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

[Glen Hewlett]

Hi Ron,

I have compiled the fairly recent versions of MAME on my Pi 3 and tinkered with the CoCo3 emulation on it and found it excellent.  That actually led me getting back into playing with the CoCo again about a year ago. 

Sound like you have taken it to a whole new level and I really like the sounds of your setup and the options you suggested.  I for one sure would love to see a dedicated CoCo emulation distribution for the RPi 3

Since it’s all linux based people could use lots of tools already created like LWTOOLS and use it to do development work.  Looking at optimizing my sprite rendering I came across this cool video/audio game engine called DynoSprite - https://github.com/richard42/dynosprite <https://github.com/richard42/dynosprite>
Maybe tools like these could also be setup and ready to go on the microSD image

I know this is a lot of work, and I’m not saying you should do it all on your own.  I’m just saying that I think it would be awesome to have for the CoCo community.  It would be a great place for people thinking of getting back into the CoCo to start and for long time CoCo users they could have a portable CoCo anywhere an HDMI TV/monitor is.

The most important things I think for such a project are:
- a usual RPI distribution microSD image
- an easy way to get the ROMs on the microSD
- an easy way to upgrade MAME (just to keep it current)

Cheers,
Glen


> On Mar 15, 2017, at 8:27 AM, Ron Klein <ron at kdomain.org> wrote:
> 
> 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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>> 
>> 
> 
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