[Coco] [Color Computer] Re: Coco on the 'net

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 29 January 2009, seanrussoct08 wrote:
>--- In ColorComputer at yahoogroups.com, "Neil Morrison" <neilsmorr at ...>
>
>wrote:
>> Have you seen http://www.startty.com/ ???
>>
>> Neil
>
> That www.startty.com looks very interesting!  do you think it would
>work with a coco?  I have 2 sitting around and I only really use one
>at a time.  That would be a really neat use for the other one!

In my case, I don't see any technical problems that cannot be overcome.  As 
far as the serial<->ethernet adaptor is concerned, this linux box should be 
able to emulate that given a bit of programming skill (that I'm not sure I 
possess FWTW) to write a linkage between the ethernet port and the serial 
port I'm currently running a minicom session on, and which is connected to 
a "shell -i=/t2 &" on the coco3 in the basement.  I have also had the serial 
port be a USB port here, with an FDTI usb-serial adaptor, which also worked 
well.

This might require some NAT activity here, to separate the coco's traffic from 
normal traffic, and in fact might be all that is needed if I had iptables 
running on this box, which I don't.  But that is fixable too.

This would be a zero cost alternative, always attractive.  I have also 
considered looking into the WizNet-100 devices, it looks as if an ethernet 
connection could be added to the coco if I/O space can be found for it, but I 
have NDI how many register addresses that less then $30 device would need, 
the investigation has only gone so far as to read the adv's in Circuit 
Cellar.  They actually have one version that is a db9 serial port on one end, 
and the ethernets rj-45 on the other.  A tcp stack is claimed to be in the 
device according to the adv's.  That I might be able to plug directly into my 
switch if a spare port could be found, all 8 are busy ATM.

The disadvantage of using this box as the serial<->ethernet convertor is the 
probably 200 watt power drain as this box now has a 2.2GHz quad core AMD 
Phenom cpu, 4GB of ram and 320+400+500, 1.22 terrabytes of drives in it, 
compared to the 15 watts my coco3 draws from the powerline to run everything 
but a touch screen vga monitor from an old ATX psu.  The hard drive is the 
warmest item in it & that isn't much as the exhaust fan of the psu blows 
almost directly on the bottom of it & there is no heat detectable in that air 
flow.  So that isn't very 'green'. :-(  OTOH, this one runs 24/7, so, make it 
do something useful when its not fetching the mail or whatever I'm piddling 
with.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may
revitalize the corner saloon.