[Coco] How about a new FDD Controller?

[Jim Cox]

Besides time, money, and interest, what are the major 
obstacles to someome building a new Floppy Controller for 
the CoCo?

 From what I understand, it's primarily just finding or 
making a replacement for the Western Digital chip.  If 
people are attempting to make and PFGA version of the 6X09 
and the GIME, shouldn't the Western Digital chip be 
easier?

Also, if someone were to build a new controller, would it 
be possible to design it in such a way that 1.2M 5.25" 
drives could be used to replace the older 360K 5.25" 
drives?  I know there are actually differences that 
prevent using the 1.2M drives with current controllers, 
but could there be some "tweaks" in the firmware of the 
controller to get around this?

DriveWire is nice, but it only works for NitrOS, and while 
I plan to use it for that, I would also like to work with 
DECB  stuff too.

Isn't someone developing a USB controller for the CoCo? 
 If so, could one of those USB 3.5" floppies be used with 
it?

Jim Cox