[Coco] How much of a CoCo makes it a CoCo?

[gene heskett]

On Wednesday, July 06, 2011 07:10:27 PM Boisy G. Pitre did opine:

> How much of a CoCo can you rip out and it still be a CoCo?
> 
> Let's take the CoCo 3, for example.
> 
> If I take out the 6809 and put a 6309, I think we can all agree that
> it's still a CoCo 3, right?
> 
Right.

> What if I were to put an FPGA in the 40 pin socket (assuming a kit
> existed).  Still a CoCo 3?

If the FPGA is 100% compatible with 6x09 software, and clocked at a similar 
speed, yes.
 
> Or replaced the GIME with something similar?

If the gime emulation is exact except cleaner video, yes.
 
> Or replaced the entire motherboard with a similar sized board that had
> all the connectors, minus perhaps an analog RGB connector at the bottom
> but instead a VGA connector?  Would that still be a CoCo 3?

Because then it can have more stuff, serial ports, even usb that is used as 
serial, and particularly the vga video, at that point we have a coco4.
 
> What is defined to be the "soul" of a CoCo 3?

The capabilities is has now with some of the expansion kits that were 
available in the later 80's & early 90's, like big hard drives (I had a 30 
megger on my coco2 before the 3 came out),  and 2 megs of dram.  The 
legendarily unstable mice for the stuff that knew about a mouse, those are 
the things that sort of are the coco's trademark.  The feel of the machine 
I guess.

This then defines the coco4, and I'll buy one.

> Best Regards,
> Boisy G. Pitre
> http://www.tee-boy.com/
> 
> 
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Cheers, gene
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