[Coco] MCC-216

[Frank Pittel]

On Wed, Jan 02, 2013 at 08:06:16PM -0600, Allen Huffman wrote:
> On Jan 2, 2013, at 8:04 PM, Frank Pittel <fwp at deepthought.com> wrote:
> >> Other than potential mysteries inside the GIME (if there are any), hardware emulation of a CoCo via FPGA seems like the best best, but if it cannot use true CoCo hardware, it might as well be a small X86 box running MESS.
> > 
> > There was a time I would have agreed with you. Then I got the DE1 board and got the coco3fpga image. For me it feels like a real coco3. I can't
> > explain why exactly but it's an order of magnitude better then an emulator running on a PC.
> 
> Maybe I am not coming across correctly, but it sounds like you and I are on the same page. That DE1 was a CoCo, sans having a real CoCO keyboard, joysticks, etc. which would be trivial so ad, I would think. Some I/O lines, analog input.  I plan to see what all I can simulate using an Arduino from RadioShack, even.

It's more likely that I misread (dyslexia in action) what you wrote. Once upon a time I got
a board that plugs onto the DE1 board from Gary that allows coco joysticks to be connected.
I haven't used my coco3fpga in a while but as memory serves it worked well. Don't know if a
schematic for that board is readily available from Gary though. (hope I didn't speak out of
school)

I have to admit that I don't miss the coco keyboard though. The keyboard mapping for the
coco3fpga was in my never humble opinion very well thought out and unlike most other
emulators for the pc were the locations are different they're in a natural (to me at least)
feeling location.

The Other Frank

PS - Al, he entire Coco community hopes that a way is found for you to be able to attend this
years fest.