[Coco] CoCoNet status

[mike delyea]

I don't have a multipak.  In addition, I want to keep using my
floppies for RSDOS and booting my floppies for NitrosO9.  How can I
use my floppies and use Roger's pak at the same time?  There seems to
be many talented hardware guys in our community, why don't we have a
replacement for the multipak?  I'd like to have a hard drive (for
NitrosO9 AND my floppies AND Roger's pak and a real serial  port and a
parallel port (I've got a mint HP Laserjet 4 I'm dying to get working
with my coco and a serial modem I'd like to hook up and run a REAL
coco BBS).  I am really hankering after Roy's VGA converter too.  I'm
looking at the prices of these things (pak, hd, vga) and I'm looking
at $300+ (and that's not counting the serial/parallel pak (which
doesn't exist either)).  I want to buy things from Cloud Nine and Roy
and Roger but I just don't have the cash right now.  And even if I had
the cash, I wouldn't have a multipak to plug the stuff into.  I don't
even think you can buy a fracking Y cable these days. Hardware people
- build the MP replacement so I can plug the hardware in.

On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Roger Taylor <operator at coco3.com> wrote:
>
> Hey dudes and dudettes, how about a little update on that "thing" called
> CoCoNet and the progress of the MicroSD drive pak, etc.  I have been getting
> e-mails asking about these things but it's hard to get into lengthy
> discussions with each person or I would have no time for anything else.
>  Sometimes a good update will answer a lot of questions at once.
>
> First, I can only produce these things efficiently and deliver pending
> orders on-time, if I get new orders.  I'm sure this is exactly how any
> business works, and I'm being bold to say that I feel like Cloud-9 works
> this way as well.  That's my 2 cents on the Cloud-9 topic.  Nobody's doing
> anybody wrong or looking down on anybody.  People are simply GOING THROUGH
> ROUGH TIMES since a certain date back in 2008.  Anybody else who's
> successful enough at something to admit they're not having problems, is
> Lucky For Now.  They're coming to get ya, that's for sure.  The middle class
> picks up the tab, folks, one way or another.  Enough of that.
>
> I'm asking that every die-hard CoCo user out there who wants the ultimate
> experience to consider three people in your next purchase of a CoCo gadget.
>  All 3 people make items that are designed to KEEP THE COCO ALIVE.
> These people are: Roger Taylor (myself), Mark Marlette, and Roy Justus (VGA
> Adaptor box). If I left anybody out, please step forward and tell us what
> you've been working your ass off for years to develop for the CoCo community
> and you are instantly a hit in my book.
>
> About CoCoNet.  It's not Ghostware.  I've been running it for over a year as
> I write it and CONTINUOUSLY reburn EPROMs in my tests.
>
> CoCoNet is a collection of features added to Disk BASIC 1.1 and is burned to
> an EPROM that can be used in the Deluxe Wireless RS-232 Pak or the upcoming
> 1GB drive pak, or your own floppy controller.
> It's a 16K ROM that works in any CoCo with Extended BASIC, or any CoCo 3 of
> course.   In other words, "CoCoNet works with any CoCo that has Extended
> BASIC".
>
> You can take one of my serial paks (with the TTL header) and plug in either
> an EB301 bluetooth module or MicroSD drive module, plug in the CoCoNet
> EPROM, and you get as many features possible Automatically.
> Btw, my Deluxe Wireless Pak and drive pak both are just the serial pak with
> the right module plugged in and the address configured for either $FF68 or
> $FF6C.
>
> As complicated as all of this may sound, it really is plug and play, plug
> and go, or whatever you want to call an out of the box ready pak.
>
> I've got a few more days, maybe a week, of fine tuning before I release the
> 16K CoCoNet 1.0 ROM image for those who have their own burners and want to
> give it a try.  I will burn EPROMs for a few bucks plus postage, but the
> client ROM is free since people are going to share it anyway.  The CoCoNet
> server applet for Windows will be free as well for the same reason.
>
> Since the client (CoCo) ROM and the PC server software will be free, it's a
> free "product".  You can boot to the ROM and with the right cartridges
> plugged into your MPI you can customize your own setup.
>
> What I make and sell to help clear off your desk of bulky power hungry
> gadgets is the Deluxe Wireless RS-232 Pak (bluetooth to PC) which pretty
> much clones the Tandy RS-232 Pak but over the air and has an EPROM socket
> which I will put the CoCoNet in to give the CoCo an instant wireless virtual
> drive system.
>
> I'm also wrapping up on a "drive pak" which will have a built in 1GB MicroSD
> drive, also uses the CoCoNet ROM, and gives AT LEAST 256 virtual floppies,
> huge hard drives, and any other kinds of partitions you want to add.  Disk
> BASIC will use up to 256 720K disks in one partition at a time, OS-9 can
> have mass drives of any size and also use the floppies... a NitrOS-9 boot
> disk is already on my own pak and fires up with all the drivers and module
> directories so you can build other disks or mass drives that boot using the
> pak, etc.  You know the drill.
>
> I think this answers the question of "how can I get disks onto my drive
> pak?", although the distro pak will be prestocked with lots of goodies.
> With CoCoNet, you can mix and match 4 or 5 different TYPES of floppy disks
> on DRIVES 0-3, and copy between them if you like.
>
> 115200 bps bitbanger virtual floppy disks (remote PC pathname or web URL)
>        DRIVE 0,!"http://www.coco3.com/nitros9boot.dsk"
>        DRIVE 1,!"http://www.coco3.com/games.dsk"
>        DRIVE 2,!"c:\program filers\rainbow ide\projects\disks\mynewgame.dsk"
> 115200 bps RS-232 Pak virtual floppy disks (remote PC pathname or web URL)
>        DRIVE 0,"http://www.coco3.com/nitros9boot.dsk"
>        DRIVE 1,"http://www.coco3.com/games.dsk"
>        DRIVE 2,"c:\program filers\rainbow ide\projects\disks\mynewgame.dsk"
> MicroSD virtual disks (using a "drive pak")
>        DRIVE 0;100  mounts disk #100 on drive 0
> MicroSD LSN-based disks
>        DRIVE 0;0,11,65   mounts a floppy starting at any LSN you want
> Real 1793 controller floppy disks
>        DRIVE 0,ON      turns ON REAL DRIVE #0
>        DRIVE 0,OFF     returns to virtual drive prior
>
> With a totally bare CoCo 1, 2, or 3 you can plug in the pak, turn the CoCo
> on, type DOS and within 5 seconds you're sitting at a NitrOS-9 prompt.  You
> don't HAVE to do that.  You can make it where drive 0 has a game disk
> mounted automatically on power-up, or the system disk, etc.
>
> Right now only the NitrOS-9 L2 6809 version is on the pak.  In a few days
> I'll have an L1 version and depending on what CoCo you have the pak in, the
> compatible boot disk will be used automatically when the DOS command is
> used.  I haven't included the details of some of my schemes because it'll
> get me off on a serious tangent, but I'm making the pak as plug-and-play as
> possible so it can be used to "save a CoCo", so to speak, bring 'er back
> from the dead with thousands of games and apps without needing anything else
> but the little pak.  Btw, it's the size of a game pak.
>
> Back to work!
>
> Roger Taylor
>
> --
> ~ Roger Taylor
>
>
>
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>