[Coco] XPander-Coco lives!

[Stephen H. Fischer]

Hi,

I have no real interest but wondering if the floppy controller part would allow for the Disto Floppy Controller with SCSI hard drive interface to work.

Mine died along with the CoCo 3 in use at the the time and likely a 6309 CPU. That was the end of my fighting electronics, I had all the SCSI hard drive files saved to floppies by then and now are on CDs.

I understand that one person has the problem of transferring his Hard Disk contents to a CoCo SDC and is trying to do the massive job with floppies and perhaps not getting it done.

SHF 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Zippster" <zippster278 at gmail.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Monday, April 25, 2016 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] XPander-Coco lives!


> Hi Jim (and everyone),
> 
> Well, I started out wanting to create a simple adapter that would let you use a CoCo SDC
> along with a floppy controller for easy transfer to and from actual floppies.  Sort of a Y-cable
> type thing on a PCB.  I learned pretty quickly from Darren that full MPI register functionality
> would be required.
> 
> So it’s basically a two-slot MPI, with a standard MPI register implemented, and a switch which
> sets the second slot as either 2, 3, or 4, as needed for software compatibility depending on
> what you’re trying to do.
> 
> I’ve been sharing about it on the Facebook group while developing it for those who wanted to sort of
> follow along.  It’s not intended to compete with a full-featured MPI like yours, it’s just a minimal
> solution for someone who just wants to plug in only two carts.
> 
> So no, there’s nothing there you’d need to worry about supporting.
> 
> John Strong AFAIK intends to produce cases for the Mini-MPI, and I just wrapped up my last
> round of hardware tweaks and put in an order for what should be final version test boards, and
> the prototypes are working great, so they should be out before too long.
> 
> A few pics here…
> 
> <https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1sgl615FlGnU0p0VEtNUlJVaFk <https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1sgl615FlGnU0p0VEtNUlJVaFk>>
> 
> - Ed
> 
> 
> 
>> On Apr 25, 2016, at 6:13 PM, RETRO Innovations <go4retro at go4retro.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On 4/25/2016 4:18 PM, Zippster wrote:
>>> That is awesome.
>>> 
>>> Between this and the Mini-MPI, the MPI shortage should be a
>>> thing of the past.  :)
>> Where's the scoop on the Mini-MPI?  Is there something I should make sure I support?
>> 
>> Jim