[Coco] Just a thought

[Hugo Dufort]

I have thought about this question for a long time, pondering the 
various options.
It all depends on what we would wish to accomplish. I can see two very 
different solutions:
1. RETRO-FUTURIST-COCO: We could build a vintage computer using mostly 
early-1990s technology (e.g. the M68000, NitrOS9L4 windowed 
environment), showing some continuity and partial compatibility with the 
Coco3. Running Coco3 code would require either (1) recompiling existing 
Coco code using a tool similar to XLATE09, or (2) using a code 
loader+translator (on-the-fly code translation), or (3) have a physical 
6809 as a slave to the 68k for running dedicated legacy code in parallel 
(!) With a 8mb memory for instance, the 6809 could access 1mb when it's 
running, while the 68k accesses the rest. Managing resource conflicts 
would be a challenge.
2. FRANKEN-COCO: We could use current 21th century technologies to build 
a small computer that can emulate the Coco3 in "protected processes", 
but also offer modern and evolutive hardware support and libraries. 
Basically it would require a rewrite of OS9 to work on a modern CPU 
while emulating Coco3 code. It would be best to have a co-processor 
offering DMA/block transfer, GIME emulation, sprite/bitblt, multi-voice 
sound, etc.

Hugo


Le 2015-03-26 11:23, Chris Osborn a écrit :
> On Mar 26, 2015, at 8:02 AM, Louis Ciotti <lciotti1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> YAY the now bi-monthly CoCo 4 thread!
>>
>> Is it that time of year already???
> And again we will have the usual discussion all about what the hardware should be and no-one will ever stop and think about what the software and improved user experience would be. What would the benefits to the user be for a CoCo4 if it’s just going to run the same old stuff?
>
> --
> Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
> Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
>
>
>
>


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