[Coco] The Coco3FPGA - Bringing the Color Computer 3 into the new Millenium!

[tim franklinlabs.com]

   No, I have a two factory clean DE-1's and they both work fine. There's
   a new release that had slower RAM but the latest firmware works with
   either. Both  of mine have the faster RAM so I don't have any
   experience with the slower RAM.

     On February 8, 2017 at 6:19 PM Frank Pittel <fpittel at gmail.com>
     wrote:

     Is it true that modifications need to be made to current DE1 boards
     for
     the coco3fpga to work on it?

     On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 5:56 PM, Francis Swygert <farna at att.net>
     wrote:

     Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2017 07:11:15 -0600
     From: Ron Klein <ron at kdomain.org>

     I used to think the same thing (real Coco 3 vs CoCo3FPGA) as far as
     the
     real hardware being a bit less expensive. I can tell you, at least
     for me,
     it's not the case.

     I'm just using some price examples here:

     Coco 3 (128K) $100
     Triad 512K RAM $50
     Ed's 2 slot MPI $80
     Orchestra 90 cartridge $35
     RGB to VGA solution (various available) $100

     If you don't want to add for a CoCoSDC (as comparible to the SD card
     slot
     on the CoCo3FPGA), Drivewire will save you a bunch so I'm not
     including a
     storage device cost.
     If you are a NitrOS9/OS-9 person, the extra RAM on the Analog board
     can't
     easily be matched for a real Coco 3, though I think there's
     discussions
     about Ed or possibly Jayeson offering something in the future.

     When going the CoCo3FPGA route, everything is new. Thanks to
     Cloud-9, Ed
     and others you can get most hardware new when using a real Coco 3
     ((other
     than the Coco 3 itself) so that's a plus. In the end, going either
     route
     is expensive and I don't see any significant savings from one over
     the
     other. There are always exceptions with great deals, but those are
     not
     always easy to come by.

     -----------------------------------------
     Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2017 07:58:06 -0600From: Dave Philipsen
     <dave at davebiz.com >

     Few advantages? Try 25 MHz and a new 640 x 450 256-color graphics
     mode
     for starters (there are more). You won't get either of those with a
     'real' CoCo 3. I suppose it comes down to personal preference and
     whether you just want to stay stuck with the status quo of 1986. At
     least the CoCo3FPGA gives a high degree of backward compatibility
     with a
     real CoCo 3 while giving the opportunity to explore and use some new
     features.

     And, by the way, the DE2 is not a 'currently produced' development
     board. It has been discontinued by Terasic although both the DE1 and
     the DE2 are readily available on the used market. I just sold a DE2
     to
     a gentleman for $120 and I have sold DE1s for $90. Currently, the
     implementation on the DE2 is no different than on the DE1 so there
     would
     be no immediate benefit unless you plan on doing some additional
     development that would make use of a certain feature that the DE2
     has
     but the DE1 does not.

     ===================================================

     Good point Ron. If getting everything from scratch there is actually
     a
     price
     advantage for the FPGA, and you get more for the money, really.

     Dave, I was talking about the advantage of an emulator over the
     FPGA.
     Both emulators and the FPGA unit have speed advantages over a "real"
     CoCo3.
     There are a couple things the FPGA does that aren't in the
     emulators, like
     the extra hi-res mode, at least as far as I know. Hope that gets
     corrected.

     I wasn't aware that the DE-2 had been discontinued. The Terasic
     website
     still
     lists a DE-1 as available for $150 ($127 academic) though. No DE-2
     listed.
     Frank Swygert
     Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service
     803-604-6548

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