[Coco] OS9 68K, MM/1 software and questions

[David Ladd]

On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 8:48 PM, Zippster <zippster278 at gmail.com> wrote:

> ​<cut>
>
> It is a real oddball system, and pretty unique, which is why I find it
> interesting I’m sure.
> I was interested to find out while investigating OS9 that the Phillips
> CD-i system was based on it.
> As it seems some industrial, scientific, and embedded systems were.
>

​Actually I had played with the CD-I system for a while.  Friend of mine
had one with a few of the VideoCD's of the time.  I was impressed with what
the CD-I was at the time.​



>
> Not particularly user-friendly, and very technical from a user standpoint
> (compared to mainstream OSs).
> Somehow very alluring… lol…
>
> And yes, the remakes will be fairly expensive.  I don’t know for sure yet,
> but I’d guess around $250 for
> a set of three boards (CPU, I/O, and Minibus).  It can’t be helped, the
> IC’s alone are going to run
> ~ $120 for a set of boards. Not counting SIMMS for the IO board.  Then
> PCBs, passives, sockets, connectors, etc…
>

​Well the other thing will be the (EP)ROM images also.  Sadly the ROM's for
this were specific for some options.  The original ROM's were floppy boot
only.  Then there was a ROM upgrade you could buy from him that would
support booting off of the HDD.  Though the cluster size could not be more
than 1.  Which means your boot drive was limited to 256MB with the sector
size of 512byte.  Then there was the RAM upgrade minibus board which added
gave you the option to go even higher on RAM, but that option also required
a new ROM's.  Which of course that version of the ROM's supported booting
off of the HDD too.  Though when you bought the upgraded minibus board it
came with the ROM's too.​
​​



>
> That’s why I only intend to make 12 of them, 2 of which I want to keep.
>
> I’ve already got a lot of chips on the way, so I guess I’m in however it
> turns out.
>
> My hope is that the project will go well, and will leave in it’s wake a
> nice archive with design files, software,
> a history put together from what can be scoured up.  A small, and
> hopefully somewhat complete testament
> to a rare and interesting machine and a piece of (in a way) Color Computer
> history.
>
> - Ed
>