[Coco] The Tri-Annual CoCo 4 Thread

[Nick Marentes]

On 14/02/2014 5:58 AM, Bill Pierce wrote:
> Frank (and anyone else),
> As far as "already done". I was more referring to what HAS been done.... SuperIDE, DriveWire, IDE HDs, VGA adapters, Keyboard interfaces, 8-16 meg Memory, 4mhz clock, SD card readers.... etc.
>
> The way I see it, with just what little bit of the new technology I can afford for now, the Coco 3 sitting in front of me IS a Coco 4.
>
>
> So keep playing with ideas for a Coco 4... I'll keep playing with my Coco :-)
>
>

I have my DE1 board and while I haven't had a chance to load the 
CoCoFPGA software yet, reading the documentation, I can agree with 
Aaron... this is the future "CoCo4" or "Super CoCo" as I would prefer to 
call it.

Those who haven't followed the CoCoFPGA should consider these features...

1) Backward compatible with CoCo 3 (and therefore CoCo 1 & 2.
2) Built in scandoubler for direct connection to a modern LCD monitor.
3) 4096 color palette (16 solid colors on screen selectable from 4096)
4) A true 256 color mode (colors selectable from 4096)
5) a highres 640x450 resolution mode
6) SD card interface for drives (using DSK files)
7) Faster at 20Mhz!

And Gary is still perfecting and adding to the design!

All it takes is a Altera DE1 board. A board half the size of the CoCo's.

Maybe later down the track, a custom "CoCo4" board with Altera Cyclone 
II FPGA could be had.

I'll repeat a previous post I did that got drowned out by the recent 
distraction of bogus information regarding the $2000 internet enabled 
CoCo3...


"Looking at ebay, I found this Altera FPGA board...

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Altera-CycloneII-EP2C5T144-FPGA-Mini-Development-Board-Module-AU-Local-Shipping-/200955760964?pt=AU_Hardware&hash=item2ec9e59144 


I wonder if a "CoCo4" could be built by utilizing a board such as this to
act as the main FPGA board plugging into a "CoCo I/O main board". This
board would provide all the CoCo specific I/O. The FPGA is already made and
could be upgraded."

Nick