Atari v Commodore

[Wolfram]

Mr wood_jl was talking about drive simulators as well so the OS boot/sio rate/and drive all were taking into consideration. SIO rate > 300,000 bps and is doable in a software simulation. I have done 357,000bps myself with a slow parallel port.

 

Regardless, when you make some absolute claim like "faster than a8 ever will be" that means using any means.

 

so, the conclusion is: the slowest/shittiest drive ever, the 1541, is faster than an atari drive simulator.

 

 

"Regardless, when you make some absolute claim like "faster than a8 ever will be" that means using any means."

 

well, a real drive is faster than a drive simulator, what else do you need?

 

besides you really shouldnt complain. with your statements like "CIA is useless".

[atariksi]

nah, IF you didnt know the a8, typing in some commands was perfectly fine, and userfriendly, you just didnt knew it could be easyer I'm much more angry for the decision to keep compatiblity with vic20, which resulted in a 8-10x slower then possible loading speed. (HW bit banging vs SOFT bit banging) soft bit bang loaders managed to crank up the speed by 16x, so I assume even a lousy factory programmad HW bit banger would have been like 10x faster.

That's what I was referring to, the speed. When a couple friends of mine got 64's they'd put in a disk, start the load, and then go do something else. Occasionally, they'd pop the door open to see if the drive reacted or if the whole thing had locked up. I was envious of some of the 64's games, but that drive was such a turn-off. I'm glad for 64 users that it turned out to be fixable through software.

 

The A8 wasn't a speed demon, but most things loaded in under 30 seconds.

 

One thing missing that would make comparison fair is that they have to add overhead to upload the new bit-banging software. So add that constant time to every fast load number they give. And perhaps we should consider adding time to type "Load "*",8,1" or something like that for boot disks.

[atariksi]

Mr wood_jl was talking about drive simulators as well so the OS boot/sio rate/and drive all were taking into consideration. SIO rate > 300,000 bps and is doable in a software simulation. I have done 357,000bps myself with a slow parallel port.

 

Regardless, when you make some absolute claim like "faster than a8 ever will be" that means using any means.

 

so, the conclusion is: the slowest/shittiest drive ever, the 1541, is faster than an atari drive simulator.

 

 

"Regardless, when you make some absolute claim like "faster than a8 ever will be" that means using any means."

 

well, a real drive is faster than a drive simulator, what else do you need?

 

besides you really shouldnt complain. with your statements like "CIA is useless".

You still employing chewbacca defense. CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer.

[Wolfram]

nah, IF you didnt know the a8, typing in some commands was perfectly fine, and userfriendly, you just didnt knew it could be easyer I'm much more angry for the decision to keep compatiblity with vic20, which resulted in a 8-10x slower then possible loading speed. (HW bit banging vs SOFT bit banging) soft bit bang loaders managed to crank up the speed by 16x, so I assume even a lousy factory programmad HW bit banger would have been like 10x faster.

That's what I was referring to, the speed. When a couple friends of mine got 64's they'd put in a disk, start the load, and then go do something else. Occasionally, they'd pop the door open to see if the drive reacted or if the whole thing had locked up. I was envious of some of the 64's games, but that drive was such a turn-off. I'm glad for 64 users that it turned out to be fixable through software.

 

The A8 wasn't a speed demon, but most things loaded in under 30 seconds.

 

haha. you have no idea what a relief this SLOW disk drive was AFTER having to use tapes!

[youki]

The c64's lowercase letters are identical to the Atari's, no doubt about it.

 

 

hehheh... nicking the Atari's font. That's kinda funny.

 

 

It is not identical... it is not the same color by default!!

 

And the C64 ones looks better!

 

 

Color values are not in the ROM character bitmaps.

I guess everyone gets used to their character sets-- Dr. Frog loved his well and thought all other wells and oceans were inferior.

 

Do You take all post seriously??? I was just kidding.

