[Coco] Re: LCD for CoCo

[Andrew]

> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:28:19 -0000
> From: "tomustoys" <tomustoys at sisna.com>
> Subject: [Coco] [Color Computer] LCD for CoCo
> 
> Hello Group,
> 
> I'm looking for any info on adding an LCD to my
> CoCo to create a dashboard gauge for the EV I'm building.

What kind of CoCo are you using? With a CoCo 3, it would be a cinch - a 
CoCo 2 (or earlier) would be trickier.

How are you planning on powering the CoCo? Will you be going through an 
inverter, or direct power to the motherboard? The latter would be better 
(no sense wasting energy in the power conversion) - but you might want 
some heavier filtering on the power input to prevent voltage spikes from 
getting to the board.

Finally, I must ask why you chose a CoCo over something like a PIC Basic 
Stamp? Getting a Stamp to drive a composite video input is fairly easy 
(by having the Stamp output NTSC waveforms) - there have been people to 
create PONG this way. Or, output the data to a serial graphics LCD. The 
reason why I bring this up is two-fold: First, the CoCo wasn't ever 
meant to be installed as part of an automotive (even EV) system - how 
long it would last in such a system is up to debate (though I know it 
can be done - someone, don't remember who - had a Knight Rider style 
front display on his truck driven by a CoCo). Secondly, if it died, what 
then? If you have a steady supply of CoCo's, this might not be an issue 
(though I think I would rather see that supply wind up as parts for 
collectors/users of the CoCo). Whereas with a microcontroller solution, 
especially PIC-based - you are certain that these parts are likely to be 
in production for many more years, plus these parts are smaller, consume 
less electricity, have non-volatile EEPROM memories for the code, etc. 
Inputs and outputs are very easy to interface to, and the Stamp can be 
easily programmed in a dialect of BASIC, using freeware (and I think 
open-source) compilers. Even using assembler on a PIC isn't that difficult.

Just something to think about - it might be cheaper and easier to go 
this route, rather than hacking apart a CoCo (which aren't being made 
anymore) to do the same job, while taking up considerably more space and 
electricity (and when you are building an EV, efficiency is the name of 
the game).

Andrew Ayers