Bryan Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 so...all was kind of hardware enhancements but not via software? why was it possible for c64? and not from atari? driven faster just via clever code??? Atari drives have their code in ROM with no extra RAM to store faster loading routines. It takes an internal upgrade to speed up the drive. On the C64, IRQ loaders (disk systems that work on runtime whilst a couple of interrupt driven routines play music and so forth) push alternative transfer routines into the drive's RAM but most of the fastest software-based speeders don't use it and simply up the transfer rate at the C64's end. This is easily demonstrated by loading one file, powering the drive down and up to clear it's memory and loading a second file, the 25 times faster software-based loader i have knocking about will quite happily survive a drive reboot in this way. I don't know how the 1541 communicates, but Atari uses a command system for SIO that requires that both parties be able to select the same baud rate, then the rate must be knocked back down when communicating with other SIO devices. All devices must watch at 19200 when the "command" line is asserted. For this reason, Atari never supported changing the standard rate. I think the Happy enhancement uses 54K baud. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 The SID was changed yes, but only in that the filter strengths altered from revision to revision and there's nothing to stop any 6581-based machine having it's SID swapped out with any other 6581-based unit. My own work machine for many years until i got my C128D came with a 1984 issue chip which is incredibly filter heavy, i changed it for a 1983 issue. I've got several C64's. 3 breadbins, and 2 flat ones. I think it's the C64 model E or F in the newer flat model (after 1986/1987), that has no 6581. It has a clone SID 8580, that doesn't sound as good as the older SIDs at all. It truely hate them. So I think Emkay has no point in saying Commodore made the C64 slightly better in the years. The 8580 is really a step backwards. On the C64, IRQ loaders (disk systems that work on runtime whilst a couple of interrupt driven routines play music and so forth) push alternative transfer routines into the drive's RAM but most of the fastest software-based speeders don't use it and simply up the transfer rate at the C64's end. That reminds me of the Atari 8bit demo 'Joyride' by HARD. The loader plays music, and animates a 3d pixel tunnel. I still wonder how they did that. All devices must watch at 19200 when the "command" line is asserted. For this reason, Atari never supported changing the standard rate. I think the Happy enhancement uses 54K baud. Lucky IDE-users. I love Harddisks. Harddisks are in some times even faster than the 8bits own RAM. ----- mux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 I've got several C64's. 3 breadbins, and 2 flat ones. I think it's the C64 model E or F in the newer flat model (after 1986/1987), that has no 6581. It has a clone SID 8580, that doesn't sound as good as the older SIDs at all. It truely hate them. Yeah, the 8580 sound is very different because the filters have been almost eliminated in their original form. That said, there are musicians who prefer the 8580 because it's easier to do more dance-style synth sounds. That reminds me of the Atari 8bit demo 'Joyride' by HARD. The loader plays music, and animates a 3d pixel tunnel. I still wonder how they did that. Joyride is very nice, not only do i love the loading tune it even uses one of my C64 fonts ported over! =-) IRQ loading is very common on the C64, have a look at stuff like Deus Ex Machina or Royal Arte to pick a couple at random, they both load whilst some fairly heavy effects are running - imagine Numen on a 64K machine and with disk accesses during the show rather than caching the data into the extra RAM at the start... =-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 Joyride is very nice, not only do i love the loading tune it even uses one of my C64 fonts ported over! =-) IRQ loading is very common on the C64, have a look at stuff like Deus Ex Machina or Royal Arte to pick a couple at random, they both load whilst some fairly heavy effects are running - imagine Numen on a 64K machine and with disk accesses during the show rather than caching the data into the extra RAM at the start... =-) I wonder if C64 coders discovered the drive speed increase by software control themselves. C64 crews really had a challenge of getting everything out of the machine, that's hidden normally. And indeed I'd really like to see a version of Numen that works on normal A8bit (64kb). I still wonder what it looks like on the real machine. The fact that it works on 320 kB (emulated) extended A8bit doesn't wow me after all. Now we have the 1mbyte flashcarts available, and a A8bit emulator that supports them, there should be more serious things possible on the platform. I'm curious for the next projects, that make use of this. After all, I think there are now as much people that have a 320kb Rambo A8bit as there are people with flashcarts. ----- mux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 @ TMR joyride uses one of your fonts? cool... i love the music of the snd side... it's easy to make your own sioloader...as the OS uses