[Coco] The evolution of the Coco..

[Nickolas Marentes]

>>STEVE BJORK:
>>Nick, As for the Idea, fine it's your idea.  (Though it's the same idea
>>that Allen and I have been talking about for the past few years.)

I'm losing track of what the idea actually was. If you are referring to the
idea being about the emulation of a CoCo4 on a PC mainboard...no, this isn't
my idea. I've heard that from many others LONG ago. The only part I was
referring to as "my" idea was the reprogramming of the BIOS chip directly
with an emulator. This I haven't heard before an no one brought it up on a
list so I claimed it as "my" idea. I'd never mentioned the flash rom boot
before. But really, does all this matter?

>>STEVE BJORK
>>1) The BIOS ROMS are small on most motherboards and could not hold the
>>extra code for emulator, let alone the drivers for printers and other
devices.

This is the feedback I was looking for. Does anyone know how large a BIOS
rom is on a modern PC? How large is an emulator like David Keil's?
I agree, if the BIOS is not large enough, then the BIOS route is out. Flash
rom boot looks better.

>>STEVE BJORK
>>2) Only one model of motherboard could be use.  I'm assuming your are not
>>going to rewrite the BIOS for every motherboard Chip Set out there.  What
>>happen when the version 2 of the motherboard comes or they some making
>>it?  The life span of a motherboard is less than a year these days.

One could buy 100 mainboards and effectively "lock" the platform. I doubt
you'd ever be able to sell more than this.
The problem arises during development. By the time, one has gathered all the
programming info for the chipset and created the software to work, the
mainboard would have been replaced. Even, if the software were to retain the
mainboard BIOS and boot from Flash RAM, there will be problems. The only way
around it is to write under an OS....and this brings us back full circle to
just writing an emulator under an OS...which then isn't a "real" CoCo4 by my
"religious" definition.  :)

>>>STEVE BJORK
>>3) Who are you going to get to reverse-engineer the BIOS?  The the biggest
question of all!

It has been done and can be done but I admit, with hardware changing so
quickly, it can be frustrating.

>>STEVE BJORK
>>Why worry about this? After all, this is a grass root system that no one
is going to make any money off.

I'll admit that I am being too tied in to the "CoCo religious way".  :)

Good feedback Steve.

Nickolas Marentes