c8923075@frey.nu.oz.au (Chris Baird) (12/04/90)
Don't blame me if these are often repeated questions,,, It's your
fault for not talking your SysMgr to set up an archive for this newsgroup!
This particular account disappears into the Binary Beyond on the
10th of December, so here's a couple of quick questions to finish my
acedemic year:
Q1: I've been mucking around with the BASIC interpreter in the 64, after
neglecting it for a couple of years while writing in machine code,
and within the varible storage area ($2D-2E onwards) where all
the FP,Integer and String info is kept, there's a 4th type of
record for the DEFFN's. The info I have at hand only describes the
format for the first 3 types, and I wonder if anyone could describe
what the ~5 byte onwards in the DEFFN field are for.
Isn't it amazing how CBM managed to get a reasonible OS into 7K?
Q2: Over half a decade ago, I used to have a magazine (before some
unmentioned person lost it) that told of "Magic Numbers", approx
10 digit long numbers, that when entered into a VIC/64 would reset
the machine. I've had a look through a dissassembly of the 64's ROMs
and haven't found a clue to what they are. I know they exist, I've
actually tried typing them in. They where something like 36888234...
Q3: Is the 6510's I/O DDR (byte $0000) useful for anything?
Q4: ULTIMAX ---- One fine night (~1am) I was looking through the memory
configurations & noticed the lay-out for the never released ULTIMAX.
It wasn't difficult to see why; 4K RAM, 8K ROM & 4K I/O. Yuck,,,,
Question :- How far did Commodore get with this? Is there source
code for the Kernal lying around somewhere, and how different would
it have been from the std. 64? (Kernal & Char ROM, etc)
Q5: In my Austrailan/Euro PAL ~1983 C64, there is a string "RRBY" from
$FFF6-FFF9, just after the Kernal jump table. I've checked on a few
other Commodore machines (VIC,PET4032) but it's not there, and
doesn't seem to be apart of any routine. Someone's Initals?
After the 10th, please send any correspondence to LNCJB@cc.nu.oz.au, but how
about posting it instead? (Give this little newsgroup a bit of volume :)
--
Chris Baird
Undergrad BSc(Physics) @ Newcastle Uni (OZ!)
C8923075@frey.nu.oz.auMichelle@cup.portal.com (Tracy M Wirs) (12/10/90)
I know the answer to Q2..... COMPUTE!'s GAZETTE printed it with their MLX checker programs...... it's SYS 64738 for the C64. Michelle@cup.portal.com
houde@terre.DMI.USherb.CA (Francois Houde) (12/10/90)
In article <1990Dec4.014321.14609@frey.nu.oz.au> c8923075@frey.nu.oz.au (Chris Baird) writes: >Q4: ULTIMAX ---- One fine night (~1am) I was looking through the memory > configurations & noticed the lay-out for the never released ULTIMAX. > It wasn't difficult to see why; 4K RAM, 8K ROM & 4K I/O. Yuck,,,, > Question :- How far did Commodore get with this? Is there source > code for the Kernal lying around somewhere, and how different would > it have been from the std. 64? (Kernal & Char ROM, etc) Ultimax : I think that was the Commodore Max Machine, a game machine which had the same architecture as the C-64 (Sound,video,sprites) but ONLY 4k ram for the video buffers. (I think that was 16k actually) Remember the game cartridges? (omega race, kickman, mouse trap) these were made to work both on C-64 and Max. Another case of the "machine that never saw the light of day" thread. === Etienne === via Houde@DMI.USHERB.CA