all 4 channels by default but you can get ridd of it... (that's what i have been told... and even Tamas bene of hard who coded the joyride-OS) TQA made IRQ-loader before... download our "energy #2 discmag" (6 discsides).... the stuff is being loaded while playing great music + cool loading effect... get the 1st "trackmo" from slight - overmind... very nice design... i love the "popping down" SLT logo... when the music switches... and get the TIGHT megademo which great tune while loading including zooming chars L, O, A, D, I, N, G... and i love the music in the 2nd half of the demo with the rotating and zooming "skyline"... the music there is brilliant... and the torus fake... as nicely done... unfortunatly i can't remember the name...was it total daze? oh and the credits in bump mapping are fast as well... for that time not bad... sad that numen does not run on 130xe but we used bankswitching because of better control + loading effects is faster... as we all hate "please wait loading or precalculating" messages... when i had last contact with tamas bene of hard...he started to code the new OS for the successor of joyride called "dressed for success"... but unfortunatly i lost completly contact to him now for years (1997 last contact)... TMR/sack do you have contact to the hardsid guys @ www.hardsid.com? because one of the guys is one of the coders of hard... (HARDsid? hard demos uses a lot of converted SIDs?) i guess Teli Sandor? but i am not sure... the domain hardsid.com seems to have a german registration now... maybe the adress in budapest is valid??? http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vis...6084/progs.html btw. the 3d hard logo was done by me with cinema on amiga1200... wow... hve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/6084/ there is the logo... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 I've got several C64's. 3 breadbins, and 2 flat ones. I think it's the C64 model E or F in the newer flat model (after 1986/1987), that has no 6581. It has a clone SID 8580, that doesn't sound as good as the older SIDs at all. It truely hate them. So I think Emkay has no point in saying Commodore made the C64 slightly better in the years. The 8580 is really a step backwards. The 8580 is a real step forward. It has a more cleaner sound and a 4th voice for digital Playback, that was realized on 6581 by the "hearable volume change" Error. As I said in other threads... no one can fight against "cult". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 This thread started out being about an Atari commerical but the way you're going at it looks more like a 20 year old flame war. You did get my opinion: Arguing about this stuff is silly. So please keep on to make it clear, if it is your opinion. It is even your fault to see a 20 year old flame war in my writings... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 Another question is, why ATARI used capacitors to reduce signal strength. Without them, the 1050 could be 5 times faster and write in DD from the beginning... The reason the 1050 couldn't do DD is because it doesn't have enough RAM for DD sectors. It has 128 bytes for "scratchpad" use, and 128 bytes for a sector buffer. The US Doubler simply adds more RAM and a new ROM. You are mentioning some matter of secondary importance. It would have cost nothing to rotate the drive faster and patch the Roms for a higher speed. The computers SIO could be patched by software to higher speeds anyway. Even the sectors could been read in two steps. The bigger RAM-buffer is reducing hardware-stress. Contrary, they would have saved money by not reducing the signal-strength with capacitors. Especially things like the brightness only in hires or the big lost space and wasted DMA cycles by using PMG or the distorting audiowireing in the Layout which was better to never build it onto the board... I call crippeling. The question still is: Why have they done this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 The 8580 is a real step forward. It has a more cleaner sound and a 4th voice for digital Playback, that was realized on 6581 by the "hearable volume change" Error. Bzzzzt! Wrong answer. =-) The 8580 doesn't have a fourth voice, neither does the 6581 have an error in it. The pop that is used to play samples on an older machine is due to a voltage leak on the board that was removed on the new issue. Any samples you hear played on a later board are using a SID voice to generate a carrier tone (to replace the volume pop) and then the exact same method of sample playback - hammering the data through the volume register. Please take my word for it, nothing was added between versions and all that changed was for cost effectiveness - in fact, we lost features and had to work around those losses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 @ TMR joyride uses one of your fonts? cool... i love the music of the snd side... Yup, on the plotter landscape part the doublefont is pulled from my demo Lethargy if memory serves. i think a later one might be mine too, but i've not checked properly. =-) it's easy to make your own sioloader...as the OS uses all 4 channels by default but you can get ridd of it... (that's what i have been told... and even Tamas bene of hard who coded the joyride-OS) Hmm, loaders were never my strong suit but