[Coco] cordinated coco conference

[Francis Swygert]

Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2015 01:45:53 -0400
From: "Kip Koon" <computerdoc at sc.rr.com>

In view of that possibly happening, I was thinking of
 showing my Multicomp FPGA SBCs instead.  I have 6809, 6502 and Z80 
Based Multicomps.  The 6809 and 6502 run a Basic Interpreter and the Z80
 runs either a Basic Interpreter from rom, or CP/M 2.2, CP/M 3.0 or MP/M
 II v2.1 from an SD Card.  It is really quite impressive.  All cpus run 
at 25MHZ.  The 6809 and 6502 use 56KB of the 512KB SRAM chip and the Z80
 can use more of the 512KB SRAM chip depending on which OS is used. 

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I have looked at the Multicomp FPGA board with interest. Very minimal and simple. Looks like with a good bit of added circuitry it could be used to emulate a CoCo2 at 5-10 MHz easily (MHz -- up to 25 -- is set when the FPGA is programmed for those who haven't looked at it -- http://searle.hostei.com/grant/Multicomp/index.html). No point in going the full 25 MHz, at least not at first. I'm not a hardware guy... how hard would it be to build an "expansion board" for the Multicomp to emulate the CoCo graphics, sound... and use the built-in PS/2 keyboard and VGA video? If it lost the semi-graphics modes but would display ML graphics and text I'd say that was an acceptable compromise to the design -- only some of the older games and such use the semi-graphics modes anyway. 


I'm suggesting you consider expanding the Multicomp core into a 80% or so CoCo2 compatible first, then think about how hard it would be to emulate a CoCo3. That needs more work because of the GIME, but might be doable... maybe with a second FPGA or a pair of Multicomp boards. Two Multicomps would probably be a bit of overkill, but since hte boards are only $35 or so each who cares if some capacity is unused on one? 

 
Frank Swygert 
Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service 
803-604-6548