[Coco] Coco -> Arduino -> Drivewire and back again...

Chris Ahrendt chrisahrendt at bellsouth.net
Thu Jun 19 21:35:36 EDT 2014


Ok,
doing some research on my thought , Thanks Salvador for the link to the 
Drivewire spec's, the more it looks like a reality.
The Version 1 of my thought is to connect the arduino to the coco's bit 
banger port and the comunication should be
pretty simple from the client side.  I am going to try and whip up a 
quick POC in code tonight atleast for the Arduino.
Buffering should not be an issue. Here is where I need some help as I 
really don't remember how to do things with the
cartridge cart and having something use that.   So here are the parts I 
think will do the client side of things:

Arduino Uno / Mega - These can be had for $20 or less (usually alot less)
This uses +5-+9v and has a buffer so the coco can power it easily if its 
on a cart. and these will fit in a coco cart.
You can also buy the Arduino with a built in Ethernet shields.

For wireless :
couple of options... from wireless shields (about $20 each or less 
depending on how fast you want)
The cheapest being around $2 for a shield that does 1 - 2 mps

So I am guessing for a price of $30ish  you could have a wireless or 
wired ethernet cart for the coco.

Next issue would be  the drive wire server is the IP communication 
solely for local host? or is there a way
to set the server to listen on a port?

I would imagine the cart would just need 5  lines to be used... unless 
there is a way to use the non-serial digital inputs of the Arduino.

Data In   (A1 - A15 (looking at a diagram of a coco bus this looks like 
the address bus?))
Data Out (A1 - A15?)
Ground (Gnd1 or Gnd2)
+5v (5v supply)
Ready/Interupt  (CTS? / R/W?)

Is there someone who could help me figure the above out?

Chris





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