[Coco] Re: Color Computer 3 prototype

[jdaggett at gate.net]

Al 

If this board was at Microware for software developmen then it 
should have at least a fully functional GIME chip even if it is in 
discrete form. It may be buggy and not exactly the same circuit that 
would be in a ASIC, it still at least should be fully functional to 
develop software. 

I designed several software test platforms about the size of that 
board to develop software that went into pagers(beepers). Many of 
the boards used two microprocessors. When having to develop 
software for two different processors, you just cannot have actual 
ICs on board. Also there were some support ICs that were in 
develop ment also and I  had to use a combination of existing ICs 
and some off the shelf logic to simulate the functionality of the IC in 
development.

I am somewhat from my experience that this board most likely had 
a functional GIME chip on board. It may be spread out over the real 
estate,  but it would have been functional. Also it would be a way to 
verify operation against when first silicon of the GIME chip came in. 

Believe me IC development in the 80's was a challenge. Seldom if 
ever the first pass of IC's ever worked fully 100% to specs. It took 
between 12 and 18 months to get acceptable working ICs. We have 
come a long ways now. Today an IC can go from concept to 
working product within 6 months. The IC can be simulated on a 
computer for days or weeks before it is commited to silicon. In 
1985, there were no simulations. You hoped your breadboard and 
silicon matched close enough to have a shipable product in less 
than 2 yrs. 

james

On 20 Jan 2005 at 14:27, alsplace at pobox.com wrote:

Date sent:      	Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:27:03 -0800
From:           	<alsplace at pobox.com>
Subject:        	Re: [Coco] Re: Color Computer 3 prototype
To:             	coco at maltedmedia.com
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> Nick -- the CoCo 3 prototypes have been sitting in storage at 
> Microware.  During a recent housecleaning, when everything in the
> 'morgue' (room of all the old hardware and such) had to be cleaned
> out, they were set aside for preservation.  I never knew they existed
> until I spoke with Mark Hawkins a year ago when he was stopped by.  He
> commented on the CoCo "prototypes" he'd seen us mention, and said the
> CoCo prototype was still here -- explaining that it was a big board
> kind of thing and not the early production run CoCos that Brother
> Jeremy ended up with.
> 
> So, these are the two boards Microware did Super Extended Color Basic
> on -- so unless they worked on it w/o any graphics support initially,
> then wrote the rest when production CoCos with GIMEs came out ... I'd
> think these had to be the real deal.  Also, since SUper Extended
> basically ONLY was the CoCo 3 graphics (and memory handling), I can't
> imagine these would have been of any use to Microware for the BASIC
> project without having the GIME.
> 
> Also, another Tandy developer says he had access to one of these for a
> very brief time -- I'll ask and see if he can remember if it had a
> GIME-workalike.
> 
>      -- Allen
> 
> 
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