[Coco] Multipak redesign/replacement / New CoCo...

[Frank Swygert]

Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 08:52:53 -0800
From: "Steve Batson"<steve at batsonphotography.com>

Having read a lot of this thread, pas threads about CoCo 4 (followed by
complaints that it comes up every year), and other new hardware products
for the CoCo, I have the following thoughts...
Let's face it...The CoCo hardware is aging and will continue to become more scarce. While there are lots of new products/projects that address the peripherals,
there really isn't a decent drop in place, ready to go 100% compatible CoCo hardware platform that I'm aware of.
At what point do all these add-on's become useless as more and more CoCo's die, become un-repairable and unobtainable? I don't know.
Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on creating a new Fully CoCo 2/3 Compatible Motherboard (as opposed to a*New*  CoCo 4 that seems to get Poo Poo'd every time
it comes up)  that incorporates many of the features that all these individual projects provide? Also, maybe make the board fit in either the original CoCo case (if feasible) and a standard PC Case allowing users to install in the case of their choice. A board that provides VGA Port, Composite Video, Audio, USB (with on board logic for Keyboard, Joystick and keyboard so no drivers are needed), Sound, RS-232, Drive controller, etc all on-board with additional expansion ports available instead of needing a Multipak. The board designed to use a standard ATX
style Power Supply.
I'm just brainstorming here, but it seems to me that a single board where most commonly used and needed features that could share resources and have solid on-board connections to the CoCo resources makes more sense than a ton of separate new boards and products that connect to the original CoCo that could die at any point and be difficult to replace. Cost might be greatly reduced overall vs. buying all the separate items. Lot's of possibilities here, just figured I'd toss
this out there

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And we have that! The FPGA CoCo3 has all the hardware built into it (no "real" floppy drive controller, SD card with emulation). Or you can set up an emulator on an older model PC. Neither solution is ideal to everyone, but both pretty much do exactly what you've suggested. To get real floppies on the FPGA model you use DriveWire and a PC server with a real floppy attached. Better to use one of those mini Android (or whatever!) PCs or a Raspberry Pi for a server due to small size.