[Coco] Christmas Wish Device

[Robert Hermanek]

If I new anything about electronics I would build this myself.  Since I'm just a bonehead software developer, I'll post my idea.  There's a lot of talk about super IDE, coco net, blue tooth, this is all cool stuff.  I'd love something simpler, just a RAM cartridge.

I'd like a cart that I can plug in, then plug flash memory into the cart, then access the flash memory as RAM via a few I/O registers.  In my mind the simplest thing would be setting an "address" using 4 bytes giving access to a 32 bit space, then when the "address" registers are set, either writing to the flash by setting a "value" register, or else reading the current value at your chosen address by reading the "value" register.

And that's it.  I could plug a 1 gig CF or SD card into this thing and have all the "RAM" I could ever want.  I've done similar things like trying to access a drive through my TC^3 as a block of memory, but then you're jumping through disk controller hoops.  It would be much more fun to be able to just set the "address" registers and access the flash card as a continuous block of memory...  and it wouldn't even have to be flash, since that's persistent--maybe some kind of true RAM chips in the cart would be better?

Somehow I doubt I'll find this in my stocking this year...

-Robert