[Coco] Introduction, cartridge slot proto boards, J&M controllers, and EDTASM pak.

[Steven Hirsch]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2013, Mark J. Blair wrote:

> Also, how could I bootstrap DriveWire onto my CoCo if I don't have any 
> means of writing CoCo floppies other than on the CoCo itself? I bought a 
> device called KryoFlux thinking I'd use it to write CoCo floppies on my 
> Mac, but I didn't read the fine print enough to realize that it's going 
> to take some software development work before I can do that. It'll read 
> the floppies just fine, but there's a big gaping hole in the write side 
> of the equation. Grr!

Welcome to the sucker's - err, Kryoflux customer's list. I have one 
sitting here collecting dust.  They talk a great talk, but haven't even 
been able to get the thing to reliably read a variety of MFM formatted 
diskettes.  If I wanted nice hardware with deficient software support, I'd 
have stuck with my Catweasel.  At least the CW has a modest amount of 3rd 
party support even though it's been abandoned by the vendor.

> For the Apple IIe that I'm also playing with, I found a package called 
> ADTpro which can be used to transfer Apple disk images to floppies on 
> the Apple over a serial link. It can even bootstrap itself onto an Apple 
> with no pre-existing floppy disks by taking advantage of the way Apples 
> let you receive input from a serial card as if you typed it on the 
> keyboard. It seems to me that it should be quite possible to do a 
> similar thing on the CoCo using either the cassette interface, or a 
> Deluxe RS232 Pak plus multi-pak interface. Has that particular wheel 
> already been invented on the CoCo?

ADTPro is very cool indeed.  I've always wanted to port DriveWire to the 
Apple 2, but never got a Round Tuit.  Maybe when I retire :-)

Steve


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