[Coco] CC-Five (was Re: Pseudo CoCo4???) (LONG)

[Mark McDougall]

Joel Ewy wrote:

> Another thought is that if a new
> CoCo integrated hardware that was available, but optional, on previous
> CoCos, it could provide a larger (than current) installed user base for
> those hardware features, which provides more motivation for programmers
> to support them, while still retaining compatibility and not leaving
> late adopters completely out in the cold.  

Oh, I think it goes without saying that implementing as many pieces of 
legacy add-on equipment as possible is a smart move, for the reasons you 
point out, and then some. Obviously each would have to be considered on a 
case-by-case basis, but some peripherals are going to be relatively 
straight-forward without using too many FPGA resources. Others may best be 
left as optional inclusions for software or "high-end" FPGA implementations.

I'm not familiar with the technical specs of the Orchestra-90, but I'm 
assuming it has some commonly-available (at the time) FM synthesizer chip in 
it?!? Whether that would be considered as 'adequate' for the Coco 4/5, I 
can't say. But there would also be the option of including, say, the Apple 
IIe "Mocking Board", which uses two sound chips found in plenty of arcade 
games of the era.

Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
|  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"