Posted By
gerliczer
on 2013-08-03
03:56:37
|  Re: Z80 GUI: SymbOS
@JamesD: Somehow, who knows why , I expected you to be familiar with that forum thread. My whole point was to show Litwr that people who know what they are talking about and frequenting this forum too already had this discussion and have the conclusion, so he is just wasting his time with these cycle counting experiments, trying to compare apples to pears.
Regarding the Atari video playback Algorithm/Algotech^Onslaught comes to my mind who plays short video sequences decompressed from RAM with audio streamed from a 1541 in his demos.
@MMS: You raise valid points but let's view them from a different angle.
Wave converters are a terrible waste of CPU resources for questionable results. Back in the days when the great old ones like Mucsi or CSM were still in the scene it was already considered not a worthy effort to have a picture or logo with a scroll and a wave converted music playing in a demo part. The technical limitations do not let to have much more or only through insane efforts which could be put to better use doing some more spectacular visuals. Now, call up in your mind the recent successes of TEK and Bauknecht demos. Did those use anything beyond native TED music?
Next, Internet. Yes, PHY circuitry seldom is a part of microcontrollers. But why would you restrict yourself to a limited to the unusablity experience? It can be done, people already prove it. What would be the point in a me too implementation? Although, if you do it yourself to learn or have fun then it's OK.
Now, REU and CPU cards are generally frowned upon in the C64 scene. IDE64 and 1541Ultimate is considered useful oddities, but you are better off not using its hardware accelerating features in any products or you will be looked down with pitying eyes. Those guys consider that kind of "purity" a virtue. The FPGA based machines usually try to recreate in modern components the exact same operation of the original machine. This may be considered as an escape route from the failing original hardware, although I think the retro computer scenes will die with the dying breaths of the last working machines. Building specialized hardware in extremely low quantities is costly. Those things you mentioned are built, I think, in the low hundreds. Imagine what would similar expansions cost for plus/4 based on that BSZ sold altogether 30 pieces of SID cards and needing unavoidable hardware modifications. And the final bonus is the unprocurable expansion port connector without which you cannot connect the already existing 1551 drives and expansions to the new iron.
Finally, the 264 series machines take a special spot in the hearts of most of us. That's why we come here frequently to have some conversation about those computers. Unfortunately, being mostly the same as a C64 but with much less capabilities it will never really attract people. We should give thank to the powers above that some extreme challenge seekers like Bauknecht, Cosine, Krill, Shadow/Noice, carrion and Grass (sorry if I forgot to mention someone) found the plus/4 or C16 interesting enough to spend some little time with it.
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