[Coco] Your stock CoCo is DriveWire-ready out-of-the-box(was:DriveWire for dummies?)

[Jeremy Michea]

Ok thanks Boisy, I'll do so after the holidays if thats ok.
Jeremy

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Boisy G. Pitre" <boisy at tee-boy.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 12:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Your stock CoCo is DriveWire-ready 
out-of-the-box(was:DriveWire for dummies?)


> Yes you definitely need the cable.  I have those in stock and you can 
> contact me privately when you're ready to order.
>
> Boisy
>
> On Dec 23, 2009, at 11:07 AM, Jeremy Michea wrote:
>
>> Boisy, so you think this would be the best approach for my needs? I have 
>> the cassette cable so if I get the drivewire cable, hardware wise I 
>> should be set? If you think so I'll contact Mark (probably after 
>> Christmas) and order the cable. I just want to make sure I order 
>> everything at once so if its only the drivewire cable I need then thats 
>> great for me :)
>> Thanks
>> Jeremy
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Boisy G. Pitre" <boisy at tee-boy.com>
>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 11:51 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Coco] Your stock CoCo is DriveWire-ready out-of-the-box 
>> (was:DriveWire for dummies?)
>>
>>
>>> Christian,
>>>
>>> This is an interesting approach, but it has some caveats as you 
>>> mentioned. And the fact that it must be typed every time you power up 
>>> the CoCo.  You could save it to cassette, but then, why not use the 
>>> DriveWire cassette loader in that case?
>>>
>>> The goal is to maximize the number of people who can get a real CoCo 
>>> connected to their computers in a usable fashion, while minimizing the 
>>> number of steps and the additional hardware necessary to do it (which 
>>> minimizes hassle too).
>>>
>>> If all CoCos had FLASH instead of ROM, this wouldn't even be an issue :) 
>>> But we have to deal with the designs that are baked in.  And even the 
>>> DLOAD approach would require additional steps on the CoCo 3 because of 
>>> the munged code in the BASIC ROM.
>>>
>>> So far, it's either with a cassette cable and drivewire cable, or a ROM 
>>> pak and drivewire cable. The lack of availability of ROM paks (and the 
>>> necessity of burning ROMs) makes the cassette cable and drivewire cable 
>>> approach the most universal one, in my opinion.
>>>
>>> Boisy
>>>
>>> On Dec 23, 2009, at 10:34 AM, Christian Lesage wrote:
>>>
>>>> Here is a short program that lets a CoCo 3 accept input from the bit 
>>>> banger port instead of the keyboard:
>>>>
>>>> 1 READ N,AH$,AL$:IF N=0 THEN 5
>>>> 2 A=VAL("&H"+AH$+AL$)
>>>> 3 FOR I=A TO A+N-1:READ D$:POKE I,VAL("&H"+D$):NEXT I
>>>> 4 GOTO 1
>>>> 5 DATA 
>>>> 2,,F6,2C,2,1,8D,C2,F7,1,8D,FC,F6,1,A1,C1,39,1,A1,99,39,5,A1,CB,86,1,7E,8D,BD,,,
>>>>
>>>> It is under 200 characters if you remove the spaces. It allows you to 
>>>> remote-control the CoCo 3.
>>>>
>>>> Speed is 1200 baud. The cursor is disabled because of the delay it 
>>>> would impose between two characters. There is one catch: you lose input 
>>>> characters when the screen scrolls. Just don't let that happen, i.e., 
>>>> send a CLS, wait a little bit, send a BASIC line, wait for the 
>>>> interpreter to crunch it, and then repeat that sequence until your 
>>>> program has been uploaded completely. Then RUN it.
>>>>
>>>> The idea is that the DriveWire server could send a BASIC program that 
>>>> would restore the DLOAD command. (In fact, the first four lines of the 
>>>> previous program could be reused for that purpose, only the DATA 
>>>> portion needs to be updated.) I do have a DLOAD patch somewhere for the 
>>>> CoCo 3; just let me find it and I will post it.
>>>>
>>>> Christian
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Boisy G. Pitre wrote:
>>>>> I don't know if it's acceptable to type a 200 character BASIC program 
>>>>> each time you power on the computer, but hey, i'll listen :)
>>>>>
>>>>> It sounds interesting enough... provide some details...
>>>>>
>>>>> On Dec 23, 2009, at 8:59 AM, Christian Lesage wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>> --
>>> Boisy G. Pitre
>>> http://www.tee-boy.com/
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
> --
> Boisy G. Pitre
> http://www.tee-boy.com/
>
>
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