Posted By
MMS
on 2013-07-31
17:04:55
 |  Re: Z80 GUI: SymbOS
well, i think next to system benchmark tools the best are the 3d games with a lot of (floating point?) calculations behind, like Elite, Castle Master,etc. bitmap gfx is similar hires with similar colormap approach, no major sprite activity. It really shows CPU power, gfx processor does not help too much.
Back to the topic (previously i lost some hundred words by pressing a wrong button,ah!):
i see zero chance to have Supercpu or Reu like project for this small scene,would be too expensive, hundreds of euros.
I have a small project (originated from a more talented HW guy) on hold till october (new house ready), RS232 mouse on user port. Testing, Resident Sw (for BASIC) finetuning and geos driver to be made. I want to use it in my slowly progressing adventure too. Then all the doku would be available (board together with mouse may cost 10-15€)
but this is still only the mouse. And then what about c16 and c116?
Reading few revival project (Sam, Speccy 2010,etc) i saw a lot of new projects, but they still look like an emulator, just in Hw, not PC Software
then how we may rocket our machine next to "übermachine 8bit beasts" to provide XXI. century performance with keeping most of key parameters?
The modification and direct linkage via cartridge of an almost ready fast Z80 (eZ80?) based machine may give us a lot: blazing fast speed, Rs232 for mouse, big memory, Sd card support, even internet access. With SymbOS it would be a beast on low price. Take it as a part of symbOS, and NOT as C+5. Ready eZ80 boards may cost 60-80€, but we need no HDMI and GPU, and 256Kb+SD would be enough, and card pribe could be below 50€ despite low volume (as using standard cheap components). Keeping TED would keep the essentials (gfx, sound), SymbOS would run,feel and taste as a Plussy on steroids. Though the running of original plus/4 code would be impossible(like in GEOS!), it would open a new possibility: running all ZX Spectrum games on this extended machine in emulation, as Plussy can easily show speccy pictures, emu of speccy sound is easy with TED.
If the Cpu switch off signal does not exist on plussy expansion port,like on c64, then all the aboves (and any cpu upgrade project) are impossible.
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