[Coco] My System's

[James Jones]

Pie in the sky, eh?

First, a little explanation. Back in the day, *the* 6809 system to have was
one of the high-end GIMIX SS-50C systems. Radio Shack cut every possible
corner in the design of the CoCo, forcing every possible operation into
software to cut costs, and we're all familiar with the results. GIMIX,
OTOH, did the opposite. I'm trying to remember who it was who taught
students BASIC09 with several, maybe half a dozen, of them on terminals
connected to a single GIMIX computer. No bit-banging or busy waits for
them; the I/O cards offloaded as much as possible from the CPU.

I have to admit that here in the US, were it not for that kind of
corner-cutting, there might not have been a 6809-based computer I could
afford. Those spiffy GIMIX boxes cost serious money. I didn't know that
FM-77AVs existed until way too late to try to order one from Japan.

Now, OTOH, you can throw far more and faster hardware at the problem than
GIMIX could for far less money, even ignoring how much less 2017 dollars
are worth than early to mid-1980s dollars.They're SBCs and combo SBC/FPGA
boards such as the DE-0 that the "CoCo on a Chip" runs on (and the DE-10
version that I hope will exist someday). The other part of the solution is
DriveWire, which offloads a lot of work to a server which can be a desktop
computer but which can also be an SBC far smaller than the original CoCo.
DriveWire now has NineServer, which lets one have what appear to the CoCo
to be OS-9 window devices--but they are displayed on the DriveWire server
computer. That gets rid of the whole issue of composite, VGA, HDMI etc. The
SBC hardware is used by the general public--some of them already support
"4K" TVs/monitors. If HDMI fades out and everyone starts using Display
Port, they'll start supporting it. The CoCo talent we have can concentrate
on CoCo things.

(To be honest, I'd like to see a move to a windowing system that lets the
6809 side *use* high spatial and color resolution without having to itself
deal with it--like NAPLPS or Display PostScript or MGR or vector graphics.
Keep the existing stuff around, but make the new available for new programs
and to eventually migrate the old to.)

Let all I/O save for pipes or RAM disks or loopback IP go through DriveWire.

What I want is CoCo V'Ger.

James



On Sat, Dec 2, 2017 at 6:03 PM, Steve Pedersen <666jacktheknife666 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> My CoCo systems to date.
>
> #1 a coco 1 mod ecb and 64k.
> (Gifted to me Thank you, Such a nice thing to do for a stranger)
>
> #2 CoCo 2 64k melted keyboard , MPI (White fat one that I can just drop the
> pal chips into), It included The big grey paint pad or drawing tablet, also
> got some cassett tapes and what looks like a micro com modem. Really damed
> expencive but this was the only way I could find to get an mpi. shipped to
> me for 260.00
>
> #3 CoCo 3 128k Haven't recieved this yet but Is on it's way 190.00 shipped
> to me. Pretty stoked about this I made a 150.00 offer and he took it.
>
> Exp cards
> 2 sdc, coco flash/orch 90 , ps2 keyboard adapter, Psg chiptunes card,
> glenside IDE (haven't received this yet) 2 cf/ide adapters(not yet received
> but shipped)
> Need to buy a set of pal chips for my mpi Does anyone make a board that
> will switch in and out the old and the new pal chips on the mpi I am bumed
> that my mpi will have to be perm modified to work on the CC3..
>
> Want to buy
> VGA solution for the CC1 and my CC3, The Gimi X, board and the CoCo mem and
> coco mem Jr when they become available.
>
> Things I still need to do, sort out my power supply issues and find a
> monitor that I like.
>
> On the face of it this was a foolish thing I have done, I could have for
> the same amount of money purchased something like 6 rasberry pi 3 computers
> or  complete setups of the FPGA coco projects. So why didn't I a few
> reasons
> I have come to loath modern computing with so much malware, tracking of
> every mouse click and the toxic constant advertising ect , I want a
> computer that is truely "Mine".
> The nostalgia factor, when I was an active coco user I was young and the
> world had not beat the snot out of me yet I want to relive / retrieve
> something of that time of my life.
> relearning my coco skills will be so much fun.
> Real hardware will allow me to build and tinker with interfacing to the
> outside world.
> All of the fpga coco projects have no external buss for doing such things.
>
> An open Plea to to fabulous Retro hardware manufactures, products to
> consider producing.
>
> Revised ps2 keyboard adapter to include. bluetooth  keyboards.
> a replacement keyboard that I could populate with standard key switches and
> caps heck this could be a combination product using something like a tincy
> micro controller to not only handle keyboard matrix translation but also
> bluetooth and ps2 input.
> A true high speed serial board with hardware flow control Bonus for
> awesomeness would include a header for the esp8266.
> An eithernet 10 base T , wifi and bluetooth networking card.
> (Honestly I don't know if there is a wifi mode slow enough to allow a coco
> to keep up)
> (There is a full TCPIP stack that only take's up about 4k of ram I think
> this has already been somewhat ported to fuzix. If this stack could be
> ported to OS9 It would rock the OS9 world )
> A beast of an mpi replacement 8-16 slots (I believe 16 is the max the logic
> would allow)
> A scsi interface card  I know these have been produced before so they could
> be produced again OS9 file system paradise.
>
> Speaking for my self all of the above would be total got to have products
> for me.
>
> Folks I you have made it through all my verbal diarrhea of this post I have
> a couple of question for you, What pie in the sky hardware products would
> you like to see produced ? Would any of what I have described be of
> interest to you?
>
> With all sincerity I wish all you on the list the very best to you and
> yours.
> Steve.
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>