[Coco] Re: OS-9 as Replacement for DECB.

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Thu, 2005-09-01 at 11:28 -0600, Glen VanDenBiggelaar wrote:
> Mayby,
> But the price of compact flash just isn't there yet. I can pick up a brand 
> new 3 1/4 drive for less then $10 Canadian and a box of 100 floppies for the 
> same. Compact flash still is way out of reach of that price range.

Free after rebate is close enough to free... and with 32Meg+ on each
one, how many do you really need? Yes, I like to keep separate CFs for
different projects, but that is self-limiting.

Each of my CF cards I got cost of shipping (< $5) after sending in the
rebate.

>  Also, it 
> doesn't have the same "feel" as using floppies.

Yep. But CF are the physically biggest cards so it's close enough for
me. I don't like the itsy-bitsy SD cards.

>  Maybe in 5 years, compact 
> flash will be at the price point where its viable, but to me, its like using 
> an emulator on the PC.

Nothing like that for me. It's just a storage device, not the computer.
Any more than hooking a laser printer to a coco is like using an
emulator.

>  it just does not have that "feel" of using the real 
> thing. 


> I am not looking forward to the USB. it will just be used for mostly 
> mice and keyboards and reduntant stuff we already have. just go back and 
> look through the threads "It will be easier to port this stuff over" is the 
> main argument.


I was involved in those threads. I guess you might benefit from
rereading them, but allow me to repeat myself:

Keyboard and mouse would probably be the FIRST (ie, not the LAST) things
to be tested, the reason being that a) there's already code for atari to
do this and b) they are projects that could be done in a day or two.

In embedded systems circles we call this "bringing up the board." You do
something simple/easy to verify that things are generally peachy. For
example, if there's a LED on board the first thing I do is to write a
little program that boots the board, and blinks the LED. 

Just because it's the first thing a programmer does, does that mean that
the hypothetical board is just for blinking lights? Nope. It's just a
means to an end, a way to build confidence in the hardware, and that you
know how to build simple software for the board that works.

The real value is to implement usb storage, usb-rs232 drivers, etc. No
one is interested in coco-usb for the purpose of hooking up keyboards
and mice to coco. We can already do that! 

Some applications:

usb storage - flash, hard drives, floppies
usb->rs232 usb->parallel
Game controllers
maybe even usb audio controllers or ethernet (though it is quite likely
coco can't keep up with such high-throughput devices).

I will admit however, that at the pace of the (two, now) coco-usb
projects that it is not clear that there will ever be one released. As I
understand it, hardware-wise at least, this is supposed to be a slam
dunk given the embedded USB chips of interest.


-- John.