[Coco] The evolution of the Coco..

[Steve Bjork]

Nick, I see you like my idea for a from our conversation last weekend. (The 
CoCofest chat)

At 07:37 AM 4/23/2005 +1000, you wrote:
>I've brought this idea up before but here goes again...
>
>What about using a Micro ATX PC mainboard with all I/O onboard and
>reprogramming the BIOS flash chip with a 6809/CoCo emulator.

There is no need to reprogram the BIOS, just have it boot the emulator from 
a hard drive, CD-ROM or Flash Memory.
Yes, flash memory.  Cloud-9 Compact flash to IDE interface is perfect for 
this.  If you need more hard drive space, just plug a flash drive off the 
USB port.

>In this way, instead of booting the system to an OS via disk, it would
>excecute the CoCo emulation permanently.
>
>There is no hardware development time, the system would run full speed and
>faster CoCo emulation thanks to the speed of Intel CPU's nowadays, we'd have
>most of the I/O that we need such as Parallel - Serial - USB -VGA and it
>could be later enhanced to be a CoCo4 by supporting the 24 bit graphic modes
>of the standard onboard VGA.

True, there is not much work in the way of hardware.  But my idea included 
expanding the emulator specs (both hardware and CPU) for new Video Display 
modes, better sound, 21th century hardware devices and a few other 
interfaces like network and Internet.  That is where the true work will be.

>The board would as small as the existing CoCo PCB and could be placed in a
>compact MicroATX case with power supply or someone could design a new box to
>give the CoCo4 a distinct CoCo appearance.

But a Nano-ATX (like the one I talk about) would fit better in a coco3 
case. (Most Micro-ATX boards are too wide.)

>Have it boot to OS-9 off the IDE hard disk and you have a fast OS-9 machine.
>
>Is this possible or is this just another one of my outlandish ideas like
>expanding the CoCoFests? (which no-one seems to be interested in due to a
>lack of feedback so far)

Your outlandish ideas?  It's not your idea nor is it outlandish.

>Nick Marentes

I may not be the first to have this idea, but it have not been even 7 days 
since we talk and your not giving credit where credit is due.


The other Idea that I also talk about was running a PC as a slave computer 
to the CoCo.  (This is by far not new idea.  I've been building slave 
computers for years.) The PC would handle the graphics, sound, interfacing 
to the hardware devices and network while the CoCo would run the show.

Think about it.  If we standardize the interface between the CoCo and PC so 
most of the commands are subset of "BASIC" commands, the coco end of the 
interface would be almost as simple as writing a BASIC program.

Commands like Open, Close, Read, Write, Get and Put are all you need to do 
basic file I/O.  As for the graphics, we could use simple basic commands to 
create the graphics.  Why stop there, add sprites and block graphics (with 
large scrolling maps) so you write an arcade quality Zaxxon game (and more) 
in basic.

This is the type of expansion that I was talking about earlier with the of 
the emulator specs.  Why limit the emulator to what the CoCo 3 can do?  Why 
not make a 21th century CoCo 4 and end the "I wish the coco had ..." forever!

Steve