[Coco] Re: Coco Digest, Vol 11, Issue 91

[farna at att.net]

One of the strong points of the CoCo for experimenters is the small size (sans peripherals) and it's ruggedness. They have been used for controller boards (I know they were used by an excercise equipment company once) because they were inexpensive, rugged, and have adequate easily programmable I/O. 

I'd love to buy a "new" CoCo3 even if it didn't have any expanded features provided it was on a small board, maybe half the size of an original CoCo3. With the GIME and 6809 in programmable logic chips (FPCU? okay, I forgot the accronym!), and maybe a third for all the "glue" logic, it could be done. The only enhancements I'd want should be easy enough -- add a multi I/O controller as used on PCs now. I think they have all the I/O on a chip -- floppy, IDE, keyboard, etc. In reality all that isn't needed if a USB port chip can be used instead, with say four ports (even if it's limited to just those four ports and no hub). 

I don't know what it would take to get the CoCo3 ROM to view a USB drive (or memory device) as the normal disk controller though. Would probably need some kind of I/O processor to handle that. Wouldn't be a problem for something like NitrOS9 (OS-9 in general) though. 90% backwards compatibility would probably be a problem for DECB, but it should be handleable with NitrOS9. Ideally DECB compatibility, with it's easy programming, would be desireable, but I think I'd settle for OS-9 compatibility in such a package. I just like the ease of programming the old line number BASIC under DECB. It was easy to use the joystick d/a converters for input. Using USB only would eliminate that I'm afraid, which would take a lot of flexibility out. The PIA chips would need to be retained for interfacing. 

--
Frank Swygert 
Publisher, "American Independent 
Magazine" (AIM) 
*Elite* publication for those 
interested in all 
aspects of AMC 
history,performance,restoration,etc 
. 
(AMC,Rambler,Nash,Hudson,Jeep,etc.) 
http:farna.home.att.net/AIM.html 
(free download available!) 



-------------- Original message from coco-request at maltedmedia.com: -------------- 

> Message: 1 
> Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 21:50:58 -0700 
> From: "John R. Hogerhuis" 
> Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo Progression... 
> On Thu, 2004-09-23 at 21:36, Steve Batson wrote: 
> 
> > I know there are emulators out there, Jeff Vavasour's is pretty decent along 
> > with some others. I also know people have talked about projects to create a 
> > next generation CoCo (I don't know what happened to that). My question is, 
> > wouldn't it make more sense to design emulators that will be 99.9% 
> > compatible (nothing's perfect) with the real thing and allow plug-in code to 
> > enhance/extend the CoCo features and interface to the PC hardware. As fast 
> > as PC's are today compared to the old CoCo, would it really bother anyone if 
> > they could either put the CoCo Emulator in old compatible mode to control 
> > speed (for games and stuff), or go into turbo mode to run newer stuff or 
> > stuff that runs fine at higher speeds? 
> > 
> 
> To emulate or not to emulate... 
> 
> When it comes to vintage computers it's only fun for me if I'm playing 
> with real metal... 
> 
> I would certainly call a new coco, (portable anyone?) real metal. 
> 
> Emus are cool once in a while, for certain tasks, like playing an old 
> game. But for vintage computing fun it just isn't the same. 
> 
> -- John.