[atariksi]

Atari's default "slow" 19,200bps/1024 (1K) = 18.75 kB/sec.

"Warp Speed" 57,600bps/1024 (1K) = 56.25 kB/sec. SIO Max. SIO not "slow" compared to Commie.

bps is "bits per second". Since there is also start and stop bits, a byte needs 10 bits.

 

19200 bps = 1.875 kB/sec

57600 bps = 5.625 kB/sec

 

Now that's bus transfer only! No disk access counted.

 

The numbers I measured INCLUDE disk access, they are from actual loading times and not theoretic bus transfer speeds.

 

Let's repeat the post I did earlier this day:

 

That's pure bus speeds which are pretty much academic. Let's do a real world test.

 

For this test I took an empty disk, wrote a 50k file (51200 bytes) to it and loaded it with different loaders. Before loading the directory was loaded so the drive head was on the directory track.

 

Plain CBM loader: 128 seconds (0.39 kB/s)

Final Cartridge 3 (multifunction cart from 1987): 13 seconds (3.85 kB/s)

Action Replay 6 (multifunction cart from 1989): 8.5 seconds (5.88 kB/s)

 

EDIT: Another test with Warpcopy (disk image transfer tool reading disk from real 1541): 22.09 seconds for a 174848 bytes disk image -> 7.73 kB/s

 

I hope you agree that 5.625 kB/sec < 5.88 kB/sec, especially if you consider that those 5.88 kB/s INCLUDE disk access which basically means the actual bus transfer speed is 3 times faster than that, the rest of the time is wasted on reading sectors from disk.

 

If you consider when 1541 came out and the hardware modded 1050s available at that time, that would be a fair comparison. You are numbers are all false because you forgot add overhead for uploading loaders of which there are hundreds of versions.

[atariksi]

The c64's lowercase letters are identical to the Atari's, no doubt about it.

 

 

hehheh... nicking the Atari's font. That's kinda funny.

 

 

It is not identical... it is not the same color by default!!

 

And the C64 ones looks better!

 

 

Color values are not in the ROM character bitmaps.

I guess everyone gets used to their character sets-- Dr. Frog loved his well and thought all other wells and oceans were inferior.

 

Do You take all post seriously??? I was just kidding.

 

Removing confusion. Sometimes jokes are true as well.

[Wolfram]

You still employing chewbacca defense. CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer.

 

 

hmm, what PIA has to offer compared to the CIA? lets see:

 

 

- missing 2 16 bit timers

- missing various timer modes

- missing timer can count each other

- missing timers can trigger interrupts

- missing timers can count incoming signals

- missing time of day clock

- missing time of day clock alarm

 

the rest is the same.

 

so lets count thats like 7 missing features (I could have blown it to 2x as more easily) in the PIA compared to the CIA.

 

and the CIA is useless compared to the PIA ? are you serious ? I mean SERIOUS ?

[atariksi]

Mr wood_jl was talking about drive simulators as well so the OS boot/sio rate/and drive all were taking into consideration. SIO rate > 300,000 bps and is doable in a software simulation. I have done 357,000bps myself with a slow parallel port.

 

Regardless, when you make some absolute claim like "faster than a8 ever will be" that means using any means.

 

so, the conclusion is: the slowest/shittiest drive ever, the 1541, is faster than an atari drive simulator.

 

 

"Regardless, when you make some absolute claim like "faster than a8 ever will be" that means using any means."

 

well, a real drive is faster than a drive simulator, what else do you need?

 

besides you really shouldnt complain. with your statements like "CIA is useless".

 

That's where you are dead wrong. Drive simulators like the ones I have or have seen kill the real drive speeds on both systems.

[youki]

Actually, the 6502 was sold/marketed before commodore bought MOS

 

CBM bought MOS so as to not relying on an external supply of semiconductors, like ATARI did

 

And as I recall MOS got the big break when ATARI chose them to supply the processor for the VCS

 

 

Yes, agree, but i think when Atari sign the deal with MOS it was already owned by Commodore and called CSG (Commodore Semi Conductor Group). Commodore bought MOS in 1976.

