[Coco] CoCo 3 68000/RAM board project

[Stephen Adolph]

Power up of the machine may be delayed while the FPGA downloads it's
brain.  Any idea what to expect?

..Steve

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 5:58 PM,  <jdaggett at gate.net> wrote:
> Frank
>
> My thoughts to were along that line. Most of the enhancements would be
> best used by OS9. I still have the ability to run DECB in a window and
> using a modern monitor. There are a couple of ways to do this. WIth an SPI
> interface storing and retrieving programs and OS' are rather easy. The
> XC2S250E has 12 2Kbyte block rams that can be configured as ROMs. It
> would be no real problem to write a small bios that can be used to boot
> DECB or NitrOS9/OS9.
>
> james
>
> On 8 May 2009 at 17:35, Frank Swygert wrote:
>
>> This makes the most sense James! While any software written for the
>> enhanced machine will only run on it, running older software shouldn't
>> be a problem. The dual processor machine would at a minimum need an
>> enhanced version of Nitros-9 (or OS-9) just to be able to run at all
>> -- zero backwards compatibility, even of the operating system. Even
>> the DECB fans like myself realize that it's not conducive to easy
>> backwards compatible enhancements, but Nitros is. And I realized a
>> long time ago that OS-9 is where all the real activity is, especially
>> for new stuff. Not much for DECB. If you just want DECB it's easy
>> enough to keep an old CoCo running or use an emulator.
>>
>> -------
>> Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 13:24:25 -0400
>> From: jdaggett at gate.net
>>
>> All are good ideas.
>>
>> Considering that the GIME has limited video capabilities, enhancing
>> the graphics ability of the GIME chip you eliminate the second 6809 to
>> do graphics This can be done by building into the new GIME a graphics
>> processor that takes commands and draws the polygon and line shapes
>> within the configurable graphics window.
>>
>> I lean to more enhancing the graphics capability of the GIME chip over
>> a dual processor 6809. Unless you have OS9 modified to handle dual
>> processors, a coprocessor makes better since with enhanced graphics.
>> Also consider this, a FPGA based system can be made to run
>> considerably faster than the current Coco3. About ten times faster.
>>
>> --
>> Frank Swygert
>> Publisher, "American Motors Cars"
>> Magazine (AMC)
>> For all AMC enthusiasts
>> http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html
>> (free download available!)
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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