if someone produces one i can use... =-) TMR/sack do you have contact to the hardsid guys @ www.hardsid.com? Can't answer for Sack but i've no dealings with 'em myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 The 8580 is a real step forward. It has a more cleaner sound and a 4th voice for digital Playback, that was realized on 6581 by the "hearable volume change" Error. Bzzzzt! Wrong answer. =-) The 8580 doesn't have a fourth voice, neither does the 6581 have an error in it. The pop that is used to play samples on an older machine is due to a voltage leak on the board that was removed on the new issue. You just gave it another name. Any samples you hear played on a later board are using a SID voice to generate a carrier tone (to replace the volume pop) and then the exact same method of sample playback - hammering the data through the volume register. Is it possible, I know a bit of C64 TMR don't know? For shure, the Digi-Playback of the 8580 was never used, because it was not sounding like C64s "cult"-sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 Is it possible, I know a bit of C64 TMR don't know? For shure, the Digi-Playback of the 8580 was never used, because it was not sounding like C64s "cult"-sound. Actually, it's not used 'cos it doesn't exist... =-) As a slightly longer answer, the 6581 and 8580 are pin compatible barring one pin, the board isn't designed to handle digital sound (either version) and 8580/new board machines play samples the same way as the old ones, either through the volume register (but it takes a little more work to make it go) or from frequency modulation (which works on both chips). If it were there, we'd have used it - believe me! =-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted November 10, 2003 Share Posted November 10, 2003 Another question is, why ATARI used capacitors to reduce signal strength. Without them, the 1050 could be 5 times faster and write in DD from the beginning... The reason the 1050 couldn't do DD is because it doesn't have enough RAM for DD sectors. It has 128 bytes for "scratchpad" use, and 128 bytes for a sector buffer. The US Doubler simply adds more RAM and a new ROM. You are mentioning some matter of secondary importance. It would have cost nothing to rotate the drive faster and patch the Roms for a higher speed. The computers SIO could be patched by software to higher speeds anyway. Even the sectors could been read in two steps. The bigger RAM-buffer is reducing hardware-stress. Contrary, they would have saved money by not reducing the signal-strength with capacitors. Especially things like the brightness only in hires or the big lost space and wasted DMA cycles by using PMG or the distorting audiowireing in the Layout which was better to never build it onto the board... I call crippeling. The question still is: Why have they done this? Speeding up the drive doesn't have anything to do with rotational speed (there's already more data going past the head than can be transferred in real time). It has to do with how much can be buffered, what order the sectors are in (skew), and the transfer rate of the drive. Where are these signal reducing capacitors? -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 It would have cost nothing to rotate the drive faster and patch the Roms for a higher speed. The computers SIO could be patched by software to higher speeds anyway. Even the sectors could been read in two steps. The bigger RAM-buffer is reducing hardware-stress.Contrary, they would have saved money by not reducing the signal-strength with capacitors. Well, if they used SMD techique in the time, and 80386's to run the drive we could have pulled 1 mbyte per second in that time. ...just kidding I think atari made a right choice. They had to minimize the costs against risk of faillure of a configuration. It's a company, that just wanted to earn money. Not please you with faster drives. @ Heaven Please, can you explain to me what you mean by 'bump-mapping' ? oh, by the way, has anyone noticed that the song at the beginning of joyride isn't Roxette's 'joyride' but 'she's got the look'.??? ----- mux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 I think atari made a right choice. They had to minimize the costs against risk of faillure of a configuration. It's a company, that just wanted to earn money. Not please you with faster drives. Pretty much what Commodore did, but without being entirely sensible about the cut-off point for speed really. oh, by the way, has anyone noticed that the song at the beginning of joyride isn't Roxette's 'joyride' but 'she's got the look'.??? Yup, noticed that and i love some of the more dramatic stings when the HARD logos are onscreen. =-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 I think atari made a right choice. They had to minimize the costs against risk of faillure of a configuration. It's a company, that just wanted to earn money. Not please you with faster drives. Pretty much what Commodore did, but without being entirely sensible about the cut-off point for speed really. Would you explain this sentence, please? ATARI really did not like commodore did. Commodore did not sleep 5 years and release the same "old" system as a new one. Today a hardware manufacturer has to upgrade his hardware every 6 months. Otherwise they were