 

The VCS has been released in 78 (?) . and the A400/800 in 79. 2 and 3 year after the aquisition.

[atariksi]

You still employing chewbacca defense. CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer.

 

 

hmm, what PIA has to offer compared to the CIA? lets see:

 

 

- missing 2 16 bit timers

- missing various timer modes

- missing timer can count each other

- missing timers can trigger interrupts

- missing timers can count incoming signals

- missing time of day clock

- missing time of day clock alarm

 

the rest is the same.

 

so lets count thats like 7 missing features (I could have blown it to 2x as more easily) in the PIA compared to the CIA.

 

and the CIA is useless compared to the PIA ? are you serious ? I mean SERIOUS ?

 

It's chewbacca defense. The real point is joystick i/o speed but you want to argue other aspects because you can't stand it that are PROVEN false several times.

[roland p]

I prefer the speed of the atari game cartridges

[atariksi]

The *superiority* of the CIA chip over PIA is useless from software perspective.

 

2x 16 bit timers with various modes & interrupt triggering, and a Time of Day clock is not useless from software perspective.

 

Let's first agree joystick I/O is superior on Atari then we can talk 2*16 timers...

 

 

I only agree if you wont come back and attack me for agreeing with you, as the last time.

 

You know what-- TRUTH is always the truth even if you DON'T agree. Some people think the earth is flat.

[Wolfram]

One thing missing that would make comparison fair is that they have to add overhead to upload the new bit-banging software. So add that constant time to every fast load number they give. And perhaps we should consider adding time to type "Load "*",8,1" or something like that for boot disks.

 

okay, for fairness lets add the overhead time you need to boot up windows and the drive simulator, for each a8 load.

[Wolfram]

You know what-- TRUTH is always the truth even if you DON'T agree. Some people think the earth is flat.

 

 

yeah, and the truth is you said something, I have agreed, and then you still complained that the cia is useless. I have said ok I agree the cia is useless, then you said I am biased.

 

it cant be more hillarious than that. really.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

just ot make sure this topic goes on forever, what about this redundant information: For the A8 and its 1050 drive there is also the german Speedy 1050 enhancement (with 8k track/cache buffer) which runs with up to 76,800bps and with special software like e.g. the High-Speed-Super-Copy it even runs with 96,000bps. According to Bryan this would be 7680bytes per second or up to 9600bytes per second...

 

But of course there are also a) other 1050 drive enhancements (like USD, Happy, Archiver, Turbo, Super Archiver, Lazer and whatnot) and b) also other A8 floppy drives (like Atari XF551 which runs with 38,400bps, Indus, Rana, Trak, Percom, CA 2001, Toms Top drive 710 / 720, etc. etc.) and c) floppy drive interfaces like HDI, Karin Maxi, etc. and last not least d) floppy drives with built-in extra-RAM or Ramboards (like Indus with extra 64k ramcharger or the Super Speedy with 192k or 256k extra RAM onboard and a special copy-program that will e.g. read+format+write a 90k disk in 9 seconds)...

 

To test the read/write speed of the floppy (or hard-disk drive) on the A8 there are various tools available, e.g. one can be found here: http://drac030.krap.pl/rwtest.arc

Atari once had also plans to use floppy drives via parallel bus, but this was never realized... (except in the 1450XLD prototypes maybe)... -Andreas Koch.

 

P.S.: And now Oswald/Wolfram wil be using Eliza`s search string on how to answer -or better- on how to attack this information... oh well, this is what makes this topic so bad, whenever you say something it will be attacked in one way or another... (its simply no discussion here, its a flamewar).

[Wolfram]

You still employing chewbacca defense. CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer.

