[Coco] Coco Flash

[Francis Swygert]

I don't have either the CoCoFlash or the SDC, but here is what I understand to be the differences.
1. CoCoFlash is intended to take the place of a ROM pack, not a disk drive, whereas the SDC is designed to take the place of a disk drive, not a ROM pack. That is the primary difference.
2. There is a bit of different structure in the way they work because of that difference. Flash ROM isn't really designed to read/write like a SD card for one thing. The CoCoFlash has a menu as it is intended to only run one ROM pack at a time, and not write to itself very often. The SDC uses a modified version of HDB-DOS (don't recall if it has a separate ROM or Flash memory for this or stored on the SD card)to use multiple disk images. 

3. So you can use the SDC to store ROM images (.dsk files) that should work -- up to 256 of them (that's the HBD-DOS limit of the number of virtual drives). The packs will have to have been modified to run from disk though. You should be able to interrupt the execution of the ROM pack, at least in some instances, and load something different without powering on/off or resetting. I know some ROM Pack inages won't work that way, but some modified for disk will. CoCoFlash runs unmodified images just as if it was the only one plugged in. The only way to get out of such a program is to reset the computer, or power on/off -- just like changing a ROM Pack. 

I tink that covers the basics, though I'm sure there are some details I left out. Frank Swygert
 Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service
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