[Coco] Full GUI DriveWire 4 beta

[Aaron Wolfe]

>
> Aaron,
>
> Thanks again for all your work with drivewire. It may just be me but since you
> started working on drivewire 4 there seems to have been a significant increase in
> work on new coco software. It looks like you inspired a lot of people to start coding
> again. I'm looking forward to trying drivewire 4 but with time constraints being what
> they are I don't see having any time until the end of January. I have a "print show"
> for the MidWest Large Format Asylum that I have to plan as well as prepare prints
> for. We are the largest and most active Large Format photography group in the country
> and get together once a year to show our work.
>
> If there's any interest I can bring some of my work to the next cocofest.
>
> I'm looking forward to drivewire 4 and am hoping that it inspires me to spend more
> time with nitros and my coco!!
>
> The Other Frank
>
> BTW - Is there any work going on behind the scenes with Gary to allow the coco3fpga
> boards to use the drivewire client to use drivewire as more then a replacement for
> the four floppies?
>
>

Thanks for the kind words.  If DW4 has inspired anyone to play with
their CoCo, thats great, but I suspect its just a coincidence.

You can use all of the DW4 functionality with CoCo3FPGA, it's not
limited to disk drives (and not limited to only 4 of those :).

There are two different "modes" that the slave processor can operate
in.  The default is to provide what appears to the CoCo to be a
standard floppy controller and do translation into DriveWire
operations behind the scenes.  In this mode, you get a very nice
floppy drive system but nothing more.  This mode is great for DECB
because it is much more compatible than using a DW3 rom since there is
"real" FDC hardware for programs to talk to.

In the other mode, the slave passes data through from the CoCo
directly to the DriveWire server, giving you full access to all the
DW4 features (and at a peppy 460kbps).  There is a special module
included on the "becker" disks from NitrOS9.org that enables this
functionality.  This mode is perfect for NitrOS9 where programs don't
talk directly to hardware anyway.

An interesting (to me at least) bit of trivia:  Gary named the second
mode the "Boisy interface" (Boisy helped design it and did the OS9
side work), and Boisy named the disks that use it the "Becker disks".

-Aaron