 

 

hmm, what PIA has to offer compared to the CIA? lets see:

 

 

- missing 2 16 bit timers

- missing various timer modes

- missing timer can count each other

- missing timers can trigger interrupts

- missing timers can count incoming signals

- missing time of day clock

- missing time of day clock alarm

 

the rest is the same.

 

so lets count thats like 7 missing features (I could have blown it to 2x as more easily) in the PIA compared to the CIA.

 

and the CIA is useless compared to the PIA ? are you serious ? I mean SERIOUS ?

 

It's chewbacca defense. The real point is joystick i/o speed but you want to argue other aspects because you can't stand it that are PROVEN false several times.

 

 

the real point is on bold and in BIG FONT above. it was said by you. dont change the subject. just face the truth: CIA is a better chip than the PIA. you have even already said that once. should I quote you to proove it? once you say the CIA is useless compared to PIA, and once you say the CIA is superior to pia.

 

now which of those statments have you said honestly ?

 

can you be taken seriously ? you are talking gibberish.

[atariksi]

One thing missing that would make comparison fair is that they have to add overhead to upload the new bit-banging software. So add that constant time to every fast load number they give. And perhaps we should consider adding time to type "Load "*",8,1" or something like that for boot disks.

 

okay, for fairness lets add the overhead time you need to boot up windows and the drive simulator, for each a8 load.

 

You can burn the simulator into the FLASH of the motherboard. QED. Anyway, you can boot up both machines simultaneously. Your loaders vary with different games-- just the specs someone posted show variations in different software.

[+wood_jl]

It's hard to see the 1541 as an advantage!

 

Sure, it can compute some things. Nice trick. That's making use of a kludge really. Cool and all of that, but not really a value add.

 

Hey, why not just add a graphics system to the 1541?

 

http://www.propgfx.co.uk/

 

That thing is about to be released and features a serial interface. Perfect for those 1541's! They can run demos, right off the disk! Develop on the C64, insert disk, connect graphics and watch it go!

 

Fun aside, they are big, slow and don't really add a lot of value. The interface to them sucked. The OS support sucked too.

 

This is not a strength of the C64. Come on man!

 

..or is it still, "SAY IT!"... ?

 

let me answer by qouting one of your collegaues

 

 

 

Nice dodge. Still waiting for proof. Is that so much to ask?

 

Now, go ahead an answer with specifics, numbers, and perhaps a link to your source.

 

I suggest that if you could do this, you would have already. Instead, you quote "colleagues."

 

The point here is actually to demonstrate your moronic position. There's something wrong with a wall-eyed, extremest Commodore lover that comes to an Atari forum to argue, from the beginning. Fine, maybe we'll get (1) some entertainment and (2) some insider technical info as we have. But to pretend that your machine is absolutely superior in *every single way* is proof that's you're completely absurd, and an idiot to come to an Atari forum and even attempt to maintain that absurd position. That's pretty much the point to bringing up the machine's greatest Achilles heel, to see your chicken-shit way of dealing with it. While I provided - at the very least - a Wikipedia link so you could argue with Wikipedia, you can't even do the same. Yet you're still here driveling. Why? The fact that you take the C64's greatest shortcoming and try to trumpet it as a strength - with no evidence other than you say so, mind you - is all that's required to asess your level (or lack thereof) of intelligence and maturity. Like many ididots before you, I restate that the fact that you're a wall-eyed off-the-charts Commodore lover in an Atari forum for the sole purpose of argument is highly suggestive that something's a little whacked in your head. You certainly can't do anything to impress here, but you can (and do) entertain.

 

To all others; I actually like both systems. It's morons like the one I've described above that have the problem, not the C64 itself - or the Atari, for that matter.

[atariksi]

You still employing chewbacca defense. CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer.

 

 

hmm, what PIA has to offer compared to the CIA? lets see:

 

 

- missing 2 16 bit timers

- missing various timer modes

- missing timer can count each other

- missing timers can trigger interrupts

- missing timers can count incoming signals

- missing time of day clock

- missing time of day clock alarm

 

the rest is the same.

 

so lets count thats like 7 missing features (I could have blown it to 2x as more easily) in the PIA compared to the CIA.

 

and the CIA is useless compared to the PIA ? are you serious ? I mean SERIOUS ?

 

It's chewbacca defense. The real point is joystick i/o speed but you want to argue other aspects because you can't stand it that are PROVEN false several times.

 

 

the real point is on bold and in BIG FONT above. it was said by you. dont change the subject. just face the truth: CIA is a better chip than the PIA. you have even already said that once. should I quote you to proove it? once you say the CIA is useless compared to PIA, and once you say the CIA is superior to pia.

 

now which of those statments have you said honestly ?

 

can you be taken seriously ? you are talking gibberish.

 

Both machines don't implement the same features the same way. Timers are done by POKEY okay-- so remove all those items from the list otherwise I can argue that SID has all the timing/IRQ features missing. I said CIA is a superior chip but the implementation of it makes it inferior to PIA. It's very simple if you don't get emotional and try to find fault before you understand the point.

[Wolfram]

P.S.: And now Oswald/Wolfram wil be using Eliza`s search string on how to answer -or better- on how to attack this information... oh well, this is what makes this topic so bad, whenever you say something it will be attacked in one way or another... (its simply no discussion here, its a flamewar).

 

p.s.: I am Wolfram, and I will not attack your info, nor you saying you are someone else.

[+wood_jl]

P.S.: And now Oswald/Wolfram wil be using Eliza`s search string on how to answer -or better- on how to attack this information... oh well, this is what makes this topic so bad, whenever you say something it will be attacked in one way or another... (its simply no discussion here, its a flamewar).

 

Oswald/Wolfram? Are these the same guys? Or just bedfellows?

[atariksi]

You know what-- TRUTH is always the truth even if you DON'T agree. Some people think the earth is flat.

 

 

yeah, and the truth is you said something, I have agreed, and then you still complained that the cia is useless. I have said ok I agree the cia is useless, then you said I am biased.

 

it cant be more hillarious than that. really.

 

We are arguing which joystick i/o is superior and you claim CIA superiority. I say it's superiority is useless from software perspective. Now the context of this argument HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TIMERS. YOU ARE USING CHEWBACCA DEFENSE whether you accept it or not. I asked you to accept the fact that Atari joystick I/O is superior which you have still not done. I never asked you to accept something you took out of context. You purposely want to confuse people since you LOST the argument. I can prove C64 joystick I/O is many times slower when doing byte transfers. The End.

[atariksi]

>>the real point is on bold and in BIG FONT above. it was said by you. dont change the subject. just face the truth: CIA is a better chip than the PIA. you have even already said that once. should I quote you to proove it? once you say the CIA is useless compared to PIA, and once you say the CIA is superior to pia.

 

Don't tamper with my quotes. I already know you are tampering with yours. Sign of soar loser.

[Wolfram]

Both machines don't implement the same features the same way. Timers are done by POKEY okay-- so remove all those items from the list otherwise I can argue that SID has all the timing/IRQ features missing. I said CIA is a superior chip but the implementation of it makes it inferior to PIA. It's very simple if you don't get emotional and try to find fault before you understand the point.

 

CIA is a superior chip including implementation. You want to say that CIA is useless compared to PIA when we compare them both built into a c64&A8, because in a non real life situation PIA can be ~1.8x faster.

 

now just one thought: how much faster is a pc in any way than a c64 or a8. do you think your a8 is useless ? no.

 

one more thought: maxxed out I/O speed doesnt really matters. it was already proven that a real 1541 beats an a8 drive simulator (!). they are using the CIA and the PIA. now which one is the useless ? top speed of the chip I/O just doesnt matter here.

 

 

secondly:

 

timers are done by the pokey = a8 has less features here. having to use the "sound" chip for I/O ? thats not an advantage. c64 has seperate sound & I/O chips.