[Coco] CoCoNet status

[Roger Taylor]

At 12:31 PM 12/7/2008, you wrote:
> > It seems like this should work on any CoCo using the same code.  Is
> > there a reason why I should check whether it's a CoCo 3 or not?  I
> > can understand if I'm having to use the GIME to do internal/external
> > ROM switching and so forth to access the upper 16K of my ROM then
> > CoCo 1,2 <> 3 checking might be necessary.
>
>I think the reason is that on a CoCo 3, you will be running in ALL RAM
>mode. The lower 8K of your EPROM ($C000-$DFFF) will have been copied
>to RAM, but the upper 8K will not. When you need to call a routine in
>the upper 8K, you first switch to ROM/RAM mode. When the call returns
>you switch  back to ALL RAM mode. On a CoCo 1 or 2 with less than 64K
>RAM you will not be able to copy your code from ROM to RAM, so doing
>the switch back to ALL RAM mode would be deadly.
>
>Darren


I was overlooking the fact that it's preferred for the 64k CoCo 1/2 
to run from ROM mode since the ~2mhz/115200 bps mode won't work in 
all RAM mode.  Right now the system doesn't need more than the upper 
free portion of the Disk BASIC code, but I can think of a bunch of 
cool stuff to fill the extra 8K with like a nice PC/web explorer so 
you can use the arrow-keys or joystick/mouse to select the virtual 
disk you want to mount for each drive.  I might be able to get this 
in without using the extra 8K... sort of like a BIOS screen so the 
next time you boot, the server will throw back a configuration real quick.

-- 
Roger Taylor

http://www.wordofthedayonline.com