[Coco] uCoCoCB. Holy Tomato Paste Batman.

[Stephen H. Fischer]

 > --------------------------
>
> Teasing you all with possible coming attractions is great fun.
>
> How about an object that you plug into a CoCo 3 Cassette connector, type
> "CLOAD..." and you are quickly in a DECB session running on OS-9 but
> appearing to be an unchanged DECB CoCo 3 with no disk drive.

Hi,

Last night after I typed that and went to sleep my mind started working on
that tease some more.

Upon waking it lead me through a series of steps leading me to an idea that
I think is of great importance to the CoCo. YMMV

I had no plans to say anything more about the object and was just going to
say it is a black box. However...
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There were only two requirements that the black box as I think of it needs
to meet.

1.  Upon power on or reset when receiving a motor on command it sends to the
CoCo a file consisting of a program that when loaded will auto start.

2.  The black box will send to the CoCo upon receiving another motor on
command a file very much faster than the normal Cassette audio tone protocol
which the program sent first will receive and save to memory. Black Box mode
change command needed. (Undefined currently as to how commands are sent.)
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This new protocol could just be another "CLOAD..." command which will keep
the black box using the normal Cassette audio tone protocol. But then there
is no need for this as it could just be the first file.

More likely a new protocol will be used that we develop to push bits into
the CoCo much faster as we are no longer limited to audio tone protocols and
tape speed.

There may be several different protocols available, just select the first
program / file that supports it.

That is all that I was going to say about the black box if pressured
originally.
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Now the fun part.

I have and am using Windows based programs and a USB special cable that I
purchased to reprogram my TV remote control. Remote control < $10.00 mail
order but order fast, $50.00 at Fry's the last time I was there 2 weeks ago.
RCU810B  by RCA (Thomson or what ever).

http://mcm.newark.com/NewarkWebCommerce/mcm/en_US/endecaSearch/partDetail.jsp?SKU=58-8890&N=4

That link is old, if you have problems, try http://mcminone.com and search
for RCU810B. Taken from their catalog received the other day.

There are very many more Remote controls that can be reprogrammed. Look for
a set of 6 pins or holes in the battery compartment of any remote. It may be
labeled "JP1".

I am not just talking about setting the remote up similar to what you can do
by just pressing buttons on the remote, I am talking about actually
modifying the operating firmware.

I am not sure where the main starting page is, perhaps "JP1.com" or its
variants "www.JP1.com" perhaps.

This may be a good page to start with, taken from a page viewed Sunday.
http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/faq.php

What the very clever people of JP1 have done is to exploit a feature of many
remotes made by one company, "ALLINONE" which builds most remotes available
today. YMMV

They wanted to be able to customize their remotes after they were made for
new TV's that had not been designed and built at that time. They built in a
jack that allowed them to reprogram the EE Prom inside the remotes.

That is the point that is of interest to us. Writing and reading data to a
EE Prom. We may take use of the programs and hardware that they have
developed in many ways, there are many things that they have created from
pre-built USB cables, just the IC used in it, to the parallel port plus very
few parts simple interface.

This is NOT an USB buss for the CoCo. That would allow the CoCo to access
USB devices.

It is an example of how USB computers can access CoCo devices.

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The Universal CoCo Cassette Bus ("uCoCoCB") may be just a programmable
Integrated Circuit (PIC) and a EE Prom away from its first device. (Plus
connector and a few parts.) Writing to the black box possible but not
required.

We have some dormant code in the ROM for loading from the serial CoCo port.
Perhaps that would be a better option. "uCoCoSB"

I am suggesting that all the nonvolatile memory types are candidates, not
just EE Proms. Think not CF cards, think Compact Flash chips. And so on.

We have been trying to build circuits for the CoCo to use USB devices.

Perhaps we should be trying for circuits for USB Computers to use CoCo
devices.


Stephen H. Fischer