Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!puff!kottke From: kottke@puff.wisc.edu (Rich Kottke) Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809 Subject: Re: Future of Coco Message-ID: <1299@puff.wisc.edu> Date: Sun, 22-Nov-87 20:26:41 EST Article-I.D.: puff.1299 Posted: Sun Nov 22 20:26:41 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Nov-87 21:47:01 EST References: <821@cblpf.ATT.COM> Reply-To: kottke@puff.WISC.EDU (Rich Kottke) Distribution: na Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept Lines: 77 Keywords: Coco OS9 Summary: Improve the 6809, move COCO to a bigger box In article <821@cblpf.ATT.COM> mdk@cblpf.ATT.COM (Mike King) writes: > > >What do you feel is the future of the Color Computer? What improvements in >design, peripherals, software will be available in the next ten years? How >will Tandy react to these improvments in marketing, software development, etc.? >What would *you* like to see in the way of improvement of the Coco? ... >programs. Tandy might even change the disk controller to access 40 and 80 >track drives, include a real-time clock, and a parallel interface. With >improvements in the CPU, the Coco will be able to access 1 MB of memory on >the motherboard. With the higher memory access, we can expect to see >better graphics capabilities, and higher clock speeds. Ok, I've been reading this group long enough so I guess it's time to throw in my $.02 worth. I have several proposed improvements that could extend the COCO line indefinitly: 1) Add an external keyboard with a long (8') curled cord. I have been trying to find time to do this with my system; my idea is to plug it into the cassette port and use the cassette port as another bit-banger port (this wouldn't be so bad because the keyboard will not respond until you ASK it to, so the port isn't really running asynchronously). Think of the problems this would solve! The COCO/MULTIPACK/CABLE_SNARL mess could be pushed out of sight and all you would see on your desk would be a stylish keyboard and a monitor. I bought a surplus ADAM (tm) keyboard that has some kind of serial interface, but I guess I will probably have to rip it out and make my own. 2) Make the multipack thing the RIGHT way (the way I made mine :-) ). Make a program-pack sized interface board that contains only some line drivers and line receivers. Then use a 5' twisted pair ribbon cable to transmit these signals to the multipack; everthing else (the decoding circuit, selector switch etc.) is in the multipack box, which now can be out of sight, along with all of the things you plug into it and your cable snarl. I made mine with 4 slots but I have provided for expansion to 8 slots. 3) Combination of 1) and 2) : put the COCO and a slot bay inside of a PC-clone box. You could do this yourself, but maybe Tandy could do it with the COCO-4. 4) Now we come to what I want to see in the COCO-4: a box as above, with the floppy controller on the motherboard. Also on the motherboard should be a parallel printer interface and an ACIA (these chips cost $3.00 apiece and there is room in the memory map for them. Why weren't they in the COCO-3?) A better MMU would also be needed; one that has smaller pages and can use 2 or 4 meg would be nice. Of course it would have to also be GIME compatible :-). Maybe better graphics, too. 5) For the COCO-5, how about a 68020 coprocessor with 10 meg of zero wait state RAM? ( dream dream dream ...) >I would like to be >able to access some MS-DOS applications (Did I actually say that dirty >word???:-):-)), so I would like to see some utility that would allow the >Coco to use MS-DOS programs. I DO NOT want the Coco to go to an MS-DOS >format. Ooooh! Ick! It would be better if Tandy promoted the COCO better and induced the companies that write all of those MSH*T-DOS applications to write versions for OS-9. I have seen quite a few of these applications programs; are you really sure you want them? The worst ones bury you in a sea of menus and options and take > 380K in the bargain. (Perhaps they were written in Ada (tm) :-] ). Well that's all I have to say on this subject; I hope we can raise the traffic level on this newsgroup and get some good info flowing. -Rich ______________________________________________________________________________ "It works better when it's plugged in, Rich" - Larry Whitney _____________________________________________________________________________