cyaa01@mixcom.UUCP (Chris Klausmeier) (11/14/90)
In article <5527@uafhp.uark.edu> bbs00068@uafcseg.uucp (Joel Kolstad) writes:
/I'm not. I'm running a C-64 at 4MHz using a Schnedler Systems Turbo
/Accelerator. Availiable from Schnedler Systems directly... about $200.
/
/And boy, is it great! (Too bad you can't use a 1764 with it, though!)
Just how compatible is it? Does anyone know if Image BBS will run under
such a beastie?
/ ---Joel Kolstad
/ kolstad@cae.wisc.edu
--
[][] Chris Klausmeier [] "For the words of the profits were written on the
[] cyaa01@mixcom.UUCP [] studio walls... concert halls" - Neil Peart - RUSHtreesh@vangogh.helios.nd.edu (11/15/90)
I have seen it work quite nicly with the Image BBS program. The system was probabaly the sweetest system I have ever called running on a C64. It was running Jiffy Dos with the CMD hard disk and the 4Mhz! Very quick! ctfm
cyaa01@mixcom.UUCP (Chris Klausmeier) (11/17/90)
In article <1990Nov15.131943.1979@news.nd.edu> treesh@vangogh.helios.nd.edu writes:
/ I have seen it work quite nicly with the Image BBS program. The system was
/ probabaly the sweetest system I have ever called running on a C64. It
/ was running Jiffy Dos with the CMD hard disk and the 4Mhz! Very quick!
/
/ ctfm
What is the name/number of that board? I'm curious enough to actually
waste some LD money on checking it out. (wow! heh)
--
[] Chris Klausmeier -- cyaa01@mixcom.UUCP []
[] if I could wave my magic wand... [][][][]bbs00068@uafcseg.uucp (Joel Kolstad) (11/19/90)
Since I posted my message about Swiftlinks and accelerated C-64's, there's been a flurry of activity on the subject, so I figured I'd try and tell you something about the system here. The accelerator is called a "Turbo Master CPU," and is made by Schnedler Systems, of Asheville, North Carolina. Their phone number is (704) 274-4646, and they'd be glad to send you lots of information on it. The Turbo Master contains a 65C02 CPU operating at 4.09MHz. When power is applied, the Turbo Master takes over the C-64 and your C-64 basically serves as a keyboard and a VIC/SID/6526 I/O box! The Turbo Master continues updating the C-64 RAM at the old 1MHz frequency, and updates it's own RAM (yes, it has it's own 64K CMOS RAM) at 4MHz. This makes some interesting things possible -- you can use your assembler and assemble a program at 4MHz, "switch out" (more later) the accelerator, and be left with a 1MHz machine that has your assembled program in it, ready to go. Run your program, and find out if it works. As is often the case, it may well crash... but no big deal! Just switch the accelerator back in, and you can change your program, reassemble, and try again. This scenario emphasizes the "separate but combined" nature of the C-64/Turbo Master interface. On to the switches... There are four swtiches on the Turbo Master -- Disable/Enable, Rom2/Rom1, Manual/Soft, and 1MHz/4MHz. As discussed above, disable/enable switches the whole device in and out. The Turbo Master contains a 32K EPROM storing two sets of Basic/Kernel ROM images. Rom2/1 selects between the two. As shipped, you get the standard ROM and Schedler's "feature" ROM which contains a DOS wedge and high speed disk loader/saver. If you own JiffyDOS, you can request that they send you the standard ROM/Jiffy DOS ROM option instead. (NOTE: The Jiffy DOS ROM option is Jiffy DOS version 5.0. The newest Jiffy DOS is version 6.0. CMD, who makes Jiffy DOS, says that they allowed Schnedler Systems to use version 5.0 "as a favor." They say that it took them a lot of time to get it to work on a Turbo Master, and that the extra sales they made from it didn't justify the time they put into it. Therefore, CMD says they will NOT be releasing JiffyDOS 6.0 for Turbo Accelerators. I'm personally a little peeved about this, and have called them up to discuss it. They say if they knew enough people would buy JiffyDOS for Turbo Masters, they might release it. So if you have a Turbo Master and Jiffy DOS, or might be getting such a setup, CALL THEM UP! LET THEM