[Coco] Re: CoCo video? (CoCo4)

[jdaggett at gate.net]

Roy

All that you and Frank have mentioned is fantastic. None fit the 
needs that I require. So that is why I have taken the avenue that I 
have. It has been slow but it has been a great learning experience. 

james


On 4 Mar 2006 at 11:11, RJRTTY at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 3/4/06 9:53:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, farna at att.net  
> writes:
> 
> >Making an FPGA enhanced CoCo does sound feasible, but I have to  ask why? 
> That's a lot 
> >of work for a product that will end up costing more than most would  want to 
> pay. I 
> >understand the desire for a high performance CoCo, but with the cost of  PC 
> hardware and 
> >fast emulators, the "CoCo4" is already there. A decent Pentium 3  processor 
> will run an 
> >emulator much faster than a CoCo
>  
> David Kiel's emulator can break even with the coco3 on a 16 mhz 386  machine.
> It is written in X86 assembler so it is the fastest emulator by far.   It can 
> also
> access real coco double density disk drives directly from the  emulator.
> It can also access high density drives directly from the emulator.
>  
>  
> >So why not tweak an emulator to extend
> > the CoCo capabilities?  That should be
> >doable while still maintaining  compatibility.
> > It would be easy enough in NitrOS-9. 
> >DECB could  always have the option of
> > running a standard emulator. Make the  thing
> >self booting with one of the free DOS systems,
> > and  run from something like a VIA 
> >mini computer board, package in a small  case
> > with either a small laptop HD or a 
> >flash card to boot from,  and there you have it! 
> 
> Now this is the best idea I have heard so far for
> a coco4 project.
>  
> 
> >I'd like to see DECB patched to something 
> >like the old 512K  BASIC capabilities, and 
> >most of the ADOS enhancements added.
> > A  configuration utility similar to a BIOS 
> >editing screen on the PC so that  configuration
> > of drives (at least) could be changed 
> >easily, and  as often as desired, would be nice.
> > Support for larger disk drives would  
> >be a necessity also (and that might be a problem
> > -- but maybe  not if an enhanced 
> >and standard emulator were with each machine...)  
> >Once all that was worked out and 
> >running nicely, it could then  be programmed into
> > an FPGA and a new board made if 
> >that's a real  desire. At least a standard for the 
> >extended capabilities would be  worked 
> >out. 
> 
> Do it first in the emulator THEN you have a guide to build
> the real thing.  The first step anybody should take in
> building a coco4 is to emulate it first on a PC.
>  
> 
> >The only thing missing is an easy way
> > to interface to the  outside world. There's your
> >hardware project: an external interface  board
> > that plugs into a PCI slot. I always liked 
> >being able to  easily use the CoCo joystick
> > ports (and even the cassette port) for  
> >easy I/O. Maybe even emulate the CoCo cartridge port on the same card!  Some 
> >easy to program data I/O ports and a half dozen relays on a card  would be 
> realy 
> >nice. The CoCo's strong point has always been  experimentation and easy 
> >programming -- an I/O card and the standard  DECB with extended memory 
> >capabilities (long BASIC programs -- and might  want to extend variables to 
> more 
> >than two character names) would really  open things up. 
> 
> 
> >--
> >Frank Swygert
>  
> YES !!!!    Implement all the ports on the coco3 on a ISA or  PCI card.   
> THis is
> good.  And you could use the real parallel and serial  ports of the PC as 
> coco4 
> enchancements beside the standard ones.   How about adding  connectors to
> the cartridge port so more that one real coco cartridges could be plugged  
> in? 
> I think I am going to look into doing this as my next hardware  project.
>  
>  
> Roy
>  
> 
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