[Coco] MCC-216

[Mark McDougall]

On 4/01/2013 9:59 PM, Frank Swygert wrote:

> It seems that there would
> be a market for a somewhat generic FPGA board for experimenters. It would
> have to be a bit targeted, but one targeted for the computer emulation
> market should be a good start.

This is what the C-One was originally. It bombed. :(

Minimig, Suska & One-Chip MSX projects all have/had dedicated PCB designs 
that may be suitable for 'experimenting' with other designs.

> I suppose a board with just double row
> headers that could have daughter boards plugged in would be the ultimate
> generic board. Then the daughter boards would have the specific connectors
> on them. The daughter boards could be rather simple to make, just connectors
> and a few of discrete parts (depending on how much you put on the FPGA), but
> would be specific to each use.

Tony Burch in Australia used to produce such a range of boards; the FPGA 
board was surrounded by IDC connectors on every side/edge and peripheral 
boards plugged into that. Unfortunately he no longer produces them, though 
in any case they were a bit under-powered for what we're after now.

One major issue with modern FPGAs is the I/O standards are not compatible 
with 5V legacy devices, and so you need to spend a bit of time and money 
designing level-shifting logic for them. When you want a 34/40-pin floppy 
and a 40 pin cartridge connector, it all adds up very quickly!

Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
|  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"