figure on a single run costing roughly a min. of 
$500. I have had them twice that depending on size, gold edges, etc. I can 
reduce the board but you would see a price increase. I try to balance this 
SuperIDE is higher than I would like but there are special connectors that 
are high density that cost $$$. SB will be at least a $5k cash layout, this 
is a hobby for us. $5k cash out of my fun money fund can hurt........

Good ideas..... keep them coming......

Mark
Cloud-9


>Improvement Idea for SuperIDE:
>
>Physical media like IDE hard drives are almost unnecessary on a CoCo -- 
>the smallest IDE drive you can buy new (ie not one that's 'ancient' and 
>used) is way larger than anything we'd need, and the price of IDE drive, 
>case and power supply is more than a small cheap CF card.
>
>I'd like to see a SuperIDE with two CF cards rather than the HD 
>hookup.  Could the board be spun to do that, and maybe even be smaller?
>
>                 -- Allen
>
>
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