[Coco] CoCoNet evolving

[gene heskett]

On Friday, April 29, 2011 06:03:27 PM Roger Taylor did opine:

> 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.
 
I have a 4n1, but took it out yonks ago, mainly because the scsi interface 
was a 1 drive only interface, the serial was an xon/xoff only, and the 
parport had no handshaking so the data error rate with modern well (FCC 
specs) filtered input ports rendered that useless about 15 years ago.

I bought a TC^3 and have a pair of 1Gb drives on it now, and the extra 
serial was long since piggy-backed into a deluxe rs-232 pack and has my 
mouse hooked to it.  Printers are now serviced either by some scripts I 
wrote that feed the text back trough cups and thence to a B&W laser 
printer, or by drivewire now that I have it sort of working.

IMO the 4n1 is not a very good piece of hardware, too many shortcuts were 
taken, so it works only in a very narrow, lowest common denominator only 
set of scenarios.

> 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.


-- 
Cheers, Gene
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