[Coco] Expanding features via FPGA’s & VCC

[James Ross]

> Dave wrote:
> At some point I'd also like to expand grfdrv to support the 640x450 mode
> on CoCo3FPGA. 

I don’t know how feasible it would be, but what might be interesting for expanding graphics (and sound) via the FPGA’s would be if they could be implemented through a type of “Hardware Acceleration” so the drivers would setup and emit small commands to the hardware as opposed to having the 6x09 CPU loaded down doing them. 

These could then be emulated in VCC (Mess/XRoar).

> Bill Pierce wrote:
> We need some good C/C++ programmers (with free time) with DirectX knowledge to 
> help with the project or not much will happen anytime soon.

I hope to in the future, however, I currently don’t have the time to work on it either. After looking it over a couple weeks ago and successfully compiling VCC, I estimate a good 40 to 80 hours coming up to speed on DirectX and getting a good grasp on the VCC code.  That is possibly even a lowish estimate. I hope to have some time available as we get closer to the end of the year. But no guarantee.

> I had over 50 people "hounding" me to get VCC to open source and not one has 
> offered to help work on it. 

Yep, I was one of those wasn't I?   :)

James