[Coco] DriveWire

[Ryan Pritchard]

Hi Boisy,
I don't know much about how often you sold DriveWire 2 to people with only a
CoCo 1.  But might I suggest you keep DriveWire 2 listed by possibly
renaming it to DriveWire for CoCo 1.  There are people out here like myself
that have been evaluating which direction we are headed, but only have a
CoCo 1.

My personal concern right now is that I really would love to get an IDE
interface, but then I lose my Floppy Controller, since I don't currently
have a Multi-Pak Interface.  The thing is no matter which direction I choose
without a MPI or a Y Cable (much more limited I hear) I will only have one
slot and the bit banger seems to be my only choice.

Perhaps you can clear something up for me.  It is my understanding that Disk
Basic did not support Hard Drives, and that Cloud9's HDB-DOS allows a person
to simulate up to 256 single sided 35 track floppy images on a physical hard
drive.  I also understood that if one bought DriveWire 2 they received a
special HDB-DOS that allowed access of up to 1024 floppy images (256 per
each of the 4 drive numbers).

Now where I get lost is that with DriveWire 2 you indicate I could boot
strap NitrOS-9 from a DriveWire virtual drive.  Isn't the NitrOS-9 Level 1
boot diskette either 2 5.25" disks or 1 3.5" disk, since you only include
one disk image for NitrOS-9 I presume you are loading the larger disk image.
 Does NitroOS-9 support for DriveWire allow for larger disk images?  whereby
the virtual drives look like larger Hard Drives?

Basically without an MPI I think I have to consider your DriveWire product
over your IDE or SCSI product so that I can have continued floppy access.

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Boisy Pitre <boisy at tee-boy.com> wrote:

> On Mar 5, 2009, at 6:59 PM, N8WQ wrote:
>
>  Boisy,
>> I was looking at Cloud 9 site, but didn't see any kind of descripton for
>> DriveWire yet. I don't have a clue what it is. What is DriveWire if you
>> don't mind me asking? I am assuming that it is some kind of file transfer
>> protocal using some kind of cable from the PC to the CoCo? I look forward to
>> hearing about it. Thanks...
>>
>
> Alan,
>
> You described it correctly.  It's a software package that gives you BASIC
> and NitrOS-9 drivers to access your PC, Mac or Linux system as a storage
> device over the CoCo's bitbanger.
>
> I removed the page for DriveWire 2, which will be replaced by DriveWire 3
> and made available later this month. At that time a new page for DriveWire 3
> will go up.
>
> Regards,
> Boisy G. Pitre
> --
> Tee-Boy
> Mobile: 337.781.3570
> Email: boisy at tee-boy.com
> Web: http://www.tee-boy.com
>
>
>
>> Alan Jones
>>
>> --
>> N8WQ - Canal Winchester, Ohio
>> http://exwn8jef.googlepages.com/home
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
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-- 
Regards,

Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies