[Coco] CoCo and Rasberry Pi ( and Software Rant )

[Darren A]

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 7:29 PM, Allen Huffman wrote:
>
> Until we replicate the FD1773 drive controller chip, I am afraid there's not much we can do about it.
>
> A few years ago, we were talking (at a Fest?) about making a workalike 1773, that would respond to all the same hardware calls, but transparently be doing I/O to SCSI or IDE (it was awhile ago). With Roy Justus having the solution for modern monitors, the floppy remains the last missing piece. With that, ANY piece of software could be made to run.
>
> I have heard of drive emulators like this for other platforms, but never researched them.


I hope to have such a product available for the CoCo in the near
future.  The first prototype boards are due to arrive next week.  The
WD17x3 emulation is now handled by an AVR microcontroller. A Xilinx
CPLD provides the glue to link the CoCo with the AVR.  It can
currently  access image files on a FAT formatted SD card.

The main problem now is to come up with a good way to select or switch
image files from the CoCo.

Another dilemma is what to do about enclosures.

Darren