Roger Merchberger wrote:
> Define "real" -- Admittedly, the CoCo1's chicklet keyboard sucked
> bigtime, but The CoCo2/3's keyboard is as good as anything made
> nowadays... (that's why the newest keyboard I use on any PeeCee is an
> IBM "klackety" keyboard from '84 or so... and wouldn't mind having an
> interface for these on my CoCo...) and although they were a little
> harder to upgrade than today's machines, they were easier to hack &
> interface to. Sure, they weren't on par to the minis & mainframes of the
> same timeframe, but that's true today; and it was still a very capable,
> affordable & expandable computer in it's own right.
Not really a general purpose computer more like the game console box of today.
The C64/Coco/Apple was the quick and simple computer - 8k rom - 64k D-ram
and a graphics chip and CPU. It was the cost cutting that got ya like none of
the common 8 bit computers had a serial port. Even the AT was too cheap to
drive the IRQ open collector.
> [whew... just had to get that out of the way; 6809's being my favorite &
> all... ;-) ]
That was a toss up for me between the 6809 and the PDP-8. Needless to say I
working a 12/24 bit CPU that reminds you of the 6809.
http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
>> Nobody in the USA made a nice 6809 machine.
>
>
> Huh? That's where I beg to differ with you! I *lusted* over the ads in
> HotCoCo & Rainbow mags for the Chieftain (methinks... weren't many of
> those ads), and even more so, the Gimix... The Gimix was one *bitchin'*
> box - ran OS-9 level 2 (wasn't there a level 3 for that?), it could take
> 512K of RAM if you wanted it to, and this was by '83 or '84... It truly
> was a mini, as it was designed to run multiuser apps on multiple
> terminals with no problem... I dunno if they ever made a video card for
> it....
I had forgot about them.
> No, it couldn't - it was a flat memory space. However, with the right
> SAM, bank switching was available & with some "creative memory
> accounting" it worked quite well, especially with OS-9.
I suspect one could decode the opcodes since you get instruction fetch
information with the 6809..
> That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it...
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
Mind you with fast ram now days and programable logic a nice OS-9
machine could be built. Finding a fast 6809 chip is the problem.
Boy I wish OS-9 was open source.
Received on Fri Sep 06 2002 - 15:04:00 BST