[Coco] new products - pre-announcement
Ryan Pritchard
coconut at pritchard.ca
Tue Dec 16 15:10:02 EST 2008
Ummm, seems like retroengineering.com has vapourized, or been
hijacked. Anyone know what is happening with Chuck's site, and
projects?
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
On 30-Aug-08, at 9:56 PM, Chuck Youse wrote:
> Well folks, I've been busy doing rather than talking. Next week
> I'll be
> putting up a web site at http://www.retroengineering.com where I will
> display my newest creations, complete with schematics, layouts, theory
> of operation, data sheets for ICs used, software drivers, etc. They
> will be offered for sale (with warranties and support) for those who
> wish to buy them, but everyone will be welcome to build their own from
> the information on the site -- I will even give assistance as my
> schedule allows -- provided that you do not engage in profit-making
> from
> it. My intent is really to have some fun, provide a means for those
> without the requisite time, skills or equipment to get their hands on
> some of these things easily, and maybe make a few bucks to offset the
> investment of time and development costs.
>
> Four main I/O boards for the Coco are already on their way to the fab
> house and will be back by the end of September:
>
> 1. The COCO HDISK - nothing exciting, a simple hard disk
> controller. I
> will sell these as bundled systems for NitrOS-9 complete with hard
> drive
> in an external case, pre-installed with NitrOS-9. ROM on board boots
> NitrOS-9 from hard disk (no floppy required -- you can even leave the
> floppy drivers out of your cobbled NitrOS-9 build). Expected
> availability: Oct 1 2008.
>
> 2. The COCO FDC - this is my (revised) high-density no-halt floppy
> controller, for use with NitrOS-9. Boots NitrOS-9 from 3.5"
> high-density 1.44M floppy -- not for use with RS-DOS. Comes as a
> package with controller and 3.5" drive in external case. Expected
> availability: Oct 15 2008. (Note: I don't expect much interest in
> this,
> so the production run is small. I.e., a limited quantity will be
> available.)
>
> 3. The COCO SSP - this is a board with a 16C552 on it, essentially,
> two
> buffered (FIFO) UARTs and a PC-style parallel port for driving a
> printer
> or external EEPROM programmer, etc. With NitrOS-9 drivers and example
> machine code for use with RS-DOS. Expected availability: Oct 15 2008.
> (I will be employing this card to put up a two-user BBS on my "main"
> Coco. Internet-accessible through Cisco async magic.)
>
> and last, but not least,
>
> 4. The COCO NET - 10baseT ethernet for your CoCo. Yes, it's finally
> here. With sample software for NitrOS-9 and Microsoft BASIC, in the
> form of a simple web server and a TFTP client for transferring files
> over IP. If time allows I may write a full-blown stack for
> NitrOS-9; no
> promises. Expected availability: sometime in November. (This was the
> most time-consuming, not because the design was terribly difficult --
> though it did have some gotchas -- but mostly because it had to be
> hand-routed to deal with trace matching and differential impedance
> considerations. It may not work out on the first spin, hence the
> vague
> date.)
>
> Stay tuned for more details -- I'll let you know when more information
> is available on retroengineering.com. (I'm just waiting for the
> significant-other to work her CSS magic. I don't do web. At least,
> not
> prettily.) Until then, feel free to drop me a line if something
> piques
> your interest, or if you have any comments.
>
> Go go gadget Coco,
> C.
>
> PS By the way, all of these, except for the high-density floppy
> controller, will work on Coco 1/2 as well. (The floppy controller
> will
> work, but only in double-density mode.) Most of these cards are
> infinitely more useful with a multi-pak, of course! And I have a few
> more things in the pipeline, but this is the initial line-up.
>
>
>
>
> --
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> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
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