Current items under development are;
Flash Pak in development
This is similar to an EPROM pak, except you will not need an eprom programmer to program it. This is pretty neat, write your own Basic or ML program, and write it to an autostart pak. Some uses have been darkroom timers, burglar alarms, etc. wired to that spare CoCo. Impress your friends also with your own game or other programs on a pak. The C64 crowd has had this for a while, so it is about time it was made for a CoCo. Uses a 28 Pin 32K FLASH or EEPROM chip, not the more common 32 pin. The 28 pin device will allow you to "flash" your own custom rom chips that will fit in FD502 and some third party disk controllers. I will likely develop the RS DOS software for this, the OS-9 crowd will have to do their own. I have obtained a small quantity of ATMEL 29C256 flash chips, and have made the necessary hardware and software modifications to my CoCo eprom programmer to program these devices. Flash programming speeds are nearly 4K per second with a CoCo2, fairly impressive numbers compared to eprom programming as an entire 16K pak can be done in about 4 seconds.
The Flash Pak itself is in breadboard stage now, am experimenting with the control latches and the best way to address them. I have successfully programmed the FLASH device on the bus, need to sort out some CoCo2/3 compatibility issues and make some modifications to program the last 1/4 K that is not directly addressable. Basically the pak will be designed to act as a Rom Pak on startup, with nearly all 32K available directly with a CoCo3, and nearly 16K directly addressable with a CoCo2, plus the other 16K available in the same manner as the Super Program Paks. If the programmer is started, it can FLASH the device in circuit, no removal of the chip or external programming devices required. The software I am putting together will be a device reader/programmer that you can run with Edtasm for more advanced users, and probably another program that will copy Rom Paks and automatically rom Basic programs, including CoCo3 ones with Super Extended commands. Device will run stand alone or in a Multi-pak interface, in conjunction with a disk drive if present.
Ethernet Pak pending
I have obtained a new ethernet card that will operate in 8 bit mode. Expensive at $138 Canadian by the time I landed it here, but I won't have to mess around building boards and soldering SMT components until I find if this is workable. This project will not start till after the Flash Pak, whenever that happens.
Disk Pak pending
Compact Flash has been looked at for this, I expect to do a combination Flash
Pak/IDE interface with a Compact Flash socket right on the pak, a great way to
get rid of the disk drive on the desk . I have obtained an IDE Compact
Flash Drive and a 32Mb Flash Card to experiment with. I recently picked up a
Glenside IDE controller and am currently writing some RSDOS software to use it,
all very neat stuff, wish I had more time to spend on all of this.
Page last updated May 19/02