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

[Joel Ewy]

On 04/10/2013 09:44 PM, Allen Huffman wrote:
> On Apr 9, 2013, at 8:31 PM, Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com> wrote:
>> We need to think seriously about a "modern" interface between CoCo and
>> (something) where (something) is any of the above, ideally.  A
>> standard way to connect a Pi, audrino, propeller,  the next big thing,
>> and so on.
> Here here!
>
> When looking through the 1983 Rainbow (link posted earlier), I was seeing all kinds of ads for ROM PAK enclosures and other hardware hacking stuff... I had no interest then, but sure would now.

Allen, I've just started laying out a ROM PAK enclosure replacement in 
OpenSCAD to make with my 3D printer.  The cool thing about doing it that 
way is that it can be customized on an individual basis with cutouts for 
controls, connectors, cable outlets, et cetera.  A game-sized cartridge 
will just barely fit on the build platform of my Thing-O-Matic.  In 
fact, I'll probably have to try several goes before I get the part 
positioned just right so that it fits in between the screw heads that 
hold the build platform down.  But it should be doable.

When my tax refund comes in I plan to get the parts I'll need to make a 
RepRap Mendel, which I think has a bigger build platform. That will also 
increase the rate at which I can produce things if I run 2 machines in 
parallel.

JCE

> It is real cheap and quick to make a simple circuit board and have it in a few weeks... I am hoping I can figure out enough to make a cartridge with a port to plug in a Teensy. That, alone, would open up a huge door of experimenting.
>
>> Another possibility is "SPI", as it seems all the boards support it.
>> SPI is interesting also because it's what SD cards use and seems to be
>> a really common way to make things talk to each other.   Probably more
>> complex to make a coco->spi interface than a coco->parallel, but
>> possibly worth it?
> I work with SPI at my day job, and I haven't looked in to it far enough yet, but at least one of the things I work with could be clocked down slow enough that a CoCo could talk to it... And there are WiFi chips, ethernet chips (Wizpro is SPI), digital potentiometers, multiplexers, etc. that all communicate over SPI.
>
> It really looks trivial. Heck, look at how simple the code on the Arduino libraries is to talk to SPI. It just needs a clock.
>
> That's a really good idea.
>
> 		-- A
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