[Coco] Advice

[Bill Pierce]

Camillus,
You have probably stumbled on John Turner's MPI schematics. There is also a 3rd 8 slot MPI schematic by Tom Gunnison if you look deep enough. His is also available on his website and he is on this list.
John Turner has been absent from the Coco community for a few years now, some say most likely health problems (and some think worse).
As far as copyrights on John's schematics, your guess is as good as mine. Tom can be contacted for info on his.
Also, if you really look, you find John's schematics for an RS-232 pak, FD-502 clone, Orchestra90/Stereo pak, 8k Eprom pak, 32k Eprom pak, Flexi-Buffer buffered IO pak, Midi pk, Tri-Cable pak, Pal MPI upgrade, Slot extender card, Universal Composite monitor driver, 512k Simm board, and maybe others (can't remember)
John's notes say he did these from memory as he had experienced a hard drive crash and lost all the tested schematics so these are untested.
John had a website & company named "GIMEChip". All of these schematics were salvaged by someone when they attempted to archive the website before it went down. Part of the site is still in the "wayback machine" site, but not much.
There are also posts on coco3.com that you'll want to view where John was posting updates to his 8 slot design.
http://www.coco3.com/community/2010/07/this-is-part-1-of-2-of-an-8-slot-mpi-multi-pak-interface-design-for-my-friends-at-coco3-com-andor-the-maltedmedia-list-members-from-your-friend-johngimechip-com/
 

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens
 

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com


 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Camillus Blockx <camillus.b.58 at gmail.com>
To: Bill via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Sun, Feb 1, 2015 9:27 pm
Subject: [Coco] Advice


Hi all coco geeks,


When browsing the coco archieve, I stumbled on two schematics and instructables 
to build a MPI for the coco computer. One is a 4port MPI and the other is a 8 
Port. By the looks of the documents it is from the same author. 

I'm planning to make the 8 port version based on the schematics I found, but my 
design will not be the classic case. What I want to do is kind of make it as a 
stand on. This means that I would like to integrate Floppy( or emulators ) and 
Harddisk ( or emulator ) and there respective controllers into this stand on 
case. The height of it would be maximun the height of a 5.1/4 floppy drive,   
All the cables would be inside as the drives, 4 slots for cartridges would be on 
1 side. A buildin power supply, that also will take over the original power. I 
was thinking also on a slide out keyboard, but I do not want to need a ladder to 
reach the coco...LOL Want to keep it as low as I can, Possible that I make a new 
case also so that I can make it modular. 

Now Is any one familiar with the schematics and know if there is copyright on 
them, or if they are free to use?
Also did someone all ready build a MPI using those schematics? 

And if any one who wants to make a similar project, then maybe we can share some 
thoughts and make it a joint venture?

reply to me on my email to keep the coco media free of back and forth mail.


greeting camillus 

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
http://www.avast.com

-- 
Coco mailing list
Coco at maltedmedia.com
https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco