[Coco] Your stock CoCo is DriveWire-ready out-of-the-box (was: DriveWire for dummies?)

John W. Linville linville at tuxdriver.com
Wed Dec 23 10:09:03 EST 2009


On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 08:42:30AM -0500, Christian Lesage wrote:

> part of the DLOAD code is still there. For instance, the code that  
> receives a 128-byte block from the bit banger port is still in ROM. Now,  
> 128 bytes would be enough for a loader. A few POKEs would be required to  
> patch things up, then an EXEC would be issued to load the loader, and  
> then another EXEC to run the loader. Not as elegant as a simple DLOAD  
> command, but still... No ROM Pak or disk controller needed.
>
> I also know of a method that lets the CoCo 3 read characters from the  
> serial port instead of the keyboard. A short BASIC program (or a handful  
> of POKEs) is entered, that puts the CoCo 3 into that state. Once it is  
> accepting input from the serial port, you can control it from the host  
> PC or Mac. For instance, you could send a loader as if you were typing  
> it in on the CoCo, like a BASIC program that would restore the DLOAD  
> command.
>
> If anybody is interested, I could share the code I came up with so far.

DriveWire or not, both your DLOAD coco3 hack and the "read input
from the serial port" hack sound interesting to me.  Could you post
the details?

Thanks,

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.



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