KNOW YOU WANT JIFFY DOS 6.0 FOR TURBO ACCELERATORS!) OK, now that I'm done yelling at CMD, back to the switches. The next switch, Manual/Soft determines whether software can control the Acclerator's speed. In the "Soft" position, bit #7 or memory location 0 swtiches the accelerator between 1MHz and 4MHz. In the "manual" position, the final switch, 1MHz/4MHz, forces the accelerator to one speed or another. That's the general overview of it. It plugs into the expansion port, and works well with cartridge expansion ports. This allows you to have Swiftlink carts, MIDI carts, I/O boards, etc. going at the same time as your Turbo Master. (As I mentioned in the original article, with a Swiftlink and Turbo Master, scrolling high res screens at those high bauds ratesi s no problem!) Note, however, that devices that do direct memory access with the C-64 won't work with the Turbo Acclerator. As far as I know, the only device that many people out there might have that does this is a Commodore REU -- a 1764, or equivalent. I'm not sure if GeoRAM uses DMA or not. In gerneral, software compatbiliity is excellent. There are really only two "gotchas:" Unimplmented Op-codes, and timing difficulties. As I mentioned, the Turbo Master uses a 65C02. A 65C02 takes many of the "undefined" 6502 opcodes, and defines them. However, the defined instructions are what Rockwell thought would be useful, not what the "undefined" 6502 instructions did anyway. The new instructions allow clearing registers, better register swapping, better bit handling, and many other improvements. (And Schnedler Systems does sell a 65C02 assembler, by the way.) However, copy protection routines that use the undefined 6502 opcodes have about a 0 probability of working. Since games are by far the programs that usually fall into this category, you may well be forced to play your games at 1MHz. (Oh well!) As far as I know, no "serious" programs suffer from this problem. (GEOS, PaperClip III, PaperClip Publisher all work fine. And PaperClip Publisher verges on being bearable at 4MHz!) The other problem relates to timing: Routines that rely on PRECISE timing will obviosuly get messed up. For example, since the serial bus still only goes the same speed, the ROMs have "switch to 1MHz" instructions placed before the Kernel LISTEN, TALK, UNTALK (etc.) routines. The serial routines are about the only built in 64 routines that were patched. The RS-232 routines only need to be "tweaked" (since the 6526 still only interrupts the processor based on a 1MHz clock, up to about 1200 baud nothing changes). Tweaking the vlaues is a simple matter, especially for terminal programs such as NovaTerm that come right out and ask you for timing values. As you might expect, at 4MHz a 64 can keep up with 9600 baud, although it takes some fiddling to get it to work. (...and then you have to figure out what you're going to do with 1K/sec...) Programs that use "busy-wait loops" also run in 1/4 the usual time. This means that simple programs like BASIC "play a tune" programs will run fast. It should be noted that almost all commercial games use interrupt driven music and movement, and rarely exhibit this problem. If you're making your own programs, it's very easy to detect a Turbo Accelerator, and change any "critical" timing values that you have to. Detection takes anywhere from 5-50 bytes, depending on whether you're just detecting "Normal" vs. "65C02" system (and then assume it's a Turbo Accelerator) or "Normal" vs. "Fast" system (and do whatever...). That's about all I can thing of on it at the moment. I believe the current price is $199. It also has a reset switch. Call Schnedler Systems and they'll give you all the answers you want (if you have a really technical question, ask for Steve Schnedler, who designed the unit). If you have relatively straightforward questions, I'll attempt to answer them if you send me e-mail at kolstad@cae.wisc.edu. Hope this answers a lot of Usenetter's questions! ---Joel Kolstad ---Joel Kolstad kolstad@cae.wisc.edu