[Coco] CoCoNet evolving

[Roger Taylor]

Does anyone here use the 3-in-1 or similar type board for their Super 
Controller pak, and if so do you use the serial or parallel port 
often?  From what I read, the 3-in-1 has a 6551-based serial circuit 
with some of the handshaking lines tied active.  In this case, a 
simple 3-wire connection can be made to a PC to allow a CoCoNet link. 
I'd have to add detection in the CoCoNet ROM, but I wanted to do a 
quick survey first to see just how many people (on this list) use an 
SC+3-in-1 setup.

Also being added to CoCoNet is one RAM drive, giving yet another 
drive type to the growing mix-and-match scheme.  A smaller RAM drive 
will be available on a 64k CoCo 1 or 2 which will access the upper 
32k that's hidden under the ROM area.  A CoCo 3 shall have a 35-track 
drive and will require 512k.  The CoCoNet ROM knows what kind of CoCo 
its running on, so this RAM drive will just work without configuration.

Some might have noticed that my mini-paks have been sort of renamed 
to all contain "Drive Pak" in the name.  Because CoCoNet adds 
multiple subdrives to Disk BASIC and my paks can be used to link to a 
PC running the CoCoNet server, it makes sense to define the type of 
drive connection that will be added for each pak used.

Some of these paks are not available for sale at this time, but are 
being tested by a few customers and myself.

The USB Drive Pak forms a USB link to your PC and maps to the same 
address as an RS-232 Pak or my wireless pak.
The Wireless Drive Pak forms a bluetooth link to your PC and maps to 
the same address as an RS-232 Pak, etc.
CoCoNet also can use a Tandy RS-232 Pak.  This and any other 
$FF68-mapped 6551 pak are all compatible with CoCoNet, but only one 
$FF68 pak can be used at a time.
Any pak can be used to add bitbanger cable drives.  Only one pak 
needs a CoCoNet ROM, but if you use an MPI all paks can have a ROM.

The CoCoNet remote drive protocol will probably be changed to that of 
4D Systems uDrive module so that all "Drive Paks" whether it be a 
MicroSD, Wireless, USB, RS-232 Pak, bitbanger cable, can all use the 
same partitioning system as the MicroSD Drive Pak which is very 
nice.  This means that the MicroSD pak's card image can be used on a 
PC and used remotely via cable.

Most of these changes should be added in CoCoNet 2.0 within a few months.
-- 
~ Roger Taylor