Extending the capabilities of the 264 series Hello everyone, I recently came across an old but interesting c64 / vic-20 project to add an V9958 video processor to these machines through the cartridge port. Description and schematics below. The board also contains audio and standard rs-232 capability, we already have SID boards so can probably drop the audio but maintaining the RS-232 would be great as this would benefit C16 and C116 owners.
Does anyone know if the design can be adapted to our machines and if so is anyone willing to do it?
Re: Extending the capabilities of the 264 series Very interesting project!
Actually BSZGG's RS232 Mouse project made the same approach for RS232, added a Max232 IC (circuit) to the already existing 6551 of the Plus/4, certainly C16 and C116 were out of this possibility (but the project never realized a usable small driver). Just an idea. BTW via RS232 you may able to control a external MIDI device, like Yamaha, theoretically the MIDI is the good old RS232, just on Baud rate of 38400. the built-in 6551 maximum rate is 19800, But with an external xtal you may increase the Baud rate of 6551.
Yamaha YM2413: it was used in the MSX machines, but I feel it a little too limited. yeah, it has much more channels than the Yamaha YM2149 (=AY-3-8190), but I think it was more limited in a different ways It is limited, not because it has only 2 waveforms, but because "YM2413 can only play one user-defined instrument at a time; the other 15 instrument settings are hard-coded and cannot be altered by the user.". that's a huge limitation. It did not sound too bad (but I found it a little too streile), you can listen it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0MXWXbTRng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yucFVhoY6YA
The MSX2+ video chip was a great development, no question about it. Great colors, attribute free high resolution gfx, 80 column text mode, hardware supported fill routines. 512 x 212 pixels x 16 colors from 512. Nice.
Re: Extending the capabilities of the 264 series Yeah I think the MSX sounds a bit weak from those video's. A bit like a children's keyboard that's not even 3 octaves.
The YM2612 found in a Megadrive has recently done this back in 2019 for a game called Tanzer. There are 11 tunes in the vid and each one is marked so you can manual skip to the next. I believe only the drums are samples... Title tune is very cool but have a listen to those Stage X tunes!
Re: Extending the capabilities of the 264 series Wow, YM2612 sounds really great. Next to Tanzer I checked the DUNE 2 music, and it sounds much better than Adlib/SoundBlaster OPL2 and even sounds better than SB16 OPL3.
Re: Extending the capabilities of the 264 series Yeah the Dune 2 music on MD is a good effort. I still love that Amiga sound track tho.
Another MD game you may like the sound of and from around 2019 is Xeno Crisis.
The closest keyboards to an MD chip are the Yamaha PSS480 or PSS580 (4 octave keyboard), and the PSS680 or PSS780 (5 octave). They all have MIDI. It's not general midi but midi as it was before general midi came along. The PSS280 & PSS380 series may be another alternative for a later FM chip, no midi on these tho.
Re: Extending the capabilities of the 264 series I always love the sound chip debates
What do we think about interfacing the V9958 and RS232, can the design be adapted for our machines? The built in graphics capabilities of this chip would greatly simplify game development on the plus 4 and potentially bring a whole new dynamic to the scene... Thoughts ?
Re: Extending the capabilities of the 264 series The 9958 is a great video chip, much better, that the C128's VDA (has sprites, more colors, higher legal resolutions, hardware "blitter"). Imagine a GEOS with that video Chip!
Certainly it would make game development to a new level, though I have to admit, the purists will not like it. Even the SID cards (despite their widespread ownership) still generate some debates, how much it is the part of the 264 series, and recently some really good musics were developed for these 2 puny channels. (and certainly SID ICs became very expensive. The V9958 IC can be bough for 30-40USD from China, so not a big deal. I agree with the forum comment, that instead of 41464 ICs it could use SRAMs, and it may save a lot of extra efforts on RAS/CAS wiring.
There are very few expert programmers on this platform, and this IC requires new programming techniques, learning new addresses. But I am not a great programmer, just a lamer So I think it will purely depend on the final price, if few dozen people would have it, some programs could have been developed to it. I would certainly create some 80 column PETSCII of some graphics
I think adding new video IC AND new sound chip at the same time would make zero programs using both. (only if there would be a simple method to copy the music from the original platform. It could be complicated, if it has Z80 IC, or 16 bit CPU)
As I mentioned beforehand- using an upgraded fast RS232 could make it control some General MIDI-like devices. Yamaha developed a serial interface next to MIDI, and is communicated via the RS232. Funny, but it has EXACTLY the same Mini Din8 connector, as the 264 series Joystick connector
Yamaha MU5 is a kind of accessible device for $100-130 but but still gives you much better music that SB AWE32 or SVB Extgy (not to mention SB16). You can listen on all the CANYON.MID, and can do a comparison.
So it would be something extraordinary good for an 8 bit machine, and the MIDI musics are typically small. (the amour Canyon.MID is just 28KB). Certainly MU10 is better, and MU50 is great (and expensive). But anyone can choose "his weapon of choice".
So, a proper fast RS232 good be a really good start to ease the "long term pain" LOL
But maybe that special Yamaha cable and devices are not necessary, there are direct RS232 to MIDI boards, but I have no clue about the soft-MPU protocol https://hackaday.io/project/179964-mpu-232-rs-232-midi-interface But sending data with 38000 baud could be a challenge for our little machine...
Re: Extending the capabilities of the 264 series Wow at that MU5, I have an RY8 which is in the same style but is a drum machine lol. Didn't realise Yamaha made different units in the same style.
Re: Extending the capabilities of the 264 series What do we think about interfacing the V9958 and RS232, can the design be adapted for our machines? The built in graphics capabilities of this chip would greatly simplify game development on the plus 4 and potentially bring a whole new dynamic to the scene... Thoughts ?
Probably doable but I know nobody who would be willing to do it. And you are actually very wrong. That card would not help game development at all. You see, if you make a game for the V9958 that game won't run on the Plus/4 or C=16 computers but only on an insignificant minority of them. If you want to write it with fallback to TED graphics then congratulations, you more than doubled the work.
Regarding the sound device debate: I don't think there is much interest in yet another or another two or three PSGs. The 8 bit Commodores have no history with the plethora of Yamaha synthesizer chips except maybe the YM3526 which was built in the C=64's Sound Expander and even slighter maybe the YM3812 which is the core of FM-YAM by Xentax. I do think that SID is plenty enough. We should work on making them more widespread if that is possible.
I have to tell, the best MIDI experience I've ever had was with an XG sound card from Yamaha. It sounds superb even compared to Generatl Midi (including Roland MT-32, the "best gaming card on PC")
Extending the capabilities of the 264 series
