[Coco] USB cable powered CoCo 3 ???

[Roger Taylor]

What'ya make of this one...

I built the first CoCoNet USB Serial Pak a few days ago which is the 
Drive Pak board with a USB board attached in the same place.  Run a 
cable to your PC, fire the server up, and you've got 115200 bps or 
230400 bps virtual drives and NitrOS-9, etc. the same as you'd get 
over a bitbanger cable or an RS-232 Pak or bluetooth pak.

At first I connected the USB board's 5v to my serial board's 5v pin, 
and lo and behold when I plugged the USB cable into the PC... the 
CoCo came on.  The monitor lit up and there she was, flashing cursor 
and everything.
I remember having two thoughts:  Oh Crap, and Hey, this might be 
useful!  The video was a little dimmer on Roy's adaptor and my LCD 
monitor, but everything seemed to function.  Turning the CoCo on 
brightened up the video.  Turning the power off dimmed the video back 
a little, and of course unplugging the USB cable turned the CoCo off.

So.... my question is: what did I stumble across here and has anyone 
had any experience with powering the CoCo through the expansion slot, 
and if so, what are the power requirements and how stable is it?

I've got a 512k upgrade in the 3 so I assume the power is enough to 
feed all these chips.
-- 
~ Roger Taylor