[Coco] Stand-alone DriveWire devices.

[Boisy G. Pitre]

On Sep 17, 2004, at 10:47 AM, <alsplace at pobox.com> wrote:

> It dawns on me that there must be some really cheap PIC-type 
> programmable device with memory storage and some programmable CPU.  
> Some of these gadgets are very cheap.  If there was such a device, it 
> might be interesting to make a standalone "DriveWire" hardware unit 
> that could just plug into a CoCo's serial port.  Anyone out there 
> familiar with the state of the art for BASIC STAMP or PIC type chips?  
> It would just need to have a fast serial port and some form of backed 
> up memory (flash, battery backed RAM?).

Certainly that could be a possibility.  I did really like the Palm idea 
though.  That would be quite slick.

Or maybe even an iPod? :)

> Also, is there an unofficial HDB-DOS that speaks DriveWire instead of 
> SCSI/IDE?
>
No.  I've toyed with this idea, but it mixes two separate products, and 
I'm just not sure how we could market such a thing.  I even looked into 
doing a DriveWire driver for Hyper-IO, since that product has some 
distinct advantages.  I actually got it working (for the most part), 
but Chris Burke has lost the source, and I hear compatibility with Disk 
BASIC isn't that great.

Doing a DriveWire version of HDB-DOS is merely a gnat's nut away from 
being a reality.  I'm just undecided on the marketing.

Boisy