[Coco] Is this a discussion about a new Coco?

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that Nickolas Marentes may have mentioned these words:
> >> We weren't really talking about that... just a plug in cartridge
> >> with USB and IDE for existing CoCos.
>
>What I would be interested in is a plug in cartridge with I/O ports for
>interfacing to the real world and a built in flash ROM to store the code.

That's what I want as well - a few years back I started working on a fully 
buffered card with built-in address decoding, an A/D chip, and a small 
breadboard so you could prototype adding whatever you wanted... but after 
designing in 4 chips for the address decoding, I felt that it would be 
easier to use an older PAL/GAL - and it's durned tough finding older books 
/ software for that where I'm at.

>In this way, the CoCo could be used as an intelligent controller for a home
>alarm system, controlling an external device or (and you'll love this one!),
>put inside a full scale R2D2 unit with the CoCo controlling the whole show!

If I was going to do that, I'd prolly use one of my Model 100's - smaller, 
lighter, and designed to run on batteries.

>The idea of built in flash RAM is to avoid for the need to have a disk drive
>to load the code. Just power up and it's working...instantly!
>
>The idea of having this in a cartridge is so that I can easily swap CoCo's
>when needed. It could even be made to work with a CoCo2. There are heaps of
>old CoCo2's lying around that are crying for a purpose in life.   :)

Yup!

That's why I wanted to build my board - to use my CoCos as "oversized 
embedded controllers" ;-)

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | "Bugs of a feather flock together."
sysadmin, Iceberg Computers |           Russell Nelson
zmerch at 30below.com          |