[Coco] Grr!!! Bad MPI! No biscuit!

[Joel Ewy]

Jim Cox wrote:
> I have a MPI board that someone gave me.  I am not sure if it works or
> not, but it's yours.
>
> Jim
> PS: We need a new MPI for the CoCo
>
Here's a humble suggestion for anyone contemplating such a thing: 
Orient the board perpendicular to the desktop so that any cartridges
plugged into it will be parallel with the desktop.  Having the disk
controller stick up 8.5" from the surface of the desk is just a bit silly.

As much as I loathe trying to find places to plug them all in, maybe an
external transformer would be a good idea here.  That way, if people
were building one into a (mini) tower case they could just leave that
bulk out and plug straight into the PC power supply.  Could be a "floor
wart" that runs another cord from the transformer to the wall.  Used
30VDC ones from old DeskJets seem to be plentiful around here.  Would
that be too much to regulate down to 12V with a 7812?

Would it be feasible to put bi-directional bus drivers in a short
cartridge and connect the CoCo to the MPI via a short length of ribbon
cable?  That would provide much greater flexibility in placement, and
probably reduce the chances of bumping things out of place.

JCE
> On Sat, 5 May 2007 03:12:01 -0600
>  Willard Goosey <goosey at virgo.sdc.org> wrote:
>> My old-style MPI is apparently toast.  My CoCo has therefore lost
>> access to its hard drive.  :-(
>>
>> I suspect power supply problems.  Either that or the upgrade PAL is
>> loosing its mind.
>>
>> Just what I need, something else broken. 
>> Willard
>> -- 
>> Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
>> Socorro, New Mexico, USA
>> "I've never been to Contempt!  Isn't that somewhere in New Mexico?"
>>   --- Yacko
>>
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