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#1
After almost 50 years, Zilog announced that it will end production of the Z80 in June 2024.
#2
Quote from: GUNHED on Today at 15:30As told, just the crystal got exchangedwhat original components do you have? RAM 200ns, 150, 120? what crtc, what 8255.?
#3
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by eto - Today at 17:49Quote from: cwpab on Today at 16:11I find it a bit odd that here in Spain, none of my friends as a kid had a C64... but one had an MSX.MSX was popular in the Netherlands. Philips produced several models over the years.
I don't think the MSX sales were very good in Europe or USA, right?
#4
While I had done some BASIC programming on the CPC, my next machine (Atari ST) is the one where I sank my teeth into assembly programming, which I started when I was 16.
On the ST, a lot of things are reasonably easy when it comes to graphics: there's a lot of RAM so that double or even triple buffering is affordable, the framebuffer layout is friendly to quite a few operations, the CPU is fast enough to copy the whole size of the screen 50 times a second. Of course, there isn't enough margin to be sloppy, especially on baseline machines without a blitter. With a little bit of teenage hubris, though, it did feel like many programmers of commercial games were leaving quite some capabilities on the table, making me feel that I could often have done better.
As emulation now allows me to go back to the CPC, my first love, and as I'm writing assembly for it, I'm gaining a lot of respect for the game programmers of the time. There isn't enough RAM to use a double buffer without sacrificing a lot of features, let alone a triple buffer, especially for games that have to be loaded from tape. The framebuffer layout isn't that fun (I'm finding mode 1 especially painful). Copying large amounts of data is so slow that any naive implementation is just about guaranteed to have slow frame rates. Any half-decent game must have needed some optimizations, and the top games seem to have been written by wizards.
I am not getting discouraged, but I've got to reset my expectations about what it takes to get something that looks good on the CPC, and I tip my hat to those who put themselves through that exercise, either back then or more recently. Well done, folks!
On the ST, a lot of things are reasonably easy when it comes to graphics: there's a lot of RAM so that double or even triple buffering is affordable, the framebuffer layout is friendly to quite a few operations, the CPU is fast enough to copy the whole size of the screen 50 times a second. Of course, there isn't enough margin to be sloppy, especially on baseline machines without a blitter. With a little bit of teenage hubris, though, it did feel like many programmers of commercial games were leaving quite some capabilities on the table, making me feel that I could often have done better.
As emulation now allows me to go back to the CPC, my first love, and as I'm writing assembly for it, I'm gaining a lot of respect for the game programmers of the time. There isn't enough RAM to use a double buffer without sacrificing a lot of features, let alone a triple buffer, especially for games that have to be loaded from tape. The framebuffer layout isn't that fun (I'm finding mode 1 especially painful). Copying large amounts of data is so slow that any naive implementation is just about guaranteed to have slow frame rates. Any half-decent game must have needed some optimizations, and the top games seem to have been written by wizards.
I am not getting discouraged, but I've got to reset my expectations about what it takes to get something that looks good on the CPC, and I tip my hat to those who put themselves through that exercise, either back then or more recently. Well done, folks!
#5
Minor update, will take some times for new surprises incoming
http://www.roudoudou.com/ACE-DL/
Code Select
- True Drive LED management
- FDC Shadow polling management
- FDC Long HUT bug emulation
- FDC HUT cutoff for Seek/Calibrate/Illegal
- Reset emulator when draging new ROM to Dandanator
- Ludicrous timings adjustments in FDC polling according to electronic measures
- Ludicrous timings adjustments according to drive models for Ready loss with motor ON
- bugfix right-click on HUD buttons (wont trigger anymore vertically above)
- bugfix drive conflicts between A and B
- bugfix breakpoints on FDC Scan
http://www.roudoudou.com/ACE-DL/
#7
minimal update
https://github.com/EdouardBERGE/rasm/releases/tag/v2.2.3
HFE not protected as default
and RAM configuration default for snapshots
https://github.com/EdouardBERGE/rasm/releases/tag/v2.2.3
HFE not protected as default
and RAM configuration default for snapshots
#8
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by dodogildo - Today at 16:42Quote from: cwpab on Today at 16:11I don't think the MSX sales were very good in Europe or USA, right?Wikipedia reports 9m MSX sold worldwide, 7m in Japan alone. Leaving 2m for US, EU and rest of the world..
#9
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by CraigsBar - Today at 16:38Of those 2 it has to be the C64 all the way. It's just more of a computer games machine. Although I never had either back in the day I was a CPC guy so why would I?
I had the best machine that I used for all my college and university assignments.... And oh let me play pang.
I do not believe that either the C64 or speccy have a real 80 column display so are pretty useless for serious use. The C64. Excels at sprite driven games. The speccy excels at..... Erm..... propping a door open? 😉
So yeah of the 2 options it's a C64 for me. Unless you allow the Sam coupe and C128 in as further developments on the C64 and speccy platforms, in which case Sam Coupe wins it by miles.
I had the best machine that I used for all my college and university assignments.... And oh let me play pang.
I do not believe that either the C64 or speccy have a real 80 column display so are pretty useless for serious use. The C64. Excels at sprite driven games. The speccy excels at..... Erm..... propping a door open? 😉
So yeah of the 2 options it's a C64 for me. Unless you allow the Sam coupe and C128 in as further developments on the C64 and speccy platforms, in which case Sam Coupe wins it by miles.
#10
C
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by cwpab - Today at 16:11I find it a bit odd that here in Spain, none of my friends as a kid had a C64... but one had an MSX.
I don't think the MSX sales were very good in Europe or USA, right?
I don't think the MSX sales were very good in Europe or USA, right?