[Coco] Hello Aaron help dragon

[Aaron Wolfe]

Hi,

I would very much like to support the Dragon with DriveWire.  There is
nothing coco specific on the server side of DriveWire, in fact it
supports some of the protocol used by Darren's  MCX128 expander for
the MC-10, and is soon to be used with Gary's Apple II FPGA project.
The DW protocol is fairly generic, and it's trivial to support
alternate protocols as well.  Even the sector size is variable in
recent versions of DW4.  Basically, all you need is the client side
code and you can support most anything that knows what a disk is (and
even some things that don't, like the MC-10).

The client side stuff is where it might get tricky for Dragon support.
 As I understand it, rather than a bitbanger, the Dragon has a 6551
uart.  That's good for most things, but bad for DriveWire.  The 6551
just can't go as fast as Darren's bitbanger code.  I think 57,600
might be possible, not entirely sure.  That isn't horrible but it
would be slower than a real floppy.   The other option would be to use
the parallel port found on the Dragon.  This could be quite fast, and
the DW server could support parallel devices with just a few changes.
 There was a cool project sort of like DriveWire for the dragon that
used the parallel port, called pc-share.  it isn't under development
any more but it might provide everything the dragon users need.

Whichever way the Dragon wants to talk to the DW server, it will need
a modified BASIC rom that implements the serial routines.  This is
where I can't help you, my skills with asm are limited and already
committed to some things on the CoCo side that will take quite a while
to complete.  If you can find a Dragon hacker who wants to do the ROM
code, and/or write a NitrOS9 driver, I will be happy to help them and
make any changes needed in the server (should not be any, but if there
is I will take care of it).

-Aaron



2011/5/15 Luis Fernández <luis46coco at hotmail.com>:
> I have a new friend in Spain and told me a serious problem
> they use dragon and apparently did not have accessories
> none
> no records, no memory
> cassette single
> DW knew no
> and now try to get to work on the dragon
> but will not be tanfacil
> worse that I turn to you
> I said that are many people who are in that situation
> Hello
> I told them that maybe something can be done
>
>
> they were trying to do something for serial
>
> but nothing like yours
>
>
>
> knew no cloud nor your pages
>
>
> i was showing them
>
> they are in Spain and speak Spanish but understand and speak English
>
> although it works for you like dragon dreamcast and coconut has 20 or
> 30 machines
>
> http://www.retrowiki.es one of its pages
>
> http://www.retrowiki.es/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1337
>
> http://www.uroboros.es/dragon/juegos.htm
>
>
> get something like yours
>
> they do not schedule
>
> and have poor dragon and abandoned coconut
>
> http://www.uroboros.es/dragon/juegos.htm
> http://www.youtube.com/rondreamcast
> connect through a serial dreamcast
>
> XRoad spoke and I leave the sources to put them in dream
> dreamcast emulator now has a coconut
>
> what you think?
>
> I did not know
>
> think we can help?