[Coco] Re: Coco Repack

[farna at att.net]

You know James, I think there might be a market for a good hobbyist machine that is easy to program and interface to yet is a fully functioning computer. That's the main reason the CoCo has held on so long -- it is such a machine. If your repack/mini board machine emulates the 6309 (since it has advanced functions and is backward 6809 compatible) well and can use something like DECB (might be a problem there, but could just have an empty ROM socket or flash memory on board...) or NitroS9, it should be a winner. Just make sure you use something standard for input and output and you have an easy to interface with expansion port. If you can get bread baord and/or blank cards for a PCI socket that would be fine, though a double row header might be better (can get sockets for it or wire wrap directly). In fact, I think double row headers would be easiest for all connections -- at least you can get connectors easily and make appropriate adapters cheap enough. A PC keyboard interface would be nice too. The joystick ports are a must -- easy to program D/A converters. I'd rather see the serial port replaced with one or two(preferably two) USB connections. I wonder how hard it would be to make USB work with DECB? I know it will work with OS-9 -- eliminates the need for a floppy or HD controller is used with USB external devices. Getting a USB floppy to work with DECB would be the big problem. If the board would work with USB only, DECB and NS-9, that would be fantastic! 


--
Frank Swygert 
Publisher, "American Independent 
Magazine" (AIM) 
*Elite* publication for those 
interested in all 
aspects of AMC 
history,performance,restoration,etc 
. 
(AMC,Rambler,Nash,Hudson,Jeep,etc.) 
http:farna.home.att.net/AIM.html 
(free download available!)