out of the market... Commodore DID fixes/upgrades allmost every year on their hardware and how successfull their marketing-strategy was, we still can read in this thread. Today "that ATARI" would not have a piece of chance on the market with their management. Commodore would live well today because the PC-world outlives by this strategy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 Well, if they used SMD techique in the time, and 80386's to run the drive we could have pulled 1 mbyte per second in that time. ...just kidding Well... I will laugh in my spare time about it... Please, can you explain to me what you mean by 'bump-mapping' ? Bumpmapping is a part of the 3d-technique to give a second skin to a texture, so the texture gets a 3d-skin itself. Virtually a lightbeam is reflected as it would be reflected by a complex 3D object with multiple textures... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sack-c0s Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 About 'the fourth voice' Maybe this is a reference to SIDplay, which had a fourth voice added to the emulator and some SID rips were patched to play samples using it as opposed to (as martin galway so elegantly put it) 'wiggling the volume register' ? If so this was a hack by emulator authors and never existed as hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 @ana if my memories are right... the part after the credits... (see attachted zips). after the "city 3d gfx" the bump mapping starts... i was shocked when i 1st saw gumi's bump mapper... my one worked 1996/97 in approx 6-7 frames and even not in fullscreen and gumi's one in 2 frames fullscreen... well... the music is in this part kicking... very simple effect... moving light over heightmap so you think your 2d map has depth... totaldaze.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 and here the "world 1st" irq-loader in a demo... in games it must be several others... think of eidolon or koronis rift, alternate realtiy which are loading while doing something on screen? sorry... seems to going offtopic now... hve overmnda.zip overmndb.zip energy2a.zip ultr2pre.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 I think atari made a right choice. They had to minimize the costs against risk of faillure of a configuration. It's a company, that just wanted to earn money. Not please you with faster drives. Pretty much what Commodore did, but without being entirely sensible about the cut-off point for speed really. Would you explain this sentence, please? Certainly, in both cases, the speed of the drive was a balancing act of cost against reliability. ATARI really did not like commodore did.Commodore did not sleep 5 years and release the same "old" system as a new one. i was talking about that specific instance rather than generally, please read the context. Today a hardware manufacturer has to upgrade his hardware every 6 months. Otherwise they were out of the market...Commodore DID fixes/upgrades allmost every year on their hardware and how successfull their marketing-strategy was, we still can read in this thread. And as i keep pointing out, that there were no hardware fixes to the C64 after 1984 when the ROM was bugfixed and the only changes made were cost cutting exercises and not upgrades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 I think atari made a right choice. They had to minimize the costs against risk of faillure of a configuration. It's a company, that just wanted to earn money. Not please you with faster drives. Pretty much what Commodore did, but without being entirely sensible about the cut-off point for speed really. Would you explain this sentence, please? Certainly, in both cases, the speed of the drive was a balancing act of cost against reliability. ATARI really did not like commodore did.Commodore did not sleep 5 years and release the same "old" system as a new one. i was talking about that specific instance rather than generally, please read the context. You can put your sentence onto the Computer and Floppy either.... Even the 1050 is not really an enhancement....exept the "enhanced" density. Perhaps, when the 850 appeared, there were only single density disks available it was technically OK. To give the 1050 drive more speed and real DD there was no more money needet but some clever thinking. The hardware was able to do so...from the beginning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 You can put your sentence onto the Computer and Floppy either.... i could, but i'm not aware of the Atari hardware enough to expand what i said so i prefer not to comment - the U.K. was predominantly a tape-based market so i've never actually seen an Atari drive in operation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigo Posted November 11, 2003 Share Posted November 11, 2003 @TMR About the 8580 vs 6581 issue: 1. It is the 8580 which cannot generate the volume clicks. I know that because i upgraded my C64-II board with a 6581, re-enabling digi sound in all games. You can re-add this feature to the 8580 by tying the AUDIO IN pin to ground with a resistor. 2. You say features were removed from the 8580. Can you eleborate more on this? Because actually, except the new filter, the 8580 has a cleaner sound and more combined waveforms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.