[Coco] CC-Five (was Re: Pseudo CoCo4???) (LONG)

[jdaggett at gate.net]

Mark

You have echoed the exact sentiments that I  have. If you improve the  hardware 
with great new features then who is going to write software for it? 

As for technology,  chips like FPGAs are changing rapidly.  Most new chips are 
not easily backward compatible with older five volt logic. That requires not only 
an HDL version of a faster super 6809/6309,  it requires the redesign of many 
peripheral devices. As for Xilinx their line of five volt FPGAs are now history and 
the Spartan 2 line is the last that is 5 volt tolerent. The Spartan 2E is the last of 
that line still in production and it does "NOT" have 5 Volt tolerent I/Os. 

I can allocate part of my time if there is a clear direction as to where the 
community wants to go. I have hardware design experience. I think it would be a 
challenge to create a super COCO that would use more modern peripheral 
devices. 

james

On 22 Jan 2007 at 17:51, Mark McDougall wrote:

> Joel Ewy wrote:
> 
> > CPU:  There is enough use of the 6309 in existing CoCo systems that
> > it Video:  Even at much higher clock rates, the CPU in the CC-Five
> > will be RAM:  The memory interface should be able to use some kind
> > of reasonably Firmware:  Here I guess we would have to take a cue
> > from the emulators
> 
> You forgot one thing that's going to be the make-or-break of any such
> project - namely Software.
> 
> Without software you can't make use of a new MMU or expanded memory.
> Without software you can't access the new peripherals; storage
> devices, sound chips, mice. Without software you can't make use of the
> new graphics modes. There will be *NO* application software that can
> use these new modes. New versions of BASIC(/09) will have to be
> written. New paint programs. New text mode drivers for enhanced text
> modes.
> 
> Writing all this software is going to be a majorly time-consuming
> task.
> 
> And I can foresee other problems:
> 
> * Who decides what's "in" and what "out" of a community-based spec?
> Design-by-committee is historically plagued by failures. * Hardware
> development is expensive. And technology is moving so rapidly it very
> quickly becomes obsolete. Just look at the C-one - only about 1/2 the
> initial production run has been sold with little prospect of selling
> more; who wants to pay hundreds of dollars for an FPGA-dev board with
> little more power than modern CPLDs, when you can get much more
> powerful devices on a $99 board these days?
> 
> It's a noble vision - don't get me wrong - but I question the
> practicality of 'selling it to the masses' - at least in a
> shrink-wrapped form. HDL source packages that can be adapted to
> various platforms may indeed prove the solution, but there's always
> the question of software support IMHO.
> 
> Regards,
> Mark
> 
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