[Coco] The COCO 5, some ideas...

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

So quit whining, build it and put it on the market.
--
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net

I thought about being diplomatic and polite.  Honest, I really did.  But while I was thinking about it, I accidentally bumped the button that puts my mouth on autopilot, because it said, "That's a load of crap, Captain, and you know it".    Jim Butcher, _Small Favor_

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Michael Robinson <deemcr at robinson-west.com>
> http://www.axess.com/twilight/sock/cocofile/coco4.html
> 
> This design could be adapted further with a more modern bus technology
> such as PCI.  I like that this person is contemplating multiple CPU's
> in a next gen COCO.  Why did the Tomcat and MM/1 fail?  Maybe they
> failed because they weren't a) compatible enough with the COCO3 and
> b) advanced enough.
> 
> I propose a coco clone that has 16 bit sound hardware, a built in multi
> pak with three 40 pin connectors and three updated connectors for a new
> cartridge standard.  This clone should come in a tower configuration.
> In addition to the two standard joystick ports I propose having a total
> of four and designing a new joystick port that you can plug the old 
> joysticks into which will take more modern fancier joysticks.  I propose
> designing the processor to run in 6809BE mode where poke
> 65497,[0123456789] could kick the processor into higher speed modes.
> I propose reverse enginering the Microware/Microsoft rom and making 
> the new Rom 30% different from the old one to avoid copyright problems.
> Instead of running 30 pin simms which are disappearing rapidly, I
> propose going to either PC100 DIMMS or something else that is more
> recent.  The faster the ram, the faster the processor can be.
> 
> Advantages of a modern hardware COCO clone:
> 
> No drives needed.  Just like the COCO 3, make this clone 
> work on a standard television without hard drives and 
> disk drives.
> 
> Run COCO3 software, Gauntlet II and games like it might be 
> notable exceptions.
> 
> Use old style joysticks and rom paks where a software emulator
> won't work.
> 
> With modern flash cards holding 16+ megs, build a GUI system 
> in flash memory.  More reliable and faster than a hard disk.
> 
> With modern technology, build an 8 core 16/32/64 bit 6809
> compatible processor that can handle meatier programs.
> 
> 16 bit stereo quality sound, standard.
> 
> More joysticks, better for gaming.