[Coco] CC-Five (was Re: Pseudo CoCo4???) (LONG)

[Mark McDougall]

Dan Olson wrote:

> The only thing you can do in this case is to make the hardware run the old 
> software well enough to be useful without the use of new MMU or expanded 
> modes.  This is exactly the same as the CoCo3, really.  I own a CoCo2 and 
> of course can't use any CoCo3 software, get enough new hardware out there 
> and the new software will follow.  If you don't want to have hardware with 
> no software support, then the new system would have to be basically the 
> same as current CoCo hardware, just faster clock speeds, VGA or DVI output 
> with the current video modes, etc.

Agreed. IHMO the *only* way a 'Coco4/5' is going to get any "market
acceptance" is if there is a legacy mode which runs all coco1/2/3
software unaltered. This is another reason why attempting to implement a
stock Coco1/2/3 is a good first step in the whole process.

Of course there's no reason why it can't have "transparent" enhancements
such as VGA/DVI output, or user-selectable clock speed for example.

Once we get that in place, we can add features like enhanced graphics
mode support. I suspect the early adopters will be people like James
McKay who are actively developing Coco software (16-colour "Glove"
James?). Next will be people who patch existing coco games to, for
example, change the ghastly 4-colour palettes! From there it'd be nice
to see Nitros-9 drivers being updated as well - 80x25 *text* mode
screens would be nice...

Regards,
Mark