[Coco] Proprietary, nonstandard memory expansion for the CoCo

[Juan Castro]

No, it was in Brazil, it had no name, it was just marketed as a part of a
small business solution including software, and interfaces to some
calculator/cash register like devices.

The company, of course, had a name. It was LZ of Rio de Janeiro. So did the
CoCo clone, it was the "Color 64".

These things now only exist in the minds of the few people who worked on it
and who aren't afraid liking nerdy things will interfere with their proper,
grown-up goal of appearing on the cover of a business magazine, wearing a
suit with arms crossed and making a mean face at the camera. *spits*

(I'm in a bitter mood because I just lost an auction for a CoCo 1. At least
I made the f***er pay more. *spit again*)

Grouchily yours,
Juan

On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 11:00 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:

> I have zero useful input to contribute on this, but just want to see
> if my CoCo trivia neurons have come up with the correct tidbit on
> this:
>
> Was the 256K CoCo 1/2 expansion you're describing called the "J&R
> Banker" or something like that?
>
> Art
>
> On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Juan Castro <jccyc1965 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This is a hack my (long-defunct) company did back in the day and I would
> > eventually like to replicate it in a real CoCo someday.
> >
> > It's a 256 KB memory expansion for the CoCo... 1 or 2. Basically, you
> > select, with a poke to some $FFxx, which of up to eight 32 KB banks will
> > play the part of the "upper 32 KB" in a 64 KIB CoCo. (Which you then
> would
> > select over the ROM in the usual way.) They raised one pin - SELECT pin?
> -
> > of each of the "native" upper 32 KB memory chips out of the socket, wired
> > them to one of the outputs of a 74LS138 and 6 of the other 7 ones to the
> > extra 192 KB in the expansion*. It worked pretty well, and although it
> was
> > compatible with precisely nothing, it was used in our in-house-developed
> > business systems. Which did sell, believe it or not. Not really being an
> > electronics person, I can't tell you what other chips were there, but
> would
> > it be too difficult to concoct some schematic based on that description?
> >
> > Being a total newbie in OS-9, I wonder how easy it would be to make
> > NitrOS-9 use that memory.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > * Yeah, that could theoretically make it a 288 KB memory expansion.
> >
> > Juan
> >
> > --
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> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
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