[Coco] Nitros9

[jdaggett at gate.net]

On 3 May 2008 at 21:52, Frank Pittel wrote:

> The work of both Chris and Roy has done a lot to extend the usable
> life of the Coco!! What we need now is for someone to step up and way
> to eliminate the need for the floppy. While Cloud 9 has come close the
> floppy is still needed! :-( After the floppy issue is resolved we can
> concentrate on doing away with the MPI! :-)
> 
> Frank

FOr OS9 one could write a driver  to communicate with the Vinculum chip 
and then you can add anything from a thumb drive to a USB hard drive. The 
Vinculum chip takes care of the USB portion along with reading FAT12, 
FAT16 and FAT32. Also can have two PS2 ports for kicks. 

The chip does have some drawbacks in that it can only be a host for one 
USB port. That can though be a USB HUB. ALso in acessing drives it can 
only have one file open when transfering to and from the disk. Also hard 
disk  and USB drives have to be 512 bytes per sector. 

After all that the Vinculum chip is about $11 single price and the VDIP1 
board which has the Vinculum chip, support circuitry and a USB A 
connector that plugs into a 24 pin dip socket. 

This is by far the best solution for adding USB to a Coco. 


james