[Coco] CoCo monstrosity |was: [OT] Atari 8-bit video card

[Steve]

On 6/17/2013 10:15 AM, Mike Pepe wrote:
> In theory someone could make a bridge between the CoCo and a PCI-E 
> slot and you could command a modern video card with the CoCo driving a 
> modern monitor. It would be an interesting experiment, albeit 
> something that's probably not at all practical. -Mike

It's just not practical, but shouldn't even be talk about since it could 
never be made to work.

I've seen some dream-up "pie in the sky" "theories" on stuff to 
interface a coco to, but this one takes the cake.

It really begs the question, if your CoCo is not doing that you want 
than why don't you get a computer that does it already?

The CoCo was great back in its day, but that was 25 years ago. Computers 
have come a long way baby!

I must have Designed/Built/Owned about 250 computers by now.  Only about 
8 of those have been types of cocos.  Maybe that's why I'm unwilling to 
put so much time and $$$ into making the CoCo do things that other 
computer can easily do because of their more modern design.

CoCo emulators, Floppy Disk drive emulators, FPGA-based Cocos and Driver 
servers like DriveWire are good additions for CoCo users trying to keep 
their hobby alive.  But if you want to do more than the limits of a CoCo 
, there lots of good (and cheap) micro-controllers and computers out 
there.  (Think Picaxe, Arduino, Raspberry Pi and old PC to name a few.)

I'm not saying to not try and push the limits of the CoCo.  Just don't 
waste time and money turning a beloved CoCo into a Frankenstein Monster 
that no one would want to play with.

Steve