[comp.sys.atari.st] 6301 used as co-processor

I0908@DKAFHS1.BITNET (05/14/89)

Date: 13 May 1989, 20:20:53 SET
From: Cornelius Caesar          BITNET / EARN:       I0908    at DKAFHS1
To:   info-atari16 at score.stanford.edu

I just found another (german) ST magazine which I did't know before.

(If someone is interested:
   ST VISION
   Postfach 1651
   D-6070 Langen
   West Germany

full coverage of the Atari ST)

The May/June issue has a small article about using the HD 6301
keyboard processor as an (integer) co-processor for the 68000.
For this they poke a little program into the 6301's 128 byte RAM
which apparently has to interprete later to be given parameters.
A sample BASIC loader does this by resetting the 6301 and poking in
that program, which reads a command plus two arguments. The result
can then be read out from the keyboard processor.
Of course that is only a demo, but the author claims that some
programs can be made faster up to 15 % with clever programming.

Can somebody comment this?
Are there dangerous drawbacks?

Cornelius