[Coco] ROM Development question

Zippster zippster278 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 12 12:34:22 EDT 2015


It is absolutely amazing what we have available for developing stuff today compared
to back then.  The tools, and especially the information available on the internet.

For example, with part of my tax return, I just added a new 32” Benq design monitor and a 
new graphics card to my dev/cad machine.  At  3840 x 2160, 8.3 million pixels driven by dual NVIDIA GTX 760s.
This thing is going to be an incredible tool for board design.  Pure science fiction back then,
and incredibly expensive or unavailable just a few years ago.

It’s a great time to be a hobbyist involved in electronics.   :)

- Ed




> On Mar 12, 2015, at 9:35 AM, Salvador Garcia <ssalvadorgarcia at netscape.net> wrote:
> 
>> circuit used.  I wish I got into this stuff 30 years agowhen I
> had
>> gotten my coco, it would be easier for me to learn!
> 
> I think that is a
> lament we all might have, but we have to also remember 
> that 30 years ago, just
> the hardware to play with this stuff was priced 
> at 5000% of what it is today
> even after adjustment for inflation.
> 
> 
> 
> Interesting that you should say this because I was thinking the same thing. At that time I was still in school then in a new job. Not only broke in money. but also in time as my schedule was somewhat chaotic. fast forward 30 years and now I find myself in a world of Windows, 64 bit computing, Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, emulators and much more technology that allows me to get back to the roots of computing employing technology that was only dreamed about 30 years ago. Salvador
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com>
> To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Thu, Mar 12, 2015 12:14 am
> Subject: Re: [Coco] ROM Development question
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wednesday 11 March 2015 21:06:20 Louis Ciotti wrote:
>> Thanks guys... I
> have a uv eraser already, picked it up from an
>> co-worker when he reitered and
> cleaned out his desk, have not tried it
>> yet, but it should work , looks barely
> used.  An emulator would be
>> nice, but I suppose that those would have to be
> specific to the
>> circuit used.  I wish I got into this stuff 30 years agowhen I
> had
>> gotten my coco, it would be easier for me to learn!
> 
> I think that is a
> lament we all might have, but we have to also remember 
> that 30 years ago, just
> the hardware to play with this stuff was priced 
> at 5000% of what it is today
> even after adjustment for inflation.
> 
> So we might have drooled over the
> possibility if it existed, but no one 
> here could have afforded the price of the
> admission. Sad, but truthfull.
> 
> Having been on this list since it was on
> Princeton.edu, I am amazed at 
> the number of "newer" names who have come here in
> the last decade, 
> learned well, and are now busy building nearly all the the
> wishlists 
> we've all had since Hector was a puppy.
> 
> In fact, with all the new
> talent, I would not be surprised to see someone 
> build the coco 4 by taking this
> 6 chip circuit, laying out a new gime 
> that will fit in one of the bigger
> cpld's, giving us a full 24 bit 
> memory range, while still maintaining the 8k
> block size, so that all of 
> our considerable Nitros9 software can continue to be
> used. That would 
> give us access to 16 megabytes of memory.
> 
> Imagine an minted
> session using 15 megabytes of memory, simply by using 
> the same techniques of
> memory management that myram (mram in the repo) 
> uses to setup a 1.7 megabyte
> ramdisk on my 2 meg machine.  I think it's 
> a doable project.
> 
> Cheers, Gene
> Heskett
> -- 
> 



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