CoCo's *are* real... (was: OT: PC Motherboard with a vacuum tube

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Fri Sep 6 15:37:00 2002

At 14:00 09/06/2002 -0600, Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk_at_jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:

>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.

Huh? The CoCo had a standard RS-232 port, with the exception of the control
lines. It ran standard RS-232 voltages & with software handshaking worked
just fine, albeit slowly as it was bit-banged instead of UART driven (which
on the CoCo1 & 2 I can sympathize with... but to not include a UART on the
CoCo3 as they'd become *very* cheap by then, that was just plain
*stoopid*... :-( )

>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.

Huh? 40Mhz ain't fast enough for you for a 6809??? :-)

Check here:

http://www.inicore.com/core_lib/inicpu.htm

Granted, I have *no* idea how much these cost or anything... :-/

*I* wish OS-9/68K was available for my Palm... It'd knock PalmOS for a loop!

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
Received on Fri Sep 06 2002 - 15:37:00 BST

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