JamesD
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Posts posted by JamesD
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On 9/15/2020 at 4:41 PM, Bill Loguidice said:I'd say they did a good job of pushing it. There were commercials and it was featured in their ubiquitous catalog. It was never going to sell gangbusters in a world with competitors like the C-64.
Well, they certainly advertised it.
I'm not sure they did much to show how good the machine was though.
But then, you could say the same for other computers.
Nobody really compared themselves to the competition.
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Watch Dogs 2 is one of the free games on Epic right now
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8 hours ago, mr_me said:This all seems very impressive. Sounds like it could compete with amiga. How much did os9 cost.
Was the cp/m emulator a z80 based cartridge or software emulation?
I don't think porting cp/m software was what IBM had in mind when choosing intel. The motorola 68000 was actually more compatible with the processors ibm was using but it simply wasn't ready.
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One thing I'm amazed with is that even the most maligned, unsuccessful computers of the 1980s have a healthy support community today.
*edit* By the time you bought a CoCo 3, disk drive, and OS-9, you were getting close to Amiga pricing.
If they had sold a bundle for a cheaper price, then maybe.
What's more significant IMHO, is that OS-9 was out years before the Amiga, so people were taking advantage of multitasking years earlier.
I think OS-9 Level 1 was $99 . I'm not sure about OS-9 Level 2.
When I was in college, the local Radio Shack carried OS-9 Level 1, Level 2, PASCAL, C, and BASIC-09.
You could also get COBOL but I never saw that in a store.
I vaguely remember them offering some blowout prices in the late 80s with stuff 30% to 50% off.
Even at half off, buying OS-9 + Pascal and/or C was out of my budget.
There is an OS-9 remake called Nitros-09 that is an improvement on the original OS.
The CP/M emulator is software.
The emulator was NOT available back in the day, but it was clearly possible.
Emulation speed isn't blindingly fast, but the new GIME's high speed mode, or an CoCo 3 FPGA system should run it much faster than this.
Note that this is running on a 6809, it would run faster on a 6309.
I wasn't suggesting IBM was considering the porting CP/M software in their decision, that was software houses
The 68000 wasn't ready?
The 68000 was supposedly released in 1979, and the PC wasn't started until 1980.
IBM introduced a 68000 based system the same year as the IBM PC, but it wasn't a personal computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_9000
So??? I have no idea.
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22 minutes ago, The Usotsuki said:Huh. Sources I read said it used a Rockwell 65C12.
Looks like it was in the later models
https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?p=230593
Quote...
BBC Model A and B
Original BBC Model B has a MOS 6502A (NMOS).
External 6502 Second Processor
The external 6502 Second Processor uses a Rockwell 65C02 (CMOS) version which includes bug fixes, eight new instructions (BRA, PLX, PLY, PHX, PHY, STZ, TRB, TSB), plus four additional Rockwell-only instructions (BBR, BBS, RMB, SMB), and two new addressing modes (“Indexed Absolute Indirect” and “Indirect Zero Page”).
The BASIC II assembler doesn’t support use of the 12 additional instructions or addressing modes(?).
BBC Master and Compact
The Master uses a Rockwell 65SC12 CMD/GTE G65SC12, which adds the eight new instructions, and addressing modes, from the second processor’s 65C02. The Rockwell-specific instructions are not supported.
The BASIC IV assembler adds support for the eight additional instructions of the 65C02, and two of the Rockwell-only instructions (BBR and BBS).
BBC Master Turbo
The Master Turbo co-processor has a Rockwell 65C102 with, presumably the same features as the Master’s 65SC12.
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40 minutes ago, JamesD said:...
Each line has the overhead of 5 bytes. Two for the line # as an integer, two for the pointer to the next line, and one for the line terminator.
...FWIW, the 6803, and 6809 are faster per MHz for a lot of interpreter operations due to the 16 bit index & data register support.
One of those things is searching for a line #, so the 6502 might benefit more from packing more on a line.
