[Coco] Off Topic but neato "Tiny $35 Raspberry Pi computer causes big stir on launch day"

[Steve Bjork]

I was very "up front" that a PC was the core of the project.  You could 
run it on a standard PC or use a micro PC inside a CoCo case with an I/O 
interface board that lets you plug-in carts, floppy drive, joysticks, 
cassette and even a CoCo keyboard.  It was a way to keep the CoCo alive 
when so few working CoCo 3 in the wild.

The bottom line, the CoCo experience was as much or as little you wanted 
to put into it.

There are some out there that want to use the CoCo to drive their modern 
hardware projects.  I would never consider this because there are so 
many better solutions out there.  (Basic Stamp, Pic, Picaxe, Arduino and 
the Raspberry Pi to name just a few.)

A Halloween prop builders club that I belong are use the Picaxe 18M2 and 
MP3 player module to create a LED thunder and Lightning device for less 
than $30.  It's hard to find a used CoCo 3 for that price.  (Besides, 
the CoCo does not have PWM nor 24 bit audio.)

The CoCo was good back in its day.  Now 32 years later, there is a lot 
of good hardware out there to hack with.

Steve

On 2/29/2012 9:17 AM, Rod Barnhart wrote:
> There are purists who would do the same if I weren't up front about it
> being "just emultation." But that's all it would be, with a bit of
> hardware hacking thrown in (has anyone built a CoCo keyboard<->  USB
> interface?) While not the same as hacking around on the real thing, it
> could still be a fun project :)
>
> --
> Rod Barnhart
>