[Coco] CoCo "user" port?

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that Leon Howell may have mentioned these words:
>Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:
>
>
>The Commodore 64 has exactly the same kind of serial/parallel port, 
>...  It is called the "user" port. I don't know why.

Because the user could plug stuff into the port.... that'd be my guess.
;-)

>By the way (LOL) the C=64/128 has *hardware* serial capability on the same
>port, (remember the "forgotten chip" project?) but no Commodore program ever
>used it! DUH!?

There was an article in (IIRC) HotCoCo shortly after the CoCo3 came out 
that detailed a project to add a hardware UART on the same port as the 
existing bitbanged serial - that would (for the most part) be compatible 
with existing software.

'Course, with the current DriveWire routines, Roger's current successes & 
others with 115K bitbanging possibilities, stuffing in hardware that (at 
the time) could do 19.2/38.4K seems a bit superfluous now... ;-)

With the 16x50 series of chips up to... what... 16950? and can do nearly a 
megabit... could a CoCo even keep up with that without DMA?

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | "Bugs of a feather flock together."
sysadmin, Iceberg Computers |           Russell Nelson
zmerch at 30below.com          |