[Coco] [Color Computer] c64 taking making a comback!?

Steve Batson steve at batsonphotography.com
Thu Jun 9 14:45:48 EDT 2011


For me, the problem with the emulators is either timing issues, or not 
fully emulating the CoCo and it's hardware and causing something to either 
not run, run too fast, or too slow. I like the look and feel of the real 
thing as much as the next guy, but the bottom line for me would be, if it 
was inside something that looked real, could I really tell if it was 
emulated or real hardware. If I couldn't, then the emulator would be good 
for me. There's no reason with today's computer power that an emulator 
couldn't be written to be 100% compatible with the original, especially 
with stuff the Steve Bjork is talking about such as a CoCo I/O board. I 
mean seriously, what more is needed?

Yes I think it would be Cool to have what looked like a real CoCo, but if 
it's a question of having an awesome CoCo Emulator and I/O Card for the PC 
with the possiblity of future enhancemenst (.ie. CoCo 4, 5, etc.) or not 
having anything because of cost or not being feasible to product due to 
small audience, I'd take the emulator route in a heart beat. And I have no 
desire to buy and underpowered or specialized system up in the $500-$1000 
range to run old CoCo Software...I'd pull the old CoCo out of it's box 
before spending that money and just hope it keeps running as long as I need 
it.

My 2 Cents :)

----------------------------------------

From: "Frank Pittel" <fwp at deepthought.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2011 11:00 AM
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Subject: Re: [Coco] [Color Computer] c64 taking making a comback!? 

Having used many coco emulators over the years I found that I never liked
using any of them. The truth is they always felt like an emulator and not 
like
a real coco. The coco3fpga project feels like a real coco. The recent 
increase in
the number of available colors makes the project the only contender in the 
"race"
for the coco4!! All that's keeping the coco3fpga from being productized is
the lack of someone that wants to do it and demand (percieved and real).

The Other Frank

On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 01:29:30PM -0400, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
> I wouldn't believe the CPU rate that VCC reports in it's user
> interface, if I recall it does let you set it quite high but if you
> run actual tests in the emulation it does not deliver nearly the rate
> shown in the setting. Not sure if you're saying you tested
> performance and it delivered the equivalent of 50Mhz or if you mean it
> let you change a setting to say 50Mhz.
> 
> I speed tested VCC, MESS and FPGA a while back, don't remember the
> exact results, but at least with my computer the emulators weren't
> doing significantly better or worse than the DE1 board's FPGA.
> Considering the relative costs, FPGA seems to offer a lot more bang
> for the buck in something designed to be a dedicated CoCo. Should
> anyone decide to manufacture a coco look alike in the style of the C64
> thing, I'd think FPGA would be a better route to go than using an
> emulator.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Steve Bjork <6809er at srbsoftware.com> 
wrote:
> > Well, the system I tested VCC on was clocking with both very fast CPU 
and
> > Memory. (Used for Video Transcoding.) The extra cores don't help much 
since
> > the program was not design to use more than one core.  (Yes the extra 
cores
> > run windows 7 and background stuff so the core is working 100% on 
VCC.)
> >
> > My problem with the CoCo3FPGA project it has never graduated from FPGA
> > development board stage.  Jeri did take her C-One FPGA development 
board
> > project to the C64 Direct-to-TV that can be used by Non-Techie or 
hacked to
> > get all the goodness of the Commodore 64 out of it.
> >
> > I hope someday the CoCo3FPGA project will move from the development 
stage
> > into the hands of the non-hackers.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > On 6/9/2011 8:55 AM, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
> >>
> >> First, interested to know what emulator/type of PC runs at 50Mhz.  I
> >> can only get about 20ish with MESS or VCC on my intel quad core
> >> something, a couple years old.
> >>
> >> Second, you can't connect coco peripherals or use the serial ports in
> >> an emulator, which is a deal breaker for me.  CoCo3FPGA is quite a
> >> nice system IMHO.  The new video modes and other innovations 
happening
> >> in the CoCo3FPGA world are icing on the cake.
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
> 
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
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