[Coco] CoCo4! 50% done!

[iggybeans at comcast.net]

>Message: 6 
>Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 12:16:09 -0500 
>From: billg999 at cs.uofs.edu 
>Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo4! 50% done! 
>To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com> 
>Message-ID: 
> <3ea19929dfd434b791e71af9eeb5d824.squirrel at www.cs.uofs.edu> 
>Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 


>For the record and to inform the others who were in my shoes.... 

>I did finally get into the COCO3FPGA Yahoo Group. 

>I was able to get some stuff from the files. But my DE-1 is at 
>home and I am at work.... :-( Why does this work stuff constantly 
>get in the way of having fun... 

>I saw what looked like a version for a Spartan. I grabbed this as 
>well as I am hoping to have one of them soon, too. Hopefully the 
>board I am planning on getting is the one it was done for. 

>Let the fun begin!!! 

>bill 

Bill, um, before you take it upon yourself to use Gary Becker's code as the basis for an enhanced Coco, you might want to ask for Gary's permission. 
To the best of my knowledge, Gary considers this his property and would like to use it for the basis of his CocoX project. 
I am also part of Becker's group, but I have personally assured him I will not use his code in my own projects. 
Right now I have the OpenCores code for the MC6821 PIAs, and was considering whether it was worth trying to duplicate Gary's efforts (its a monstrous undertaking). 
Also, the 6809 core Gary uses could definitely use some work. 
Right now its not even close the cycle exact and has none of the 6309 enhancements. 
And ideally, a new CPU core would go even further than those two goals. 

If you really want to explore this idea, open it up to the community, make sure you aren't basing it on something proprietary, and let's get started. 

Since there has been some work already done on it, one thing I'd like to see is a Sprite Graphics generator added to the VDP. 
A hardware cursor generated with this would definitely simply cursor movement. 
Many other possible enhancements could be considered.