[Coco] CoCo and SATA/USB drives.

[jdaggett at gate.net]

First off I have a BSEE and have worked in the design of consumer electronics 
industry for 23yrs. Most consumers don't care how the internal works. Just that when 
the instruction state plug one of the cable to this and the other end to that , turn on 
and push a few buttons and everything works. Getting to that point is not magic. It 
often takes a team of between 10 and 30 engineers and about a year to get the 
software and hardware to that point. Also a boat load of money. 

I have no problems with suggestions and ideas. It is through the exchange of ideas 
where one grows in knowledge. Also many things are possible. Not all that is 
possible is doable. There are many factors that make the possible less doable. Also 
ideas do proceed the technology that can make such an idea a reality.

Anyone that suggested an IDE interface couldn't be done for a COCO didn't know 
what they were talking about. Simple as that. 

Furthermore what Roy has done is not what I would call a VDG (Video Display 
Generator). Instead it would more properly be classified as a video convertor. As 
that is what it does. It converts one format to  another. 

Now as for USB. USB stands for Unified Serial Buss. It is no great magic that your 
camera interfaces to a serial port. The small USB connector is a hardware solution 
for a problem that USB encountered as speed reached beyond the upper limits of 
RS232 Serial protocol ( ~ 115K baud). The strength of USB is not in the cable or the 
connectors but i nthe software and the ICs that are used. USB was an afterthought 
for WIndoze 95. MS didn't fully support USB until the release of W98/NT4.0.  So in 
the PC world, USB has been fully accepted now between  8 and 10yrs. 

Now for USB and the COCO. Yes USB implementation for the COCO can be very 
difficult and consuming task. It also can be rather simple. It depends on ho wmuch 
of the USB spec do you plan to implement. For starters I d oubt that there is a single 
silicon solution that can implement the full USB 2.0 specification. Any attempt will 
overwhelm the OS where it is RSBASIC or OS9. ALso irregardless of 6809 or 6309 
chip. Now let's talk speed.  Full USB 2.0 480 kbps is only  doable with a limited 
peripheral devices. Most likely just mice and keyboard or other pointing device. This 
is due to the data packet sent from the peripheral is very short for these, the COCO 
will never be able to take advantage of the full speed as the host silicon will have to 
wait for the COCO to clear the internal buffer, usually a FIFO. 

Designing the hardware is not an issue with me. It is my position that with the 
current level of microprocessors used in the COCO,  only a partial implementation 
of the USB 2.0 protocol is even doable. The software overhead to do more than a 
key board, mice or even a printer is about the greatest extent of what the COCO 
can do. Even that would be a vast improvement over the cumbersome keyboard 
and mice setup of the COCO. Setting up a peripheral processor and su fficient 
hardware,  then more devices could be added. 

This all boils down to what the community wants and really needs. There are now 
more alternatives than the Cypress chip solution that was mentioned about a year 
ago. For myself, I can design some hardware and software. That is not much a 
problem. Supporting it is. Expanding beyond just simple devices is a an issue. So 
when someone states "you don't understand what it takes to implement....". They 
are not just refering to the technology, but also support for sogtware and hardware 
bug issues. Also for expansion of features and hardware. Often that can be more 
difficult than the original design. 

Yes there can be many thins that can be done with the COCO. Most 
implementations will come down to cost and time to implement.

james



On 24 May 2006 at 9:12, James Hrubik wrote:

> Well, first off, don't stop thinking. %^D
> 
> Years ago I earned a number of brickbats on this list for suggesting  
> an IDE adapter for the CoCo.  They said it couldn't be done.  Its was  
> done.
> 
> I suggested a VDG adapter for the CoCo.  They said it couldn't be  
> done.  Roy proved them wrong.
> 
> Five or six years ago I suggested a USB adapter for the CoCo.  "You  
> don't understand the difficulty.  It can't be done" said they.  And  
> they are right, I don't understand the difficulty.  I have no  
> training whatever in electronic engineering.  I DO have, however, an  
> old Kodak DC240 camera that I use daily for my work.  It has a Mac- 
> type serial port, and connects directly with a Mac printer cable to  
> old Macs.  It also came with a cable that has the Mac serial plug on  
> one end, a USB plug on the other end, and a little "tootsie roll"  
> that looks like an RF choke toward one end.  It plugs directly into  
> my Pavillion and my iMac.  No adapter.  I use that cable every day.   
> I don't understand the difficulty.  I don't even know where I would  
> start to write a driver for such a thing.  But I DO know that my  
> camera sends .jpgs every day down a cable that is serial at one end  
> and USB at the other with no adapter.  And I DO know that my  
> Pavillion running XP is too stupid to know the difference.
> 
> So don't be discouraged.  Keep on thinking outside the box.  If we  
> don't ask the stupid questions, we will never learn to defy gravity.
> 
> On May 24, 2006, at 2:24 AM, Jim Cox wrote:
> 
> > This got me thinking about the future of Floppies and Hard Drives  
> > for the CoCo community.  With low cost USB External Enclosueres for  
> > SATA drives becoming available and with USB floppy drives already  
> > available, I think what the CoCo needs is a USB 2.0 adapter that  
> > can address both.  I wonder if it is possible to have this adapter  
> > create a new drive type that will allow the CoCo to read 1.44M 3.5"  
> > floppies.
> >
> > I'll follow up later when I have time, but I would like to know  
> > what others think about the future of drives and how the changes  
> > will affect the CoCo.
> >
> > -Jim Cox
> >
> 
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