Holy Toledo...This reminds me of my old Co Co expansion port...which was easy to freeze up.🤐 This is really cool. You burned the midnight oil on this project! Wonder if a bunch of old games could be stored in slots and menu selected?
I assume the goal would be to make a sort of "reverse sleeper" build? Something that fits in a modern PC case, but is actually a CoCo? Or maybe you would also support other (homemade) cards, much like PC, to introduce new capabilities. Nice work!
Thank you! A reverse sleeper build, I like that! One of the drivers behind this is to have a real CoCo that sits in a modern PC case and uses a modern PC PSU. Another driver is to make it sort of modular so it can also be a CoCo 2 and a CoCo 3 by simply by swapping out one card. The big driver however is to make it more hackable so that CoCo hardware can be developed with it and then ported to an authentic CoCo. I don't really see it as defined yet so maybe it will evolve into something else.
@@rockyhill3 Yeah if you can make it "switch" that would be an incredibly cool thing. For people who want to save space (two or more CoCos in one!) or for those who want to develop for multiple CoCos.... Whatever you do, don't visit the MC-10 channel and ask if you should make an MC-10 card... or a Dragon card.... I feel like some enterprising FPGA guy will create a computer on a card to work on your backplane. It'll be pretty flippin' awesome. I want one NOW!
@@rockyhill3 A coco that can work over a KVM would be an amazing space saver to be sure. Also just noticed the "SAM/VDG card" has the video feed plugged in there. Clearly it's the "video card" which would be replaced by the GIME-# card for CoCo3 mode. That's where I would enlist someone to participate (not me, I'm not even close to being qualified) to establish the "video card(s)" to be equipped with sound/vga and/or HDMI with sound and/or composite video with sound, etc. That's very exciting. But whatever is done it shouldn't need to be a hack process like "connect to an RGB2HDMI from here" card.
I was swamped and there are many variables so I opted to implement only the safe stuff with only a few features, USB keyboard & header to power and reset the CoCo from the front of the case.That said, there is a video card/circuit in the works.
@@rockyhill3 Actually, talk to L.Curtis to see if he has any plans to implement anything like DriveWire services under NitrOS9. Then there could actually be a CoCo server! Because right now "CoCo Servers" aren't CoCos. How amazing would it be to actually create OS9 level 3 or to simply use your enhanced architecture to build a proper 680x0 based CoCo by switching out some cards.
I have noticed there is some sort of booting/timing issue with the SDC. I've experienced this problem before when testing MPIs and things like that. I always felt like I broke something but I think Darren Atkinson might be able to shed some light on that because it's definitely not an uncommon issue. Its behavior is kind of like "the CoCoSDC doesn't quite initialize before it's called on to run the autoexec because if you continued your test, you'd find you could navigate the file system on the SDC and even run the explorer manually.
Oh, yes, I have experienced this before. When I made the CART card I forgot to route E and Q so I had to bodge those down the board edge. What happened there was that when I introduced the card one of the lines came loose and it wouldn't start properly.
@@rockyhill3 I don't pretend to know why but that's interesting insight. I'll have to go back and check into that again. I bought an up-upgraded MPI and used it with different machines and this anomaly happened. I don't recall if I ever retested it after I upgraded the MPI for CoCo3 compatibility. Maybe I'll check into that one day.
Just noticed the CPU board uses one side of a PCI-X card and the other device cards use the other side. I imagine that'll become more uniform as you develop. Have you created a breadboard card?
For the sake of getting this project started, I picked the side of the board that made the routing a little easier the boards. I haven't made a breadboard card yet but it's definitely on the list of cards to make.
This is outstanding! Nice work!
Thank you!
Ha! Brilliant! Nice work!
Thank you! Still much to do!
Very Cool Rocky
Thank you!
Holy Toledo...This reminds me of my old Co Co expansion port...which was easy to freeze up.🤐
This is really cool. You burned the midnight oil on this project! Wonder if a bunch of old games could be stored in slots and menu selected?
Thanks! I'm thinking something like a boot loader on the ROM card sometime in the future......
I assume the goal would be to make a sort of "reverse sleeper" build? Something that fits in a modern PC case, but is actually a CoCo? Or maybe you would also support other (homemade) cards, much like PC, to introduce new capabilities. Nice work!
Thank you! A reverse sleeper build, I like that! One of the drivers behind this is to have a real CoCo that sits in a modern PC case and uses a modern PC PSU. Another driver is to make it sort of modular so it can also be a CoCo 2 and a CoCo 3 by simply by swapping out one card. The big driver however is to make it more hackable so that CoCo hardware can be developed with it and then ported to an authentic CoCo. I don't really see it as defined yet so maybe it will evolve into something else.
@@rockyhill3 Yeah if you can make it "switch" that would be an incredibly cool thing. For people who want to save space (two or more CoCos in one!) or for those who want to develop for multiple CoCos....
Whatever you do, don't visit the MC-10 channel and ask if you should make an MC-10 card... or a Dragon card.... I feel like some enterprising FPGA guy will create a computer on a card to work on your backplane. It'll be pretty flippin' awesome. I want one NOW!
Outstanding!
Need a backplane that works in a 1RU chassis 🤪
Thank you! A CoCo server is exactly what wed need!
@@rockyhill3 A coco that can work over a KVM would be an amazing space saver to be sure. Also just noticed the "SAM/VDG card" has the video feed plugged in there. Clearly it's the "video card" which would be replaced by the GIME-# card for CoCo3 mode. That's where I would enlist someone to participate (not me, I'm not even close to being qualified) to establish the "video card(s)" to be equipped with sound/vga and/or HDMI with sound and/or composite video with sound, etc. That's very exciting. But whatever is done it shouldn't need to be a hack process like "connect to an RGB2HDMI from here" card.
I was swamped and there are many variables so I opted to implement only the safe stuff with only a few features, USB keyboard & header to power and reset the CoCo from the front of the case.That said, there is a video card/circuit in the works.
@@rockyhill3 Actually, talk to L.Curtis to see if he has any plans to implement anything like DriveWire services under NitrOS9. Then there could actually be a CoCo server! Because right now "CoCo Servers" aren't CoCos. How amazing would it be to actually create OS9 level 3 or to simply use your enhanced architecture to build a proper 680x0 based CoCo by switching out some cards.
@@anjinmiura6708 Sounds great! I still have to work out a tons of issues though...
I have noticed there is some sort of booting/timing issue with the SDC. I've experienced this problem before when testing MPIs and things like that. I always felt like I broke something but I think Darren Atkinson might be able to shed some light on that because it's definitely not an uncommon issue. Its behavior is kind of like "the CoCoSDC doesn't quite initialize before it's called on to run the autoexec because if you continued your test, you'd find you could navigate the file system on the SDC and even run the explorer manually.
Oh, yes, I have experienced this before. When I made the CART card I forgot to route E and Q so I had to bodge those down the board edge. What happened there was that when I introduced the card one of the lines came loose and it wouldn't start properly.
@@rockyhill3 I don't pretend to know why but that's interesting insight. I'll have to go back and check into that again. I bought an up-upgraded MPI and used it with different machines and this anomaly happened. I don't recall if I ever retested it after I upgraded the MPI for CoCo3 compatibility. Maybe I'll check into that one day.
Just noticed the CPU board uses one side of a PCI-X card and the other device cards use the other side. I imagine that'll become more uniform as you develop. Have you created a breadboard card?
For the sake of getting this project started, I picked the side of the board that made the routing a little easier the boards. I haven't made a breadboard card yet but it's definitely on the list of cards to make.
Bodge wires on a ROM cart? Not judging, just saying. :)
I know, I know...😞