[Coco] CoCo Ethernet for $25-$30...

[Christopher R. Hawks]

On Mon, 8 Apr 2013 13:41:46 -0700 (PDT)
Mark Marlette <mmarlette at frontiernet.net> wrote:

> ________________________________
>  From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com> 
> Sent: Monday, April 8, 2013 2:23 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo Ethernet for $25-$30...
>  
> On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Allen Huffman <alsplace at pobox.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Which brings me to the Raspberry Pi... It's $35, and about the same
> > price as some of these dedicated hardware solutions. It's cheaper
> > today to hook up a micro Linux machine like the Pi to the CoCo and
> > do stuff (audio, graphics, internet) in software than it would be
> > to buy an RS232 pak.
> >
> > With the Pi, it would be possible to hook one of those up to the
> > CoCo and do just about anything -- the CoCo could send a string to
> > configure it, then one byte command could tell the Pi to go
> > download mail and send it back as a .tar file via xmodem or
> > whatever, already formatted. Graphics could be downsized, etc.. But
> > that's not really having the CoCo "do" anything.
> >
> > Yet, it's so tiny, and runs "headless" and doesn't need a PC or
> > anything... That might really be the best thing to hook to a CoCo.
> >
> >
> > Is anyone attempting any Pi/CoCo stuff?
> >
> 
> The DriveWire 4 server and GUI both run on the Raspberry Pi, and
> provide full DW4 functionality exactly the same as running DW4 on a
> PC.  DW4 also runs on certain Linksys routers, the Nokia N800 tablet,
> and other small devices.
> 
> You can run just the DW server (very small footprint, needs only a few
> MB of ram) on the Pi/other embedded device and connect to that server
> with the GUI from a regular PC.  You can also completely manage the DW
> server from the CoCo and not use the GUI at all.   Unlike the other
> small devices, the Pi can also run the GUI locally.  Full support for
> the Pi is built into DriveWire releases since version 4.3.1 IIRC.
> 
> I would very much like to put a Pi in a ROMPak (it fits perfectly!).
> However, using a serial interface is just slow and cumbersome... We
> need a way to interface from the Pi to the bus directly, especially
> since then we could build the Pi into a usable rompak that you just
> plug in and go.
> One route is to use the GPIO pins on the Pi as a parallel port or
> similar interface, another is to use the SPI interface on the pi to
> something that would talk to the coco bus.  I've talked with many
> people over the past couple years about ways to do this, and there are
> options but no clear solution that has been taken forward yet to my
> knowledge.
> 
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Sounds like a good subject to talk about at the fest. Bring your Pi.
> I'll bring a pack.
> 
> I have the mechanism to have fast transfers occur at the CoCo's
> bandwidth.
> 
> What I don't know is the Pi. Sandy will kill me if she finds out that
> I am taking on another project before SB completion.... :) Seriously,
> she will......
> 
> So we are just brainstorming.......
>

	My Pi will be there with a (USB) Coco 3 keyboard. It runs MESS
pretty well.



Christopher R. Hawks
HAWKSoft
-- 
UNIX command of the day:
	  # If I had a ( for every $ Congress spent, what would I have?
	  Too many ('s.