[Coco] (no subject)

[Francis Swygert]

Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 09:43:05 -0800
From: Steve Batson <steve at batsonphotography.com>

I
 hear that and have mentioned that in the past. Some don't like the 
emulator idea. I'd be fine with a solid emulated system and ability to 
connect old peripherals.


> On Feb 23, 2015, at 9:34 AM, Zippster <zippster278 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> At what point have you moved so much of the functionality to FPGA/CPLD and the like
> that you might as well just be running an emulator?  Or just have it completely emulated in
> an FPGA on a board with retro-compatible connectors for old peripherals?
> 
> Serious question.
==================================
Steve Bjork had the idea of making a plug-in PC card that had some of the CoCo connectors (mainly a cartridge slot and joysticks) so that an emulator could be modified for it. I've advocated the idea of an OS like Linux or FreeDOS stripped down and streamlined to only run a emulator. No time to do it myself, and I don't exactly have all the skills to pull it off in a timely manner. I would think the joysticks would be relatively easy, the cartridge slot the most difficult. Could be adapters instead of a card.Source code for the emulator might be a necessity, and it may need to be dedicated to a platform for best efficiency. I'd buy something like that even if it was dedicated to one of the small PC platforms, an Atom powered mini ITX or RaspberryPi. MESS can be stripped down to emulate only one system, but that would require someone capable of some serious programming and understanding of the MESS code. One of the DOS emulators (isn't source available
 for one of those?) would likely be easier, but then programming ports to emulate the CoCo joysticks (for real CoCo joysticks to plug into) and the cartridge port (an old Centronics parallel port might be programmable to emulate it...) might be difficult. The only problem with using legacy devices like the joysticks is that they are currently hard to find. 

 
Frank Swygert 
Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service 
803-604-6548