[Coco] Re: Coco Digest, Vol 31, Issue 12

[farna at att.net]

James, I certainly didn't mean to belittle your efforts! With the whole package burned into a couple FPGAs (or even one), there would be the problem of fututre expandability... well, maybe not. If carefully planned there could be some room left inside the FPGA (I'm guessing here, out of my league, really!!) so that improvements could be made without changing pin assignments. So there would only be some limitations. I'm sure the entire package could ultimitely be made as cheap or cheaper than an existing SBC as well. If you can make it generic enough, it would be a very nice machine indeed! 

I agree with you on one thing whole heartedly -- DECB is easy to learn and use. It could use some extending, like being able to have longer programs (similar to 512 Basic) and using larger variable names (even three digits instead of two helps a lot!). That and more standard graphics, like support of a 640x480 video, or at least a standard VGA monitor even if less resolution, would be really nice. If the standard I/O can be integrated (disk drive controller, and maybe an IDE) that would be even better. 

At this point if you could make such a system and make it mostly CoCo3 compatible, and forget about CoCo 1/2, you'd have made quite an achievement! The only problem would be the expanded BASIC wouldn't run on a CoCo3. If it can be made to run CoCo3 BASIC and M/L programs and at least most games, that would be enough. 

--
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Independent 
Magazine" (AIM)
For all AMC enthusiasts
http://farna.home.att.net/AIM.html
(free download available!)

 -------------- Original message ----------------------

> Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 15:16:50 -0500
> From: jdaggett at gate.net
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Re: CoCo video? (CoCo4)

> 
> Frank
> 
> Why? That is a really good question.  
> 
> Well simply put it this way, I have wanted a simple and small embedded computer 
> system that can be used to control my telescopes. By small, my goal is to have a 
> board about the size of a 4x6 card or smaller that contains much if not all the 
> present Coco 3 and drive a 640x200 monochrome LCD that I already have. So this 
> started out as a hobby project that I devote some time here and there over the 
> past 
> year or so. 
> 
> Yes I could do most with a laptop and a card with some dedicated hardware. I 
> could 
> even go out and buy a Intel based embedded board also. There are other processor 
> basedembedded boards that are available. But simply I like the old venerable 
> Coco 
> and actually RSBASIC can do all the functions that I need to control a scope. 
> 
> As for cost, yes right now doing everything in a XC2S300E(Spartan 2E family) is 
> an 
> expensive project for any production beyond a onesee twosee situation. If more 
> boards were to be built, I would definitely consider the Spartan 3 family of 
> parts. 
> The XC3S400 can be had for in the $25 range. Half the cost of the Spartan 2E 
> 300K 
> gate part I am currently using.
> 
> Right now the size of the card depends on how many I/Os I willrequire from the 
> FPGA. 
> 
> Besides it has been a fun learning experience. I finally getting to do what I 
> want to 
> do, design an IC.
> 
> james
> 
> On 4 Mar 2006 at 14:52, farna at att.net wrote:
> 
> > Making an FPGA enhanced CoCo does sound feasible, but I have to ask why?
> > That's a lot of work for a product that will end up costing more than most
> > would want to pay. I understand the desire for a high performance CoCo,
> > but with the cost of PC hardware and fast emulators, the "CoCo4" is
> > already there. A decent Pentium 3 processor will run an emulator much
> > faster than a CoCo. So why not tweak an emulator to extend the CoCo
> > capabilities?