[Coco] CoCoFEST! 2010/FPGA CoCo...

[Brian Blake]

Odd? Probably. I got rid of all of my CoCo stuff I had acquired since 1981,
and promptly forgot about it in 1994 or so. Why bother with it when I have a
souped up 486DX, 20mb hdd, 4mb RAM, and VESA graphics?

Twelve years later, doing a search to show my kids what computer I cut my
teeth on, I caught the bug to go retro. Four years after that I've got a
CoCo3, MPI, and 2 sets of floppy drives taking up residence on my desk with
my quad core Phenom II 940 powered PC. I've also got a re-pack project,
shoving a CoCo3 and associated parts into a Model III case, that is about
60% of where I want it.

Last night I finally got DriveWire3 running (mostly, still problems I'm
trying to work out) and my wife looked at me like I was from another galaxy
when I yelled "Damn cool!!!!".

Emulators are nice for tinkering with. But to get a real experience, you
need the real thing. Or something that approximates it. A board like the one
shown at 'Fest, that at least has some capacity for expansion like the
original CoCo, would be an ideal platform for a future CoCo, or replacement
- eventually, the CoCos are gonna die off, and us die-hard geeks are gonna
need a replacement!!!



Brian




On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 5:54 PM, Frank Swygert <farna at att.net> wrote:

> Am I the only one that find these statements just a bit on the odd side? No
> offense meant to Brian and Frank, they are certainly entitled to their
> opions, and they are definitely valid! Let me explain *my* comment about it
> being a bit odd...
>
> Remember the Puppo keyboard adapter? It was all the rage for those who
> could afford it because it upgraded the CoCo keyboard. Many who couldn't
> ordered or made an extension cable to get teh keyboard in their laps. Same
> with repacks. Got rid of the "unsightly" and "unreliable" MPI -- often by
> hiding it in a big PC case. That also got rid of the "tinkertoy" effect of
> having so many different boxes with teir own power supplies connected.
> Remember the MPI "lock plates" and other things to keep it connected to the
> CoCo?
> An FPGA machine would get rid of all that and make a compact unit, but now
> we have a wave of nostalgia that wants to KEEP all the stuff many of us
> "back in the day" wanted to get rid of!! We've come full circle!! Of course
> a lot of PCs are looking that way -- things like the Mac Mini. Want to add a
> drive? Plug in a USB CD-ROM or hard drive with it's own power supply... much
> like the CoCo used to be! At least the USB port is better than the old
> Commodore 64 serial devices!
>
>
> ---------------
> Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 13:07:45 -0400
> From: Brian Blake <random.rodder at gmail.com>
>
> I agree wholeheartedly; precisely why I have a CoCo3, MPI and FDD set up on
> my desk at home.
>
> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Frank Pittel <fwp at deepthought.com>
> wrote:
>
>  The second conversation topic was that since the
>> board could be made to hold joystick, bitbanger connectors, cartridge
>> connectors, etc and easily fit into a coco case. It would be possible to
>> construct a coco 6+.
>>
>> This would have the advantages of using the coco keyboard, cartridges,
>> etc.
>> In my never humble opinion half of the fun of working with my coco
>> includes using the coco keyboard and having the cartridges in an mpi next to
>> it. As far as I'm concerned take all that away and I'd just as soon use a
>> coco emulator like vcc. The coco look and feel is a major part of using a
>> coco!!
>>
>> Frank
>>
>
> --
> Frank Swygert
> Publisher, "American Motors Cars" Magazine (AMC)
> For all AMC enthusiasts
> http://www.amc-mag.com
> (free download available!)
>
>
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