CoCo Disk Controller

[yell0w_lantern]

I've read what I could find about this topic on the net and it seems to come down to some folks saying you can use a rom called, "SuperDOS," in the CoCO controller to use it on a Dragon whereas I've seen at least one other person state that the lines are used differently in the controllers. Does anyone here know for sure if just switching out the FDC rom is sufficient?

[zephyr]

The cartridge port connectors are exactly the same. The Dragon 32/64 even has the +12v supply needed for the older RS controllers. I know for sure that a correctly modified DECB 1.0/1.1 or DragonDOS ROM image could be used with the RS controller for read/write access of RS-DOS or DragonDOS format floppy disks on the Dragon 32 or 64.

[yell0w_lantern]

Okay, so the DOS Adapter from Cloud 9 and a 16k EPROM with Disk Basic and Super DOS should do me then.

Well, further on the subject of the disk controller I have a few more questions.

1) The software Archive looks like it consists mostly of tape files. Are there game compilations for disk?

2) Did the NTSC Tano Dragon have any games specifically made for it?

3) I have a bunch of CoCo games in disk format but I know the Dragon architecture is different along with the keyboard layout. In the last 20 or 30 years has the community ported CoCo games to the Tano Dragon?

4) Is there a full-color disk verison of Donkey King for the Dragon?

I have a HxC Floppy Emulator to use with the controller and I prefer disk over tape format but if I have no choice I'll use tape format games.

[zephyr]

Okay, so the DOS Adapter from Cloud 9 and a 16k EPROM with Disk Basic and Super DOS should do me then.

Well, further on the subject of the disk controller I have a few more questions.

1) The software Archive looks like it consists mostly of tape files. Are there game compilations for disk?

2) Did the NTSC Tano Dragon have any games specifically made for it?

3) I have a bunch of CoCo games in disk format but I know the Dragon architecture is different along with the keyboard layout. In the last 20 or 30 years has the community ported CoCo games to the Tano Dragon?

4) Is there a full-color disk verison of Donkey King for the Dragon?

(1) Yes. They are available from the archive's "Dragon Downloads" (SnarkHunter).
(2) No.
(3) Yes, but only a few. They are all available from the Uploads section of the forum.
(4) There is a Dragon version of Donkey King with artifact colour support for the NTSC Tano Dragon. Download here.

[yell0w_lantern]

I had wondered about the Snark Hunter files. When I couldn't find a txt for their contents I downloaded a couple of emulators so I could check but I'm still working on getting the emulators to run.

Thanks for the links, too! I find Donkey King strangely addictive and look forward to trying this version!

[linville]

YMMV, but ISTRC that the CoCo and Dragon controller hardware is slightly different with regard to how critical timing operations are handled. So the "properly modified" ROM isn't just a rewiring job for the chip, but also some modifications to the code itself. I think that Phill Harvey-Smith is probably the person who knows for sure...?

[zephyr]

So the "properly modified" ROM isn't just a rewiring job for the chip, but also some modifications to the code itself.

That is correct!

[yell0w_lantern]

I thought I read SuperDOS would work with the CoCo disk controller. Are you saying that is not the case - that there is more to do than swap in the ROM??

[linville]

I think SuperDOS originally ran on DragonDOS-compatible hardware. So by default, SuperDOS won't work on a CoCo controller. But, there exists somewhere a version of SuperDOS that has been modified to work on a CoCo controller. So long as you use the correct SuperDOS image, you should be fine. Beyond that, I don't know which image is which...

[zephyr]

there exists somewhere a version of SuperDOS that has been modified to work on a CoCo controller.

The source code for SuperDOS is now part of the toolshed repository.