[Coco] MC-10 Questions...

[Rogelio Perea]

Frank Swygert wrote (among other things):

> You know, as I was thinking about that digital dash again, it dawned on me that since it's
> feasible now except for the size of the CoCo board, would an MC-10 work??? I know
> basic is similar. But does it have two joystick ports, and do the ports work like the CoCo
> ports? Anyone see why an MC-10 wouldn't work? Basically I need two ports... <SNIP>

The MC-10 lacks, sadly, joystick ports. Readily available are the 4-pin RS232 and the cassette port and with some interfacing circuitry the back port could be wired to talk to the real world (where the RAM pack connects, all the bus lines are available).

> Could the MC-10 do all this in close to real time??? Nothing has to be dead on, just close
> enough I don't run out of gas or get speeding tickets! Ultimately I'd intended to use a hot
> key to switch to graphic analog gauges for performance, and incorporate some trip
> computer functions (like at least avg. mpg and estimated distance on remaining fuel).
>  I doubt the MC-10 could do the analog gauges, I'd be happy with a big digit speed and
> smaller digit gauges placed around the central speed readout. That would have to be a
> graphics screen too. I have to re-learn BASIC anyway, might as well be MC-10. Any
> doubts that the MC-10 could accomplish all this?? There are several on e-bay now...

I believe the MC-10 could pull off such a "central processing unit" task without much problem, perhaps the "shell" can be written in MC-10 Basic embbeding some ML routines where speed is necessary... read/write the "ports" and update the data. The Basic program shell sould easily deal with the fancy functions like Trip Planning, Fuel Efficiency, etc.

There are indeed other ways to accomplish what you intend to do, like use dedicated off-the-shelf digital instruments available in auto stores, but a project centralized around the MC-10 would add that particular special "something" that is missing in more modern solutions. I am not well versed in doing hardware projects with the available MC-10 ports, and I have not seen any serious hardware interfacing with this little computer, so I'd be very interested in seeing something done with the MC-10 in such a way.


-=[ Rogelio ]=-