[Coco] FPGA CoCo and video

[Mark Marlette]

Gary,

We did some benchmarking on your product as well at the fest.

I did notice that when I was making a benchmark test program, a function was not working. This might be tied to why the paks do not run.

I also understand the bank switching scheme very well. There was an article posted in the Rainbow, that makes it easy to understand. Just don't recall the issue number at the moment.

I will contact you privately with test case function. I am in the process of setting up my lab to be more efficient. The DE1 has a spot for development on my bench now. So I can assist with this debug.

Keep up the great work!

Regards,

Mark
Cloud-9


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Becker" <Gary.Becker at amd.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 9:32:47 AM
Subject: Re: [Coco] FPGA CoCo and video

I guess I can answer part of this question.

Both

I have owned several CoCo systems. I really enjoyed my last CoCo3 running OS9. I used it for several years before having to move to a more mainstream system.

The work with FPGAs has become a hobby to me now. I no longer do programming for work, so I started re-creating my old 8-bit computers. The CoCo3 is not my first project. I started with a much simpler system and worked my way up. I have another that I have not yet started. I have now spend more time on the CoCo3 than on all other projects combined. But I still do not think it is finished. I am not sure what it will take for me to think it is finished. The CoCo3 was truly a remarkable piece of technology in its day.

The 6809 CPU section was written by John Kent. For some reason, CPUs seem to be beyond my level of expertise. I do not believe John has any CoCo experience. He lives in Australia and has several 68XX CPU and Systems to his credit. His 6809 implementation is part of his System09 project running some version of Flex. Details of System09 and his other projects can be found at his web site.

http://members.optushome.com.au/jekent/

Please do not bother him with questions about the CoCo3 implementation of his 6809. All those questions should come to me. I can be reached at my personal email address, gary_L_becker at yahoo.com or post questions at the yahoo group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CoCo3FPGA/

I am hoping as the user base increases, some additional expertise can be added. For some reason, most cartridge ROMs do not work. I am sure I do not understand the multitude of "tricks" they have employed for copy protection and bank switching. So anyone with some insight there would be appreciated.

Gary


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Cappellini [mailto:cappy2112 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 9:25 AM
To: coco at maltedmedia.com
Subject: Re: [Coco] FPGA CoCo and video

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 23:04:14 -0400
From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Coco] FPGA CoCo and video
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Message-ID:
       <AANLkTimDG__3oD9YR5RiqLaA8CJDtPwvz25vFn7cf5ky at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Does anyone know if Gary Becker and the other gentleman working on
these projects are/were coco enthusiasts
at some point? Or are they just diehard hardware hackers looking for a
challenge?

I don't believe I've heard their names until now.



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