[Coco] Prototyping boards/breadboards for coco cartridge port.

[haywire666 at aol.com]

1) bidding on the prototyping breadboard on ebay now. Saw it before but didn't bid thanks for showing me its still around.


2) Pat, do you have any old interfacing boards around you may be willing to part with to help out a pretty serious coco project? All I can give you is my endless thanks for any help. 

3) I have the motorized base and frame built, but if I can't get the coco going as a "brain" I may HAVE TO switch to pc, which is a shame.
Because the coco 2 draws 1amp. Pc draws 4 amps. Thats quite a jump in power requirements. Meaning my 8 ah 12 volt battery will last 8 hours with coco brains or 2 hours with pc brains.
I also have a 12 volt 5 inch tv thats in the frame now. It will cost about 150$ to put a 7inch or similar vga monitor in for pc use. (and probably even greater power requirements) I have a kid 
on the way (my first) so I really don't have that kinda coin around for this and really hoping I can make the coco(2) and hopefully eventually a 512k coco 3 work instead for this...


4) When I was a kid I tried endlessly to build a coco based personal robot, so this is kind of a personal mission for me. I figured out sensors via the joystick ports back then but I could never get the motors controlled by coco. I think I have that problem licked via an interesting photocell array that attaches to the coco screen (5 inch tv) but I'm lost trying to interface to the cartridge port for more inputs and outputs.
(Still researching the possibilities)  Any suggestions for this, please guys, give me some knowledge? I'd really appreciate ideas and thoughts on this right now. 


5) The robot electro-mechanically keeps getting  better (or worse dependent on your point of view) with more motors, more lights,more functions, more additions which require massive I/O from the coco. Its not easy getting 64 i/o lines from a coco. I anticipate thats what I will need to make the total project work. The joystick ports with a crazy bank of resistors may alleviate much of the digital inputs, still working it out.


6) I have decided to use a basic stamp development board (or two) as a secondary or even a third computer. This is blinking the eyes and providing more animation of some additional stuff, taking a great deal of load off the coco. Basic stamps work great in "slave mode" so that part of the project is going very well. Its like program a few animated functions and forget em... That works. But I still need to get the "main brain" - the coco handling all the more important functions (like sensors and motor control) 


7) I may simplify the project and just get basic motion (forward left right reverse) programmable from the coco, and add on from there. Maybe I need to stop and start over? That works sometimes...


8) My brain hurts.


9) My brain still hurts.


10) My brain hurts again, trying to figure this all out. Now I guess I know why I failed at this project as a kid, but after all I have learned since then, I'm pretty sure this time I can do this and make it work.
I really want to make this thing work, its stupid, but because of my past failures at making multiple robot projects work via coco, I am crazy determined  to see this thing work via coco for brains...




11) Any little bits of knowledge may help in this project, so if you know some coco interfacing stuff, please do chime in.


12) I sincerely appreciate anyone's thoughts on a coco based robot, so if you have had some thoughts on this, please chime in here and tell me what you think.


13) A coco based robot would showcase the power of the 6809. I really want this to work, please, any help you can give, I need help, please chime in here.


14) I will thank everyone on a new blog showcasing this coco based robot once It moves from idea to implantation


15) I've run out of things to say. my brain hurts.


16) I'm going to sleep and dream of my coco based robot.


Best regards, 

Steven.




































-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Wilson <gotitdownpat at yahoo.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Mon, Mar 12, 2012 3:19 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] Prototyping boards/breadboards for coco cartridge port.


Steven, I don't know of anyone who has one, but if you cannot locate one you 
could fabricate it yourself.  What you would need to do is make or obtain a 40 
pin (20 pin double-sided) card edge or card edge (male) connector, some ribbon 
cable and an appropriate connector to the prototype board.  you would also need 
to buffer the lines on the board to protect the CoCo.  You could then use either 
a 6820 or equivalent, or an 8255 PPI chip (that is typically what i used) to 
facilitate the port interface.  Neither of which is hard to program.  There are 
probably articles on how to do so available on line or in the forums.  I used to 
use my 8255 based protoboard to build all sorts of things...   hope that helps.
 
Pat

From: "haywire666 at aol.com" <haywire666 at aol.com>
To: coco at maltedmedia.com 
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 1:43 PM
Subject: [Coco] Prototyping boards/breadboards for coco cartridge port.

I know someone used to make prototyping breadboards for the coco cartridge port, 
but I haven't seen any in ages.


Does anyone have anything like that you'd be willing to part with? My coco robot 
project could really use one.

Otherwise, I seem to recall you could desolder the rom chip from an old 
cartridge and use that, at least I'm sure I saw someone build 
a project  like that ages ago. Anyone ever tried that?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this...


Steven

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