[Coco] My DE-1 project just took a leep forward!

[Bill Nobel]

Hey Tim,  just going to give my two cents.  Myself I love to do programming.  When Curtis Boyle and myself created Nitros9, we tried a purchased upgrade path.  That worked at the time, but now it is in open source per say.  I am in total agreement with this because, it opens the door to many programmers to enhance.  I agree with Nick here…. It is just FUN….

Bill Nobel

Now it is freely available (which is awesome).  The work that has been put into it by so many people has made it better, because of it.


> On Oct 23, 2015, at 5:36 PM, tim franklinlabs.com <tim at franklinlabs.com> wrote:
> 
>   I guess my only comments would be that there's only a few who would
>   write software for any CoCo and even less that would buy it. Your Pilot
>   game is awesome but I must ask why are you writing it? You're spending
>   a huge amount of time and effort writing a game that only a handful
>   will play. There's absolutely no market for it so money can't be your
>   motive. You're posting the sequence of events on creating the game so
>   others can learn but you don't post the code which limits those who
>   want to learn.
>   So why? You write it because you can. You write it because you enjoy
>   it. You don't share the code because it's yours and some things need to
>   be kept behind closed doors (Just ask SB).
> 
>   For the same reason you are writing the game, we are making our own
>   "version" of the CoCo. Others have chosen to create hardware clone
>   equivalent CoCo's. I've chosen a different path. Who will write code
>   for it? Well, I will. Others may too, It's not important in the end.
>   The goal is to enjoy this hobby.
>   I will share the code when I get to a point that I'm happy with it.
>   Some may learn from it. Others wont care. Either way... I'm having
>   fun!!!
> 
>   On October 23, 2015 at 5:49 PM Nick Marentes <nickma at optusnet.com.au>
>   wrote:
>   On 24/10/2015 4:59 AM, tim franklinlabs.com wrote:
>> With very little time to work on my SoCoCo project I had another
>> breakthrough today. Thanks to Zippsters suggestion with a cheap
>   digital
>> analyzer, I was able to solve my video problem. My 6809 core now runs
>> completely under the DE-1's 8 meg of SDRAM with the video using the
>   512
>> meg of SRAM. Again, the CPU speed is limited to about 1.2MHz but I
>   plan
>> on getting that faster in the future. The limiting factor is the
>   access
>> timing on the SDRAM. Now I can focus my energy to getting the
>> "modified" CoCo Basic running.
>> 
>> It's not my intention to make this backward compatible. That's being
>> done very well by Gary Beckers project. I'm looking at creating a
>   "NEW"
>> Coco with the features I want. I still want it to be able to run many
>> BASIC programs now available with some backward compatibility but I'm
>> more interested in new CoCo-Concepts!!
>> 
>> Features I'm planning on putting in:
>> 
>> - SD disk usage within the BASIC platform
>> - 80 (and possibly 132) column text similar to the VGA standard
>> - 800x600x4096 colors
>> - Yamaha DX7 sound engine (open source code already exists)
>> - Bitter/Blitter and Sprite engine
>> 
>> -Tim
>> 
>> 
>   May be a good time to also consider WHO is going to write software that
>   will showcase and use these features considering how little is written
>   for the existing CoCo's.
>   I don't want to sound negative and I'm all for new hardware but this is
>   a very relevant question with now 4 people developing FPGA CoCo's.
>   Nick
>   --
>   Coco mailing list
>   Coco at maltedmedia.com
>   https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> <tim at franklinlabs.com.vcf>
> -- 
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco