Atari Vs C64 --- 80s Computer scene etc chat...

[ClausB]

Not looking for an argument, just asking because I don't know: How did the C128 access the extra RAM beyond 64K? I assume there were homebrew RAM upgrades that went beyond 128K. How did they do the bank selection? Thanks.

[Oswald]

I stated that if you keep repeating "hires" as your argument, then it's better to get an IBM PC. You want to prove that the hardware in C64 is superior than A8, you'll have to beat the functionality of ANTIC, GTIA, PIA, POKEY, 1.79Mhz CPU, etc. If most of your software only utilizes hi-res, that does not make it's hardware superior to the Atari. And I WAS comparing hardware...

 

I stated that if you keep repeating "more colors" as your argument, then it's better to get an IBM PC. You want to prove that the hardware in Atari is superior than c64, you'll have to beat the functionality of VICII, SID, CIA1, CIA2, 1Mhz CPU, etc. If most of your software only utilizes "more colors", that does not make it's hardware superior to the c64. And I WAS comparing hardware...

[thomasholzer]

well farewell I had enough of this bullshit for this year

 

How come you're back so quick, we're still in the same year. Can't get that right either?

[Oswald]

Not looking for an argument, just asking because I don't know: How did the C128 access the extra RAM beyond 64K? I assume there were homebrew RAM upgrades that went beyond 128K. How did they do the bank selection? Thanks.

 

it used a banking method using the 8722 mmu chip. I doubt there were homebrew ram upgrades, as C= sold REU's itself. (Ram Expansion Unit).

 

http://www.google.hu/search?hl=hu&q=87...3%A9s&meta=

 

click the first link, I can not open it for some reason now, I hope that pdf helps.

[atariksi]

>what you have said is:"most people would agree that the Ataris are and were better machines than C64/128". you havent said that all these people have to know both machines aswell.

 

Okay, if you want to pick on words rather than find the truth. There's a truth as to which machine is better.

 

>I can do this retarded way of arguing aswell: the XBOX is faster than the Atari's cpu if you ever make argument of speed.

 

No, if you keep repeating hi-res as your only argument. I made several points not just cpu speed.

 

>and all the games with c64's sprites can do much better.

 

Wrong. Your missing colors and length.

[atariksi]

I stated that if you keep repeating "hires" as your argument, then it's better to get an IBM PC. You want to prove that the hardware in C64 is superior than A8, you'll have to beat the functionality of ANTIC, GTIA, PIA, POKEY, 1.79Mhz CPU, etc. If most of your software only utilizes hi-res, that does not make it's hardware superior to the Atari. And I WAS comparing hardware...

 

I stated that if you keep repeating "more colors" as your argument, then it's better to get an IBM PC. You want to prove that the hardware in Atari is superior than c64, you'll have to beat the functionality of VICII, SID, CIA1, CIA2, 1Mhz CPU, etc. If most of your software only utilizes "more colors", that does not make it's hardware superior to the c64. And I WAS comparing hardware...

 

That's why I was asking the question to show that PIA was faster and easier to use than CIA for input/output which I am currently doing. 1.79 > 1.0 cpu. 1.7897 timing frequency > 1.022 frequency (POKEY). Faster graphics updates, more shades, etc. etc. (ANTIC/GTIA), etc. etc. If I was only making an argument of just more colors, you would be correct.

Obviously, you did not read the post that you hurriedly replied to.

[emkay]

Obviously, you did not read the post that you hurriedly replied to.

 

Hm... Oswald, not reading the full post and doing wrong combinations then...

I wonder why I think I have seen this multiple times before

[Oswald]

>and all the games with c64's sprites can do much better.

 

Wrong. Your missing colors and length.

 

oh right. this means atari pmgs are better than the c64s sprites. thanks for making it clear.

[Allas]

I wonder how hard it would have been, btw, for the VIC-II to ...

 

 

blanking the screen is the weakness of the built in horrible tape loader it is not something you must to do, and the stock disk routines doesnt blank it to begin with.

 

check this:

 

 

tho you would better check it in emulator, and monitor the drive led while the demo is running to see that the c64 can load while displaying demo effects AND playing music. no need to blanking the screen or add some primitive screenmodes. at some scenes there are sprites multiplexed, background colors changed, digi played, at the same time WHILE loading. (countdown scene with spaceship+melon)

 

 

That means C64 have his own ways. Atari can load next portion of demo meanwhile is executing or playing a music on background, but I can't see what's the point of that, if could be pre-loaded on memory (as Numen). I saw this demo many times and i liked, now i saw again and saw the original Amiga too. In every part of the demo I feel an Atari can do it more near to the Amiga version. Maybe it's time to do it.

[Oswald]

That's why I was asking the question to show that PIA was faster and easier to use than CIA for input/output which I am currently doing. 1.79 > 1.0 cpu. 1.7897 timing frequency > 1.022 frequency (POKEY). Faster graphics updates, more shades, etc. etc. (ANTIC/GTIA), etc. etc. If I was only making an argument of just more colors, you would be correct.

 

 

c64 has two CIA chips which are successors of the PIA chip.

 

PIA=peripheral interface adapter, CIA = complex interface adapter. Do I must to copy here the specs which show why is the CIA superior, or you can google it yourself ? or everything that has less functions from now own according to you is better because its easier to use ? then the best 8 bit homecomputer must be the kim1.

 

1.79 > 1.0 cpu., 1.7897 timing frequency > 1.022 frequency,Faster graphics updates, thats the same argument 3 times.

 

but I can list proofs the same stupid way like you, here: etc etc (SID) etc etc more sprites etc etc (CIA) etc more colors without trick, etc etc etc (VICII) etcetcetc. :D these are your arguments.

 

"Obviously, you did not read the post that you hurriedly replied to."

 

can you tell me the next weeks lottery numbers aswell ?

[emkay]

That means C64 have his own ways. Atari can load next portion of demo meanwhile is executing or playing a music on background, but I can't see what's the point of that, if could be pre-loaded on memory (as Numen). I saw this demo many times and i liked, now i saw again and saw the original Amiga too. In every part of the demo I feel an Atari can do it more near to the Amiga version. Maybe it's time to do it.

 

The 3D scene.... On the A8 it would not be a quarder of the display ... It could fill the whole TV screen, because it is not doing very much.... it looks impressive by the "floating" of the demo. At least the Space Harrier game shows the way of the A8 for this. Use 2x2 mode and digitized sounds during loading....

[Oswald]

I wonder how hard it would have been, btw, for the VIC-II to ...

 

 

blanking the screen is the weakness of the built in horrible tape loader it is not something you must to do, and the stock disk routines doesnt blank it to begin with.

 

check this:

 

 

tho you would better check it in emulator, and monitor the drive led while the demo is running to see that the c64 can load while displaying demo effects AND playing music. no need to blanking the screen or add some primitive screenmodes. at some scenes there are sprites multiplexed, background colors changed, digi played, at the same time WHILE loading. (countdown scene with spaceship+melon)

 

 

That means C64 have his own ways.

 

that means C64 can do disk IO while doing zillion of other things aswell, something thats the A8 has never seen so far.

 

Atari can load next portion of demo meanwhile is executing or playing a music on background, but I can't see what's the point of that, if could be pre-loaded on memory (as Numen).

 

the point is that the c64 doesnt needs HW addons to make a trackmo. In fact atari trackmos are not trackmos. they are signleload onefile demos. The point is that it runs on the stock setup. What I dont see no point in is upgrading old HW. if its not good enough for you than use a mac/pc.

[supercat]

blanking the screen is the weakness of the built in horrible tape loader it is not something you must to do, and the stock disk routines doesnt blank it to begin with.

 

The reason the disk routines don't blank the screen is that Commodore decided it was better to have the system be incompatible with the 1540 and require people to use the 1541 at a much lower speed, than to blank the screen while loading.

[supercat]

PIA=peripheral interface adapter, CIA = complex interface adapter. Do I must to copy here the specs which show why is the CIA superior, or you can google it yourself ? or everything that has less functions from now own according to you is better because its easier to use ? then the best 8 bit homecomputer must be the kim1.

 

Actually, the CIA's seemed rather pointless to me. What do they allow the 64 to do that could not have been done just as well with the VIA? For that matter, why two CIA's? The keyboard could have been served just as well with a couple of 74HCT373's and eight diodes.

[atariksi]

>c64 has two CIA chips which are successors of the PIA chip.

 

So does the Amiga. Amiga CIA run faster than your C64 CIAs. PIA is faster than the way the CIAs are done on your C64 and as I already stated you can do byte input with one LDA on Atari from the joystick ports.

 

>1.79 > 1.0 cpu., 1.7897 timing frequency > 1.022 frequency,Faster graphics updates, thats the same argument 3 times.

 

No, you left out the word POKEY in the second frequency. This I already replied to from Vigo, you must have missed it. POKEY timer frequency is accurate to 1.7897Mhz. It also does up to 20Khz 4-bit samples as I already mentioned.

 

>but I can list proofs the same stupid way like you, here: etc etc (SID) etc etc more sprites etc etc (CIA) etc more colors without trick, etc etc etc (VICII) etcetcetc. :D these are your arguments.

 

If you think it's stupid to compare hardware performance of chips, then I would disagree with you on that. Otherwise, counter the point with a superior performance number that you think your C64 does for the given chip.

 

>can you tell me the next weeks lottery numbers aswell ?

 

I am not guessing, maybe you are.

[atariksi]

>and all the games with c64's sprites can do much better.

 

Wrong. Your missing colors and length.

 

oh right. this means atari pmgs are better than the c64s sprites. thanks for making it clear.

 

You stated that "ALL" games with c64 sprites can do much better so I refuted that. Your not giving any credit to Atari sprites for length and color as if they are immaterial.

[supercat]

So does the Amiga.

 

Seriously? What on earth for? I would think the Amiga would have plenty of other timing resources, and for adding simple I/O pins I would think 74HC-series logic would be just as good.

[atariksi]

So does the Amiga.

 

Seriously? What on earth for? I would think the Amiga would have plenty of other timing resources, and for adding simple I/O pins I would think 74HC-series logic would be just as good.

 

Yeah, it has two 8520 chips-- for floppy controller, keyboard, serial port, LED lights, etc. I had to interface to it when making the floppy simulator as pictured here: http://www.mpdos.com.

[Oswald]

blanking the screen is the weakness of the built in horrible tape loader it is not something you must to do, and the stock disk routines doesnt blank it to begin with.

 

The reason the disk routines don't blank the screen is that Commodore decided it was better to have the system be incompatible with the 1540 and require people to use the 1541 at a much lower speed, than to blank the screen while loading.

 

nope. it was not poor engineering and such stupid decision as you may think. simply there were a lot of things going wrong with it:VIA chips were faulty, parallel lines optimised away from motherboards by mistake, and finally jack tramiel yelling at robert russel that he wants to see a working 1541 on his desk in a week.

[Oswald]

Actually, the CIA's seemed rather pointless to me. What do they allow the 64 to do that could not have been done just as well with the VIA?

 

check the specs.

[Oswald]

>and all the games with c64's sprites can do much better.

 

Wrong. Your missing colors and length.

 

oh right. this means atari pmgs are better than the c64s sprites. thanks for making it clear.

 

You stated that "ALL" games with c64 sprites can do much better so I refuted that. Your not giving any credit to Atari sprites for length and color as if they are immaterial.

 

show me a game which can do better with atari sprites.

[Oswald]

I will try to put my answers to the same level of sense as yours. Hope you will understand them now:

 

>c64 has two CIA chips which are successors of the PIA chip.

 

>So does the Amiga. Amiga CIA run faster than your C64 CIAs. PIA is faster than the way the CIAs are done on your C64 and as I already stated >you can do byte input with one LDA on Atari from the joystick ports.

 

The PC has even better peripheral chips than the amiga.

 

>1.79 > 1.0 cpu., 1.7897 timing frequency > 1.022 frequency,Faster graphics updates, thats the same argument 3 times.

 

No, you left out the word POKEY in the second frequency. This I already replied to from Vigo, you must have missed it. POKEY timer frequency is accurate to 1.7897Mhz. It also does up to 20Khz 4-bit samples as I already mentioned.

 

The Amiga has a better sound chip than the pokey, its even faster. does 32khz samples in 8 bit. 4 channels, own dma, yaddayadda.

 

>but I can list proofs the same stupid way like you, here: etc etc (SID) etc etc more sprites etc etc (CIA) etc more colors without trick, etc etc etc (VICII) etcetcetc. :D these are your arguments.

 

No, the Amiga has better graphics.

 

If you think it's stupid to compare hardware performance of chips, then I would disagree with you on that. Otherwise, counter the point with a superior performance number that you think your C64 does for the given chip.

 

The amiga outdoes a8 in anything, look at it chip level performance or as a whole doesnt matter.

[supercat]

Seriously? What on earth for? I would think the Amiga would have plenty of other timing resources, and for adding simple I/O pins I would think 74HC-series logic would be just as good.

 

What advantage does the CIA--as used in the Amiga--have over discrete logic? Can you think of any?

[supercat]

check the specs.

 

They have a sync serial-port function which is not used and a time-of-day clock function which isn't particularly useful (though some games do use it 'cos it's there). What else do they offer that the VIA does not?

[Oswald]

check the specs.

 

They have a sync serial-port function which is not used and a time-of-day clock function which isn't particularly useful (though some games do use it 'cos it's there). What else do they offer that the VIA does not?

 

Parallel I/O

The CIA had two 8-bit bidirectional parallel I/O ports. Each port had a corresponding Data Direction Register, which allowed each data line to be individually set to input or output mode. A read of these ports always returned the status of the individual lines, regardless of the data direction that had been set.

 

 

[edit] Serial I/O

An internal bidirectional 8-bit shift register enabled the CIA to handle serial I/O. The chip could accept serial input clocked from an external source, and could send serial output clocked with one of the built-in programmable timers. An interrupt was generated whenever an 8-bit serial transfer had completed. It was possible to implement a simple "network" by connecting the shift register and clock outputs of several computers together.

 

 

[edit] Handshaking

Two dedicated control lines (/FLAG and /PC) were implemented to allow coordination between multiple CIA chips. These lines, along with 8 of the 16 available parallel port data lines, made it possible to use the CIA as a simple, Centronics-compatible line driver.

 

 

[edit] Interval timers

Two programmable interval timers were available. Each timer consisted of a 16-bit read-only presettable down counter and a corresponding 16-bit write-only latch. Whenever a timer was started, the timer's latch was automatically copied into its counter, and the counter would then decrement with each clock cycle until underflow, at which an interrupt would be generated. The timer could run in either "one-shot" mode, halting after the first interrupt, or "continuous" mode, reloading the latch value again and starting the timer cycle anew. In addition to generating interrupts, the timer output could also be gated to the second I/O port.

 

 

[edit] Time-of-Day (TOD) Clock

A real-time clock is incorporated in the CIA, providing a timekeeping device more conducive to human needs than the microsecond precision of the interval timers. The TOD clock consists of four read/write registers: hours (with bit 7 acting as the AM/PM flag), minutes, seconds and tenths of a second. All registers read out in BCD format, thus simplifying the encoding/decoding process.

 

Reading from the registers will always return the time of day. In order to avoid a carry error while fetching the time, reading the hours register will immediately halt register updating, with no effect on internal timekeeping accuracy. Once the tenths register has been read, updating will resume. It is possible to read any register other than the hours register "on the fly," making the use of a running TOD clock as a timer a practical application. If the hours register is read, however, it is essential to subsequently read the tenths register. Otherwise, all TOD registers will remain "frozen."

 

Setting the time involves writing the appropriate BCD values into the registers. A write access to the hours register will completely halt the clock. The clock will not start again until a value has been written into the tenths register. Owing to the order in which the registers appear in the system's memory map, a simple loop is all that is required to write the registers in the correct order. It should be noted that it is permissible to write to only the tenths register to "nudge" the clock into action, in which following a hardware reset, the clock will usually start at 1:00:00.0 AM.

 

In addition to its timekeeping features, the TOD can be configured to act as an alarm clock, by arranging for it to generate an interrupt request at any desired time. Due to a bug in many 6526s (see also errata below), the alarm IRQ would not always occur when the seconds component of the alarm time is exactly zero. The workaround is to set the alarm's tenths value to 0.1 seconds.

 

The TOD clock's internal circuitry is designed to be driven by an AC input signal, either 50 or 60 Hz, as would be derived from the mains power source, resulting in a stable timekeeper with little long-term drift. The ability to work with both power line frequencies allowed a single version of the 6526 to be used in computers using either the NTSC or PAL video standards.

 

The 8520 revision of the CIA, used in the Amiga, modified the time-of-day clock to be a 24-bit binary counter, replacing the BCD format of the 6526. Other behavior was similar, however.