[Coco] Including an SSC (was: CocoSDC)

[tim lindner]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 6:49 AM, S Klammer <sklammer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Although Darren's CocoSDC is great on its own (I do have one)... since so
> many units are being requested, would it be a thought to try and include an
> onboard SSC and/or Orch90?

As someone who has extensively studied the internals of the SSC, I
would say it is not worth it.

http://tlindner.macmess.org/?page_id=96

The SSC is a whole extra computer sitting on the CoCo's bus. The MPU
is custom and not available.

It would be much better (for the software developer) for the PSG to be
directly connected to the CoCo. While this would suck for software
already written for the SSC. It would make new software more
streamlined.

As far as the Orch-90, that hardware is dead simple. Programs that use
the Orch-90 for sound don't usually do much else. The CPU overhead for
the device is huge.

Personally, I would not want the SDC to contain a major change on this run.

A PSG and Orch-90 card would make a great project for the CoCo
development board mentioned elsewhere on the list.

Footnote: PSG: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_Sound_Generator

-- 
tim lindner