[Coco] CoCo-X is not dead

[Mark McDougall]

On 30/04/2013 8:15 AM, John Donaldson wrote:

> All of this is in the GIMI. What not change or upgrade it.
>
> 1. USE VGA instead of RGB
> 2. Update number of colors to at least 8 if not 16 or 32
> 3. increase screen resolution to 1024X768 VGA
> 5. Total memory of min 1 Meg to 8Meg
> 6. 2K paging blocks.
>
> IMHO None of these enhancements would in no way hinder compatibility with
> existing software.

This whole topic gets debated ad-nausea every 3 months or so and people 
weigh in with a range of opinions ranging from a Coco 3 clone with VGA 
support right through to enhanced 6809-like processors running at 100MHz 
with XVGA video. I suggest anyone who is considering putting their case 
forward first go back and read the dozens - if not hundreds - of posts on 
this topic over the last few years.

Nothing you've said here John is outside the realm of possibility, even 
within the parameters of Gary's Coco-X project IIUC. (To nitpick, VGA is 
RGB; what you mean to say is 31kHz rather than 15kHz), and I think VGA 
support goes without saying. Adding colours (to a palette) is trivial, as is 
adding memory and whatever paging scheme you desire. Slightly more effort, 
but still relatively straightforward, is adding colour depth and resolution. 
The trick is to preserve 100% backwards compatibility.

As others have alluded to here, there's little point getting carried away 
with enhanced features if there's no software support; a Coco 4 with 
256-colour 1024x768 graphics is nothing more than a curio if all you can do 
is display GIF files on it.

I think the features that are most realistically going to get actual 
software support from people here are enhanced text modes, faster clock 
speeds and more memory for people running OS9. What you won't see is a flood 
of 256-colour hires Coco games, so don't waste your time dreaming about them!

Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
|  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"