[Coco] Christmas Wish Device

Mark Marlette mmarlette at frontiernet.net
Wed Dec 7 17:30:12 EST 2011 

Robert,

The SuperIDE follows the IDE spec. There are registers but basically like Aaron said. LSNs are the method and are blocks of 512 bytes of data. The data transfer rates are that of RAM.

With SuperDriver, you can easily make your own device function as you would like, heck even make a partition and have an OS and data parts. Or even write your own.

John- Yes I have a device already design, prototyped, but free time is sparse and sales are running high right now. Consuming my free time. :( It allows larger FLASH memory chips but currently is 2048K x 8 or 64-32K ROM packs, boot ROMs or whatever can be stored on it. Was fixing a minor problem in the CPLD and made a mistake and broke it. Need to roll back the rev and revisit.

Hopefully soon that will clear up.. Spending enough time on it.

Regards,

Mark
Cloud-9
http://www.cloud9tech.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Hermanek" <rhermanek at centurytel.net>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2011 2:58:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Christmas Wish Device

I guess I like the idea of some kind of memory, could be flash or RAM chips 
in a cart, whatever is easiest since persistence isn't necessary...

And I'd like to be able to use it as directly as any other memory addresses 
in the computer (understanding of course that whatever peek and poke style 
routines I created might have to fiddle with I/O registers a bit.)

Simplest explanation is:  from code I'd like to be able to take a byte value 
like 65 for the letter 'A' and store it at memory location 2000000 if I feel 
like it.  you know...

LDX    #AddrHi
LDY    #addrLo

STX    MemCtrlHiReg
STY    MemCtrlLoReg

LDA    MemValReg            'load value from cart RAM
INCA                'increment that value
STA    MemValReg            'and store it back in cart RAM

...etc.  Don't want to think about disks.  Or blocks, or anything, just want 
lots of memory locations.  And yeah there would be no reason to use flash, 
better would be 4 megs of onboard RAM chips right inside the cart, since a 
32 bit address give you access to what, 3 billion+ memory locations...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Aaron Wolfe" <aawolfe at gmail.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Christmas Wish Device


