[Coco] .BIN to .ROM

[Chad H]

Well ROM packs are not perfect for EVERY situation of course, but I can't
imagine anything would be.  But there are many great hardwares and softwares
that, with a little tweaking, could be even better.  The FDC packs you are
talking about emulate floppy drives from SD, correct?  Sounds like DriveWire
without the cable and server in a way.  Would they allow one to select a
.ROM and emulate a EPROM on powerup?  That's one of the projects I'm working
on.  I would hate to re-invent a wheel that someone else is already
test-driving on.  But being able to emulate a EPROM with a ROM loaded from
SD, that should negate most of your points.  Just leave in the cartridge and
go, maybe swapping out the SD card if need be from time to time.

-----Original Message-----
From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
Behalf Of Steve
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2013 5:48 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] .BIN to .ROM

Once one of the new FDC are done, I think you will find it easier to load a
file from a SD card even easier than plugging in a new Rompak to change the
program to run.  Besides, you run the risk of damaging the CoCo the plugging
and unplugging all those Rompaks.

The bottom line to what you are trying to do is something that is not
regularly done on the CoCo for the following reasons...

1) The cost and limited supply in eproms and paks.

2) Most BIN will not fit in 16K for CoCo 1/2 or 32K for a CoCo3.

3) Having to convert from BIN TO ROM or add a boot-loader to the make it
work.

4) The possibility of damaging the CoCo by power it up/down or plugging a
rompak in wrong.  There was an YouTube video of a CoCo that retained power
for like a minute.  Do you wait that long before unplugging a rompak?  If
you do, I would not call it fast loading.

For me, I don't see any real advantage to putting EVERYTHING on rompaks.
And this is coming from the king of rompak programming.

Steve


On 12/24/2013 2:39 PM, Chad H wrote:
> It's just the simplicity and zero-wait of turning on the CoCo and it 
> already being in your program, whatever it is.  As it is, I can only 
> really achieve this through EPROM cartridges.  Setting it to load up 
> off of floppy automatically speeds up the process.  By the time my 
> DriveWire server machine boots and is ready I could have done loaded it
from other  means.
> Of course if I start the DriveWire service machine up first and come back
in
> a few minutes everything's on nearly level ground.   Still, there's
nothing
> quicker or easier than the original feature of the CoCo being able to 
> load programs instantly off of cartridges.
>

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