[Coco] CoCo temperature monitoring

[Mark McDougall]

theother_bob wrote:

> Hey everyone, ISTR an old article in Hot CoCo or TCCM about using the
> CoCo joystick inputs to read the temperature using thermistors. I
> haven't dug out the article yet, but I'm pretty sure I still have it.
> Meanwhile, has anyone done this and have any practical advice about
> how far I could run remote sensors from a CoCo joystick port?

I'm more of a digital engineer than analogue, but you'll probably run
into problems with voltage drop on long cable runs if you're measuring
small resistance changes in a thermistor.

> Another thing I'd like to try is a remote microphone connected to the
> Cass input which could be monitored for high/low noise levels
> (specifically it should be able to tell if some cooling fans are
> running at low or high speed.)

As another poster suggested, you'd be much better off going digital
comms. A few very cheap sensor chips for whatever you're trying to
measure, connected to the coco via a bit-banged interface
(serial/SPI/etc) would be _much_ more reliable.

Not sure I'd use sound for the fans either...

Regards,
Mark