[Coco] CoCo monstrosity |was: [OT] Atari 8-bit video card

[T. Franklin]

Although I agree with some of what you said, there are those of us who like to dream and tinker. Not to make wheel barrels full of money or become a world wide computer design rock star. We do it because it's there. Because it's a challenge. Or, like me, because I've nothing better to do. Making a CoCo drive a PCI bus couldn't be done of course, but as one other suggested, putting a FPGA and some RAM on a small board and program it to act as a VGA video card from the CoCo slot is a very doable project. I've been working on a preliminary design in my spare time already. It?s not moving very fast because of the many other interruptions in life but it?s in the works.






-----Original Message-----
From: Steve [mailto:6809er at srbsoftware.com]
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 01:52 PM
To: 'CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts'
Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo monstrosity |was: [OT] Atari 8-bit video card

On 6/17/2013 10:15 AM, Mike Pepe wrote:> In theory someone could make a bridge between the CoCo and a PCI-E > slot and you could command a modern video card with the CoCo driving a > modern monitor. It would be an interesting experiment, albeit > something that's probably not at all practical. -MikeIt's just not practical, but shouldn't even be talk about since it could never be made to work.I've seen some dream-up "pie in the sky" "theories" on stuff to interface a coco to, but this one takes the cake.It really begs the question, if your CoCo is not doing that you want than why don't you get a computer that does it already?The CoCo was great back in its day, but that was 25 years ago. Computers have come a long way baby!I must have Designed/Built/Owned about 250 computers by now. Only about 8 of those have been types of cocos. Maybe that's why I'm unwilling to put so much time and $$$ into making the CoCo do things that other computer can easily do because of their more modern design.CoCo emulators, Floppy Disk drive emulators, FPGA-based Cocos and Driver servers like DriveWire are good additions for CoCo users trying to keep their hobby alive. But if you want to do more than the limits of a CoCo , there lots of good (and cheap) micro-controllers and computers out there. (Think Picaxe, Arduino, Raspberry Pi and old PC to name a few.)I'm not saying to not try and push the limits of the CoCo. Just don't waste time and money turning a beloved CoCo into a Frankenstein Monster that no one would want to play with.Steve--Coco mailing listCoco at maltedmedia.comhttp://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco