[Coco] My DE-1 project just took a leep forward!

tim franklinlabs.com tim at franklinlabs.com
Fri Oct 23 19:36:08 EDT 2015


   I guess my only comments would be that there's only a few who would
   write software for any CoCo and even less that would buy it. Your Pilot
   game is awesome but I must ask why are you writing it? You're spending
   a huge amount of time and effort writing a game that only a handful
   will play. There's absolutely no market for it so money can't be your
   motive. You're posting the sequence of events on creating the game so
   others can learn but you don't post the code which limits those who
   want to learn.
   So why? You write it because you can. You write it because you enjoy
   it. You don't share the code because it's yours and some things need to
   be kept behind closed doors (Just ask SB).

   For the same reason you are writing the game, we are making our own
   "version" of the CoCo. Others have chosen to create hardware clone
   equivalent CoCo's. I've chosen a different path. Who will write code
   for it? Well, I will. Others may too, It's not important in the end.
   The goal is to enjoy this hobby.
   I will share the code when I get to a point that I'm happy with it.
   Some may learn from it. Others wont care. Either way... I'm having
   fun!!!

   On October 23, 2015 at 5:49 PM Nick Marentes <nickma at optusnet.com.au>
   wrote:
   On 24/10/2015 4:59 AM, tim franklinlabs.com wrote:
   > With very little time to work on my SoCoCo project I had another
   > breakthrough today. Thanks to Zippsters suggestion with a cheap
   digital
   > analyzer, I was able to solve my video problem. My 6809 core now runs
   > completely under the DE-1's 8 meg of SDRAM with the video using the
   512
   > meg of SRAM. Again, the CPU speed is limited to about 1.2MHz but I
   plan
   > on getting that faster in the future. The limiting factor is the
   access
   > timing on the SDRAM. Now I can focus my energy to getting the
   > "modified" CoCo Basic running.
   >
   > It's not my intention to make this backward compatible. That's being
   > done very well by Gary Beckers project. I'm looking at creating a
   "NEW"
   > Coco with the features I want. I still want it to be able to run many
   > BASIC programs now available with some backward compatibility but I'm
   > more interested in new CoCo-Concepts!!
   >
   > Features I'm planning on putting in:
   >
   > - SD disk usage within the BASIC platform
   > - 80 (and possibly 132) column text similar to the VGA standard
   > - 800x600x4096 colors
   > - Yamaha DX7 sound engine (open source code already exists)
   > - Bitter/Blitter and Sprite engine
   >
   > -Tim
   >
   >
   May be a good time to also consider WHO is going to write software that
   will showcase and use these features considering how little is written
   for the existing CoCo's.
   I don't want to sound negative and I'm all for new hardware but this is
   a very relevant question with now 4 people developing FPGA CoCo's.
   Nick
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