Hi Cameron,
> Yup yup yup. I must have missed the original message. The
>IEC bus is much faster than that....
I've had a rummage but I can't find my copy of the C-64 progref at the
moment. However, according to "The Anatomy of the 1541 Disc Drive" the
standard transfer rate across the serial bus is around 400 bytes per second.
Assuming no stop/start/parity bits and 8-bit characters, that's 3200 baud.
Same book also quotes 1.8K per second for the PETs IEEE/GPIB bus.
>....and of course fast serial devices like the 128 (in 128
>mode) coupled with burst-capable devices....
I had a 128D in '87, transfer rates were excellent when running the system
in 128 mode (almost comparable with the Atari serial bus), but like most
people I ran the system mostly in C-64 mode....I'd actually gotten it to run
CP/M, but that's another story.
> So you *do* know about Novaload! (Ignore previous message.) Who
>wrote it? Do you remember?
Yep, that was Paul Woakes....he WAS Novagen (and still lives about 25
minutes walk away from me).
Paul wrote the vast majority of the software Novagen released himself. For
example, "Mercenary" was released on just about every 8-bit format around in
1985/6. The only versions Paul didn't write himself were the Z-80 ports for
Amstrad and Spectrum.
In fact, Novagen only released two games which weren't entirely Paul Woakes
productions. "Backlash" which was my idea and I did most of the original
work on, and a scrolling shoot-em-up (the name of which I forget) which a
friend of mine wrote.
> I don't remember the details of how it works, but yes, FastLoad
>steals another IEC serial bus line....
>....I suspect it uses is the ATN line. Don't ask me how, it just
>rings a bell for some reason.
As I said, I can't find my progref manual so I can't check the schematics.
However, I'd suspect it uses another line since ATN is used as an output
from the machine to tell devices on the bus that a command is about to be
issued. I'd suspect it probably uses "SRQ IN", I believe this line is
normally unused?
TTFN - Pete.
--
Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer.
Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC)
peter.pachla_at_wintermute.org.uk | www.wintermute.org.uk
--
Received on Fri Mar 17 2000 - 13:58:07 GMT