[Coco] Looks like someone has already done some legwork to get a Pi to boot as a Coco

[Ron Klein]

Hi John,

I have a Raspberry Pi 3 I run Coco emulation on.  I do use RetroPie and it
works well for classic game system and arcade game emulation.  It does run
XRoar and you can automatically boot into a particular system.  Some were
asking how fast this process is -- all relative and nothing is
instantaneous.

I actually prefer to "roll my own" set up and use Raspbian as the base OS
on the Pie (which RetroPie uses) but do some additional tweaking from
there.  I'm able to use XRoar, but also have the latest version of MAME
running (0.183) with video hardware acceleration.  Emulation speed is great
and MAME's compatibility is very good.  Using some simple scripts, I can
automatically into MAME and even a particular system (like the Coco 3).  I
also host Drivewire 4 on the Pi, so it can serve DSK images to the
emulators or I can load DSK images locally using each emulator's disk
management interface.

Since the Pi has Bluetooth and WiFi, I can use many different keyboards,
game controllers, etc, without wires (with the exception of power and the
monitor).  I can also provide Drivewire 4 hosting to my real Coco 3 through
the use of a USB to serial adapter.

While I still prefer a real Coco, this method of emulation is nice and
fairly inexpensive.  At it's highest level, you can run a Coco 3 with 4MB
of RAM, have tons of storage, virtual MPI support with Orchestra 90
capabilities, too.  HDMI is nice, though there are ways to connect to VGA
or even composite video.  Digital audio through the HDMI port or analog
audio through the composite output jack.  You can also get a 9 pin serial
dongle which can be attached to the GPIO header if you don't want to use up
a USB port for serial connections.

Depending on how many folks are interested, perhaps we can create a Coco
emulation distribution for the Raspberry Pi which includes Drivewire and
other utilities (like toolshed and various compilers) so it can be a
development / debug platform of sorts.  That's how I use mine.  An SD card
image could be made of a pre-configured set up (with the exception of the
licensed ROMs).  Instructions would be provided on where to copy those ROM
files.

I would definitely recommend an RPI3 due to it's capabilities and
robustness.  A regular Pi or Pi 2 can run XRoar under RetroPie without any
issue.  Older versions of MAME (actually MESS) will work, but running at
full emulated speed is a bit tricky to do.  I believe Chris Hawks was one
of the first folks to try out Coco emulation on a Pi.

-Ron



On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 10:25 PM, John Guin <johnguin at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Retropie users already have a github page for the Coco:
> https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Coco
>
> If I had a few hours I would give this a try - anyone have a Pi laying
> around to try this out?
>
> John
>
>
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