[Coco] CoCo keyboard connector

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 2:13 PM, George Ramsower <georgera at gvtc.com> wrote:
>  Quite a few years ago, I experimented with a coco on this matter of many switches/inputs without an add-on board. Using OS-9, I renamed /T2 to /Term, eliminated the driver for the keyboard and video and used a Kimtron terminal on /T2 as the console. This freed up the PIA used on the keyboard. I was limited on the inputs as the matrix driver is now gone. I think the original driver for the keyboard can be used to expand the possibilities.
>   My thinking was that this may speed up the computer as a bonus but, I couldn't see any difference in speed. I'm sure Nitros9 could be done the same way, today. I left the keyboard in place so I could boot OS-9. Once the OS got to the OS BOOT screen, the screen ceased to function and the memory became part of RAM for the OS. All /term I/O went to the com port which was a deluxe RS-232 pak.
>
>  That was a LONG time ago. Can't remember the details of the building of the boot disk or what, if anything I had to do about joysticks and the cassette port.
>
> George

This is very similar to the "headless" series of disks that can be
found in the NitrOS9 nightly builds.  They send the console over a
DriveWire channel, freeing up lots of memory for the OS that normally
is taken by the coco I/O modules.