[Coco] The Coco3FPGA - Bringing the Color Computer 3 into the new Millenium!

[Zippster]

> On Feb 8, 2017, at 7:52 PM, Mark McDougall <msmcdoug at iinet.net.au> wrote:
> 
> On 9/02/2017 5:35 AM, RETRO Innovations wrote:
> 
>> Is there a reason no one has created a specific HW platform for the
>> Coco3FPGA?
> 
> Seems everyone has forgotten Gary's ill-fated Coco-X Kickstarter campaign that raised just %12 of its goal.

Not forgotten.  I’m not convinced the project has to cost that much though.  How much was the kickstarter for?
Quite a bit as I recall...

> 
> Personally, I believe the Coco community isn't quite at the critical mass required to support such a costly development. You need to consider the size of the entire community, then eliminate all those that either aren't interested in, or can't afford, a new platform - not to mention those that want different or extra features, so decide not to buy in.

Excellent point, and based on experience with the analog board, I think you’d be looking at perhaps 50 people that might
buy in on the initial run.  Where it might go from there would be anyone’s guess, but it’s probably good to keep in mind that
an FPGA implementation of a retro platform probably appeals to a very select audience.  Most would probably prefer real
hardware, or be satisfied with emulators.  Or at least that would be my guess.

> 
> There's also only a handful of people within the Coco community in the position to take on such a project. And they're already busy pursuing their own developments; Gary w/Coco3FPGA and Roger w/Coco-On-A-Chip. We know there are other capable hardware engineers amongst us, but how many FPGA developers?
> 

Absolutely.  I’m sure a few of us could nail down the hardware design (setting aside other projects), but it’s still a pile of work.
And if neither Gary nor Roger adopted it for development…  Well, it would be a wasted effort.

Considering the size of the group, I tend to think using dev boards and designing daughterboards to go with them makes
more sense.  There’s really nothing wrong with this approach after all.

> I was actually involved in a project several years ago to develop an FPGA-based Coco3 replacement motherboard. Three of us were about half way through the schematic entry when the driving force behind it very sadly passed away way too early.

> 
> The TerASIC DE1/2 isn't a bad board, but somewhat dated now. As Bill suggested, the MiST is a popular alternative, and supports over 40 retro-computer/arcade game cores. Although it lacks flash and SRAM the main advantages are an external MCU for I/O (including SD card access) and a USB host controller. It also has a larger FPGA than the DE1 (the same one as DE2).
> 
> I've been tempted to buy one in the past but can't justify the expense when I already have about a half-dozen FPGA development platforms, including a DE1 with the Coco3FPGA Analogue board. If I did end up getting one, I'd port my TRS-80 Model I/III and Coco2 cores to it immediately! ;)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -- 
> Mark McDougall
> <http://retroports.blogspot.com.au>
> 
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