[Coco] The COCO 5, some ideas...

[jdaggett at gate.net]

On 14 Dec 2008 at 13:25, Michael Robinson wrote:

> http://www.axess.com/twilight/sock/cocofile/coco4.html
> 
> This design could be adapted further with a more modern bus technology
> such as PCI.  I like that this person is contemplating multiple CPU's
> in a next gen COCO.  Why did the Tomcat and MM/1 fail?  Maybe they
> failed because they weren't a) compatible enough with the COCO3 and b)
> advanced enough.
> 

Both failed basically to little to late. The MM1 was not coco3 compatible and 
the Amigas blew them away with software and performance. 


> I propose a coco clone that has 16 bit sound hardware, a built in
> multi pak with three 40 pin connectors and three updated connectors
> for a new cartridge standard.  This clone should come in a tower
> configuration. In addition to the two standard joystick ports I
> propose having a total of four and designing a new joystick port that
> you can plug the old joysticks into which will take more modern
> fancier joysticks.  I propose designing the processor to run in 6809BE
> mode where poke 65497,[0123456789] could kick the processor into
> higher speed modes. I propose reverse enginering the
> Microware/Microsoft rom and making the new Rom 30% different from the
> old one to avoid copyright problems. Instead of running 30 pin simms
> which are disappearing rapidly, I propose going to either PC100 DIMMS
> or something else that is more recent.  The faster the ram, the faster
> the processor can be.
> 

Great. With the low volumes any product like that will have are you willing to 
pay a grand apiece? 


> Advantages of a modern hardware COCO clone:
> 
> No drives needed.  Just like the COCO 3, make this clone 
> work on a standard television without hard drives and 
> disk drives.
> 
> Run COCO3 software, Gauntlet II and games like it might be 
> notable exceptions.
> 
> Use old style joysticks and rom paks where a software emulator
> won't work.
> 
> With modern flash cards holding 16+ megs, build a GUI system 
> in flash memory.  More reliable and faster than a hard disk.
> 
> With modern technology, build an 8 core 16/32/64 bit 6809
> compatible processor that can handle meatier programs.
> 
> 16 bit stereo quality sound, standard.
> 
> More joysticks, better for gaming.
> 
> 

Better off determining a FPGA Development board and go that route for an 
enhanced Coco, whether you call it a Coco4/5/6/7 or what ever. Designing a 
dedicated Coco4/5/6/7/8/9/..../10000 board will be costly and not very practical 
due to rather low volume. 

One solution would be the Digilent Inc Nexys2 board. At $99 and $119 for 
either a 500K or 1.2 million gate device would be a great product for a 
Coco1/2/3 clone. Also for a limited version of a next generation computer. 

There are other FPGA boards out there that can cost upwards to $2000 that will 
do just about what ever you fancy. I