[Coco] CocoNIC

[RETRO Innovations]

On 9/16/2016 8:34 AM, Brett Gordon wrote:
>>
>> ALSO, if you really need more space, I can put 512kB on the board for
>> $2.50 total (meaning, if the board was $40.00 without, it'd be 42.50
>> with).  If so, I'd set it up like CocoFLASH, with 16kB visible in ROM, 16
>> more for the Coco3, and a register to page through the ROM in 4kB chunks.
>>
>> Jim
>
> Yup.. that would be nifty in many ways. how about ROM and RAM ?  how
> painful is that? say 256k of RAM and 256k of ROM? Then the default PXE boot
> ROM could slam either a network image or a built-in ROM image to RAM, and
> hand off booting to normal BASIC.
> RAM is easier and faster to write than FLASH.
RAM is nice to write to, but you're still stuck banking it into the cart 
space (no fancy shmancy MMU for you!) and RAM costs more per byte that 
FLASH.  I was thinking the ROM would hold the pxe boot app, and the code 
would write to normal Coco RAM.  But, for comparison:

512kB ROM 2.50
128KB RAM 4.24

Putting both on drives the cost a bit and the RAM is not as useful as an 
internal 512kB and such, so I'd probably recommend people buy the 
internal RAM and enjoy it for everything.

>
> BOOTP or PXE (or whatever it's name is now) is basically just a DHCP server
> and a TFTP server.  TFTP is simpler than TCP to implement, and gives a
> chance that a normal, stock BOOTP server for windows or linux could work
> with a CoCo. (less work, less special software, more fun)
True, and I can't argue, since I won't be writing the code, (sadly, I am 
just not up to 6809 asm right now)  If someone has a C dev env with a 
template prj setup I can use, I might be a bit of help.
>
>
> Maybe a PXE booter (using CoCo's internal ROM/RAM) should be my October
> Retro Challange.  It would be kinda weird, but tastefully silly, to have to
> load via TAPE in order to boot via PXE :)
>
> cheers, brett
Well, I'd be a huge fan.  I'm happy to bring lots of HW to the platform, 
but without SW, it's just a waste of money, sadly.

Jim