[Coco] CoCo emulation on a Compaq Internet Appliance?

[Roger Taylor]

At 10:42 PM 10/21/2007, you wrote:
>I had one of those. I used a 64 MB CF card as HD.
>Booted DOS, and loaded ... I believe it was JV's emulator.
>The lack of function keys (and some others) in the IR keyboard can 
>be a factor, but ...
>Can be used, and takes a lot less room than an extra PC for 
>emulation.... and old DOS games :-)
>
>Diego
>
>PS remember to setup the "BLASTER" variable in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file



Man, that is good news.  Why didn't you announce this to the group, 
as it's an amazing trick and probably the coolest compact computer 
device ever to pretend to be a CoCo.  This thing has only one cord 
(the power cord).

The display is also 800x600 which makes it ideal.  If Keil's or JVC's 
emulator can be reassembled to handle the USB ports or some kind of 
CompactFlash-to-IDE adaptor, maybe more is possible.  I'm just 
guessing at all this right now.  Anyway, with a larger CF card, maybe 
even a 1g, 4g, or 8g, it can be filled with CoCo disk, tape, and ROM 
Pak image with plenty to spare... or better yet... NitrOS-9 ?!  After 
all, what hardware ports are needed anyway when the disks, tapes, and 
ROM Paks are on the CF card...  ah, joysticks... and that's where 
maybe USB support might be needed.  Other than that, it should make a 
good self-contained CoCo box.

I might get with you when I obtain a CF card soon in case I can't get 
the system to boot from it.  I see some BIOS settings for Drive A, 
Drive C, and some IDE settines.

I tried to plug my USB mouse in the back, and it worked right then... 
no driver problems or complaining.  I'm sure my USB keyboard would 
work as well, which should have all of what Keil's emulator needs?

I'd rather put a small copy of Linux on it and play around first, but 
for the CoCo emulation I'd like to try the VCC emulator if it will 
run from Windows (CE?).  I think maybe because the model # starts 
with CE that it might be running the small Windows CE version.  I'm 
not sure what can be done with that.