I can't see why a person would want to do it, other than to see if it could be done. What would the real performance enhancement be in converting an old distributor ignition to a COP set up? This sounds like an awful lot of buck for your bang.

I'm all for trying things and experimenting, that is what hot rodding and building stuff is all about. You could probably fire the COP's with a distributor. You'd be using low voltage instead of high voltage. A low voltage signal to fire the coil sent by a distributor, essentially a mechanical computer.

The reason modern cars use that type of system is so the timing advance can be adjusted as the engine runs.  It's all based on load, RPMs, engine temperature, air temperature fuel use and emissions.  It's far more effective on an EFI car than a carb car because the ECU can also adjust fuel.  The main advantage is improved fuel economy but it can also improve power.  I don't think converting to a coil on plug system will get you anything, or at least not much without going completely in so that the timing curve is adjusted.  A better solution IMHO would be to run an MSD box and coil.  This will deliver max spark (even more than the coil at plug option) multiple spark and the best possible ignition that can be had with a distributor.  Just my $.02

Another option a lot of folks used was adapting the Ford EDIS-8 system to their older engines (EDIS stands for Electronic Distributorless Ignition System). There are loads of cars that came from the factory with it and a lot of information on adapting it to engines originally equipped with a distributor.  The system uses two coils that fire four plugs at once in a batch-fire, wasted spark method. Again, the full description is out there in spades so no sense wasting space here. As I understand it, it’s one of the dead simplest ways to convert a distributor based engine to distributorless. I won’t speak to the merits (or lack thereof) for converting to distributorless, I’m just letting you know of another available option.