[Coco] CoCo "user" port?

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 08 May 2007, Roger Merchberger wrote:
>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.

I have a coco2 in the basement with that kit in it, worked great at 4800 baud 
in os9 level 1 2nd version,  I used it as an edisk adaptor for a 125K$ GVG 
production switcher for about 13 years.  I'd have tried the next faster 
speed, but for some reason the GVG's serial interfaces next faster speed was 
38,400.  So I didn't try to figure that out.  GVG's real edisk FWIW, ran at 
1200 baud, and they wanted 20K$ for it.  Unreal...

>'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?

No.

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