[Coco] Cloud-9 Product Comments Wanted

[Mark Marlette]

At 05:17 PM 1/26/2005, you wrote:

Al,

I get LS-120 in MPls surplus or Ebay...CHEAP!!! They are not nerw but I can 
still get new media for them. Drives work fine but PCDOS needs some work 
for the HD floppy.

Super Expansion ports is on the SuperIDE, .050 dual row CommConn 
connectors, full coco bus present. :)
Boards that are designed for expansion in the Super line of products will 
work all together. Will anything ever come out? Doesn't have to come from 
us either, documented so that anyone can build a device. A nice feature 
would be a sound chip. I was working with this with Chet S. but where is 
Chet??? Chet where is the chip??? I am not a sound guy so I prioritize my 
projects based upon knowledge I have.

The CF slot on the SuperIDE does require power but it gets it through the 
CoCo and not the IDE cable. You can hack your controller and add +5v to 
your cable so that you don't have to have an external power source. I won't 
because it violates the ATA spec. Others have, they have already asked. I 
have PC people buying the CF adapters and putting systems in their minivans 
to watch DVDs and have windows running off a CF....

Don't follow the last message of simple pack costs? Of a SuperIDE reduced 
form with all that you want?? Serial, two CF slots, smaller size, etc?????

The problem with smaller is density. These chips are .020 centers pad-pad, 
100 pins on a chip the size of a stamp and just about as thin. Hard to get 
that many traces out, thus you jump layers....

Mark




>>From: Mark Marlette <mark at cloud9tech.com>
>
>>I see your point but limiting the IDE to just CFs is not a true
>implementation of the IDE spec.
>
>Well, I'd think the main reason for IDE would be so we could find storage 
>that was still made, not to have IDE stuff (how many CoCo owners ever used 
>a SCSI device other than a hard drive device, and SCSI interfaces were 
>available back in the CoCo's heyday?).
>
>>You would loose backup devices, LS-120 drive which would be a nice
>floppy
>
>Do they even make LS-120s any more?  (I have never actually seen one.)
>If I could walk into CompUSA or Best Buy and buy one and use it on my 
>CoCo, then that makes the IDE itnerface more worthwhile.  But, right now 
>all I know I can walk in and buy is a hard drive a billion times larger 
>than anything I could ever need on a CoCo.
>
>>If the board was made smaller you would loose the Super Expansion bus.
>
>Is that on the SuperIDE? I guess I just think a plug in pak with CF hard 
>drive slots (2, for backups), and maybe an RTC option and an RS232 port 
>would hit 90% of what any of us do with our machines (RS232 not even much 
>these days, but nice to have fast serial for xfers).
>
>I'm glad I have a SuperIDE, mind you, but it didn't solve my problem of 
>having a huge 20 year old case and power supply sitting next to my CoCo 
>just to do a backup.  I always through the ZIP and EZ drives were sweet 
>and slick but they have both gone the way of the dinosaur in computing so 
>they are now "slick" obsolete items.  Still, the packaging -- I'd much 
>rather have an old ZIP (as long as I could still get media) hooked to my 
>CoCo than the abomination I have used for ages -- 3.5" floppy not in a 
>case sitting on its side next to my Tandy case, with a power Y running out 
>the back of the drive case to power the 3.5" (which is what I use for the 
>CF adapter).  I got lucky that I already had that extra power Y to use.
>
>Why does the CF slot on the SuperIDE not need power, but the one to the 
>IDE interface via adapter does?
>
>>So expansion boards for the SB would not have the ability to be in the
>Super product line.
>
>Which is good if anything ever comes out to use it.  I had a Disto Super 
>Controller 2 for awhile, too (no halt) and some Disto things supported a 
>Super Expansion Bus but even in the heyday, not much ever came out for it 
>(? serial port ?).  Expansion is a good thing, but I think many would be 
>quite happy just with a tiny solid state hard drive (CF) and never need CD 
>support, etc.
>
>>go to multi-layer design. The SB will be multi-layer, no doubt.
>
>Yowza.  Well, the CoCO 3 started out as 4 layers in proto form, so I guess 
>we should be stunned anything modernly complex would be anywhere less ;-)
>
>Barring setup costs, what do you think a simple pack would cost (retail)?
>
>     -- Allen
>
>
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