Introducing the CocoFPGA

The Coco3FPGA Project

Brian Holman's Coco3FPGA with Custom Logo

Ever since I joined the Coco Community (as I like to call us CocoNuts) back in 1984, it has been a community of innovation and change. Just when you think the Tandy Color Computer has been exploited (for lack of another word) as far as it can go, someone will come up with something new. I remember when I got my first Windows PC with an AOL account and AOL was beginning to open it's users to the internet. I found that even in that early in the stages of the internet, there were already pages being dedicated to our beloved little "Coco", it's software, and it's hardware.

Even back in those days, I remember reading posts on the various forums and mail lists about John Kent's 6809 project, then a few years later, about Gary Becker's Coco3FPGA project using John's code for the 6809 CPU. There was a little buzz of excitement in the Coco Community as we thought there may be an alternative to our Coco 3s. It soon died out as many realized that the project was still in the early development stages and not yet a "usable" machine. Every so often through the years, there would be mentions of the Coco3FPGA on a forum or mail list, but in general, not much was known about what was going on with the project or how far Gary had gotten.

But in the past 2 or 3 years, the excitement about the Coco3FPGA project has slowly been coming to a boil. It seemed to start with Gary's announcement about the "CocoX" KickStart project, which unfortunately never happened, but what did happen was a renewed interest in the Coco3FPGA project as the Coco Community realized Gary now had a functional system that could (for the most part) run as a Tandy Color Computer 3, running most Coco software. With the renewed interest came new users. A select few purchased Altera DE-1 units and started programming in the Coco3FPGA code to find they had not only a working Coco 3, but an enhanced model at that, as Gary had introduced new screen modes, faster CPU speeds, SD card drive access, and now the "Analog Board" which is a daughterboard for the Coco3FPGA unit that adds standard Coco Joystick inputs, WiFi, RTC, and a 2nd serial port. One by one, others are joining the ranks to embark on this new journey into what I like to call "the next generation of Color Computing".

Having discovered the Yahoo Groups Coco3FPGA group a while back, I decided to join the group to keep up with the progress on the project. It wasn't until recently, I finally acquired both a Coco3FPGA unit and the accompanying Analog Board and to find out what all the buzz was about... This machine is AMAZING, just to say the least!! I haven't had my unit long enough to start experimenting with any of the new hardware or screen modes, but from what I've seen, I think I've found a new home for many of my Coco software projects.

On these pages, I will not only be reporting on my progress of my software projects for the Coco3FPGA, but the progress of the Coco3FPGA project itself as any new firmware revisions or hardware are developed. With the growing number of members, the speed of development seems to have doubled! New ideas are coming in at an amazing rate, and Gary tries to implement them as he can. I see a bright future for the Coco3FPGA and I feel the life of the Coco Community has been extended with new hopes for the Coco!

I will be getting some pictures and hopefully, videos of my new development system that I will most likely be using for most of my projects, old and new. So keep checking back here for news on the progress of the "Next Generation Of Color Computing" with the Coco3FPGA project.

B.P.