> Sorry if I'm being dense (its a specialty of mine), but what is the
> purpose of using compact flash etc as a "ramdisk" if you can already
> use it as a regular disk with actual decb and os9 commands?  And what
> is the purpose of having more than 512K of ram, if not to use it as a
> ram disk?
>
> There is some possibility the superIDE could be used in the way
> desired, but I'm not sure.  You could certainly treat is as a linear
> blob of 256 byte sectors without a filesystem.
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Paulo Lindoso <paulo.lindoso at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>> As far as I read the documentation, it acts as a disk device, but the 
>> rest
>> of the community can jump in to help!
>>
>> Your idea is in a way much more interesting, specially if accompanied by
>> some sort of RAMDisk implementation mixed up with RAM extension... One
>> could probably put ALL CoCo stuff in the "RAMDisks" and "transfer" them 
>> to
>> RAM with simple DECB-like or OS-9-like commands... It would be very cool.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Paulo.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Robert Hermanek 
>> <rhermanek at centurytel.net>wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not familiar with the SuperIDE but I know it has a CF slot, right? 
>>> Is
>>> the CF card exposed in some direct fashion via registers/etc like I
>>> described below, or do you have to access it through disk controller
>>> functions as a disk device?
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paulo Lindoso" <
>>> paulo.lindoso at gmail.com>
>>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 11:36 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [Coco] Christmas Wish Device
>>>
>>>
>>> As for my wishlist, I have already ordered from Cloud9 my SuperIDE
>>>> interface which will hopefully fulfill my "quick 'n' dirty" two-way 
>>>> method
>>>> of exchanging files to and from my Mac... :)
>>>>
>>>> Second on the list would come the RAM cartridge Robert suggests...
>>>> Excellent idea! Actually made me want to dig out my electronics skills 
>>>> to
>>>> work out an initial hack... Shouldn't be too difficult... Let me see if
>>>> my
>>>> memory is still worth anything.
>>>>
>>>> Third on the list... I plugged my Coco3 (128K) on the Video/Audio input
>>>> of
>>>> a standard LG LCD-TV. Image is cool, but somewhat blurry, probably due 
>>>> to
>>>> resolution issues... Any ideas on how to improve that?
>>>>
>>>> That's my wishlist... :)
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Paulo.
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 3:19 PM, Robert Hermanek 
>>>> <rhermanek at centurytel.net
>>>> >**wrote:
>>>>
>>>> If I new anything about electronics I would build this myself. Since 
>>>> I'm
>>>>> just a bonehead software developer, I'll post my idea. There's a lot 
>>>>> of
>>>>> talk about super IDE, coco net, blue tooth, this is all cool stuff. 
>>>>> I'd
>>>>> love something simpler, just a RAM cartridge.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd like a cart that I can plug in, then plug flash memory into the 
>>>>> cart,
>>>>> then access the flash memory as RAM via a few I/O registers. In my 
>>>>> mind
>>>>> the simplest thing would be setting an "address" using 4 bytes giving
>>>>> access to a 32 bit space, then when the "address" registers are set,
>>>>> either
>>>>> writing to the flash by setting a "value" register, or else reading 
>>>>> the
>>>>> current value at your chosen address by reading the "value" register.
>>>>>
>>>>> And that's it. I could plug a 1 gig CF or SD card into this thing and
>>>>> have all the "RAM" I could ever want. I've done similar things like
>>>>> trying
>>>>> to access a drive through my TC^3 as a block of memory, but then 
>>>>> you're
>>>>> jumping through disk controller hoops. It would be much more fun to be
>>>>> able to just set the "address" registers and access the flash card as 
>>>>> a
>>>>> continuous block of memory... and it wouldn't even have to be flash,
>>>>> since
>>>>> that's persistent--maybe some kind of true RAM chips in the cart would 
>>>>> be
>>>>> better?
>>>>>
>>>>> Somehow I doubt I'll find this in my stocking this year...
>>>>>
>>>>> -Robert
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Coco mailing list
>>>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>>>>> http://five.pairlist.net/**mailman/listinfo/coco<http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ------------------------------**------------------------------**-
>>>> Paulo Lindoso
>>>> paulo.lindoso at gmail.com
>>>> http://about.me/pbal<http://**email.about.me/wf/click?c=**
>>>> e86tqVWFYsEogZdu8cwmbpAZwRtFkP**jZS8Z3nwSDfjU%3D&rp=**
>>>> TDQggGXPgxMn1%2FQoMR%**2F7Bsr00fO9wne%**2B4zDSBQ93vWI1BH%**
>>>> 2FOlrnU7zrQ0H0iAWgQyYyB6YfryJh**LcifwbBLZ98yd6yex7cp06Yzq3Q1Sp**
>>>> lHrq%2FIu7OFPSwv8LqPdUbWL&u=**njPbVRRXSvmg3PMz9cXBSg%2Fh0<http://email.about.me/wf/click?c=e86tqVWFYsEogZdu8cwmbpAZwRtFkPjZS8Z3nwSDfjU%3D&rp=TDQggGXPgxMn1%2FQoMR%2F7Bsr00fO9wne%2B4zDSBQ93vWI1BH%2FOlrnU7zrQ0H0iAWgQyYyB6YfryJhLcifwbBLZ98yd6yex7cp06Yzq3Q1SplHrq%2FIu7OFPSwv8LqPdUbWL&u=njPbVRRXSvmg3PMz9cXBSg%2Fh0>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Coco mailing list
>>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>>>> http://five.pairlist.net/**mailman/listinfo/coco<http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Coco mailing list
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>>> http://five.pairlist.net/**mailman/listinfo/coco<http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>> Paulo Lindoso
>> paulo.lindoso at gmail.com
>> http://about.me/pbal<http://email.about.me/wf/click?c=e86tqVWFYsEogZdu8cwmbpAZwRtFkPjZS8Z3nwSDfjU%3D&rp=TDQggGXPgxMn1%2FQoMR%2F7Bsr00fO9wne%2B4zDSBQ93vWI1BH%2FOlrnU7zrQ0H0iAWgQyYyB6YfryJhLcifwbBLZ98yd6yex7cp06Yzq3Q1SplHrq%2FIu7OFPSwv8LqPdUbWL&u=njPbVRRXSvmg3PMz9cXBSg%2Fh0>
>>
>> --
>> Coco mailing list
>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
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> 


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