[Coco] Single board Pentium computer... "CoCo4" or

[Frank Swygert]

I disagree that the expansion slot is a necessity. Almost all cartridge games are available now as disk images and are easy to get. 

I do think that some kind of easy hardware interface is needed, that's why I've brought up the parallel port in the past. It could be easily programmed to act like a PIA, which most CoCo programmers can interface with easy enough. It could be programmed to act like MOST of the cartridge port, but not quite. Running the legacy hardware just isn't necessary when it is all emulated in software faster and more reliably now. A USB adapter card with a cartridge port on it has merit though. Steve was thinking a PCI card with a cartridge port on it. I just don't think there's a big enough market for a PCI card, but a USB adapter...

I like your idea about a USB port on a card! The problem is deciding what it can do. You'd need firmware on the card to drive a printer or storage device. A single card with two ports, one emulating a hard or floppy drive and one a printer port would be really nice, even if the printer could only produce text. 

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Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:44:17 -0600
From: "George Ramsower" <georgeramsower at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Coco] Single board Pentium computer... "CoCo4" or
	Drivewire	server	material?
 
  A Coco 4 would need the expansion slot. (period!) A Coco 4 would not have that with the new hardware available today.

  Could a USB port be used to transfer data to and from an adapter?

  These new USB ports are fast...
  Could a driver in an emulator on a really fast computer(or not) could interpret, pass interrupts and process this incoming data and respond to the calls and data as if it were really a coco on the other end of the wire?
  This, of course, would require a small amount of hardware. A Coco card slot with a USB port on it. It seems with the modern  chips we have, it would be possible. I have no idea about how much this little board would cost to build and most of all, how much programming it would entail, but I'm just tossing this into the discussion.

  Huh? Is that a good idea or am I a bone head for bringing this up?

-- 
Frank Swygert
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