[Coco] [Color Computer] FYI: USB Modules & Add-Ons

[jdaggett at gate.net]

On 5 Sep 2006 at 20:55, Mike Pepe wrote:

> John R. Hogerhuis wrote:
> > On Mon, 2006-09-04 at 14:38 -0400, jdaggett at gate.net wrote:
> > 
> >> There are other chips that have microcontrollers with embedded USB. Freescale, 
> >> Microchip and Cypress to name some. 
> > 
> > Part numbers (for usb host controllers that can be (easily) interfaced
> > to coco's bus) please? :-)
> > 
> > It would be interesting to compare to the Cypress part
> > 
> > -- John.
> > 
> > 
> 
> I'd think a typical USB driver would consume more memory than a CoCo 
> has. What would you attach to a CoCo via USB?
> 

Not so. Chips like the Cypress SL811HS provide the hardware and funtionality of USB. A 
driver for the Coco would essentially read and write to the chip one byte at a time. Code for 
a keyboard/mouse/joystick via USB could be done in less than 8K of code space. 

> I think the point of this discussion would be to build peripherals that 
> can be programmed via your PC via USB and be used on the CoCo.
> 
> For instance: How about a device that plugs into the cart port, that 
> looks (to the CoCo) like a floppy/hard drive controller, and (to the PC) 
> is a bunch of flash memory? You could dump your .dsk and rompack files 
> back and forth and never have to worry about a floppy drive again, but 
> retain 100% compatibility.
> 
****************

USB Flash storage devices are now uptpo around 8GB in size. 256MB flash drives are now 
available below $20. These use FAT32 and a driver to read and write to these is doable for 
the Coco. This would facillitate transfers of files between the PC and the Coco. 

james