Searching for a line # in GOTO or GOSUB on 6803LE3BB ldd ,X ; check link to the next line beq LE3C9 ; return with carry set if end of program ldd BINVAL ; D = target line number subd 2,X ; subtract line number being looked at bls LE3CA ; branch if found (carry clear) or surpassed (carry set) ldx ,X ; point X to next line bra LE3BB ; keep searching LE3C9 sec ; set carry to indicate 'Not Found' LE3CA stx SRCPTR ; save address of last line checked rts ; returnThis is the 6502 version
FL1 ldy #$01 ;search from (X,A) sta LOWTR stx LOWTR+1 lda (LOWTR),y beq LD647 ;end of program, and not found iny iny lda LINNUM+1 cmp (LOWTR),y bcc RTS_1 ;if not found beq LD635 dey bne LD63E LD635 lda LINNUM dey cmp (LOWTR),y bcc RTS_1 ;past line, not found beq RTS_1 ;if found LD63E dey lda (LOWTR),y tax dey lda (LOWTR),y bcs FL1 ;always LD647 clc ;return carry=0 RTS_1 rts
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20 minutes ago, The Usotsuki said:Didn't the BBC Master have a 65C02 variant as its main CPU?
Not according to the page I looked at. It was just a 2MHz 6502.
The 2nd CPU expansion ran at 3MHz, so they had to use a 65C02. -
54 minutes ago, wierd_w said:I dunno.. I ... (and my poor, scarred hands) remember Packard Bell.
I swear to the unholy god of technology, those people who made those things had no fucking clue what a deburr tool was.
(or that external cache on anything newer than a 386 is NOT OPTIONAL, regardless of what the spec sheet says.)
So many painful support memories from Packard Bells. I would not wish that on somebody who is young and unsuspecting. Give them a nice period Dell instead.
We referred to them as Packard Hell when I was selling computers. No, we didn't sell them, but we had to repair them once in a while.
There was another big brand that was a nightmare, but I forget which. (*edit* Blue Chip?)
One year I took a temporary job activating licenses for Turbo Tax the first year they started doing online license activations.
When I started, I was trained as an activation specialist (monkey that can type) but so many people had problems with activation, that some of us had to be switched to tech support... which we weren't trained for.
Half my tech support calls were Packard Bells (you have to change the hardware config in the bios to blah blah blah), and the other half were probably people trying to use a friend's or pirate copy.
We ended out handing out new licenses right and left, and told people that wouldn't happen the next year.
In the last few days to file on time, there were some people that sounded like they were in tears.-
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20 minutes ago, wierd_w said:I think it is meant in "Subjective 'I start workload, and system does not drop into a coma trying to do it' metrics of power. Some of the 68k processors were hands-down better designs than their x86 peers, for instance-- as regards how they accessed memory, did memory mapping and protection, etc--- but the complex instructions inside actual x86 chips of the time could accomplish certain kinds of compute-heavy workloads in fewer cycles.
Like anything in the real world, the devil is in the details. Early amigas for instance, were highly timing-cycle optimized, with lots of support chips doing all kinds of heavy lifting. This was both beneficial, and detrimental, depending on how you look at it. (Beneficial in that the CPU was not having to slog through pedestrian tasks, like graphics data IO, but on the other hand, it meant that future upgrade paths were limited and hindered, as later series chips were developed.)
All those older systems had areas where they shined, but they did it by accepting warts somewhere else. It was the era of compromise all around-- you had to decide where you wanted to compromise, and then buy appropriately.
Look up the clock cycles for instructions on an 8088. It's horrible. The only advantage was if you added a math coprocessor, which most machines didn't have.
The 68000 instruction set is more orthogonal, more memory efficient, offered a nicer memory model, was less of a PITA to program, etc... but IBM chose intel, and developers coming from CP/M could easily port their code to the 8088.
Later 680x0 CPUs were faster per clock cycle than the same generation intel chips, but Motorola fell behind in MHz, and developing new generations of CPUs.
People assumed a higher MHz always meant faster than a lower one.
One thing the Amiga had going for it, is that it's OS was much more responsive than Windows. If you put the two side by side, a 68000 felt faster than much faster intel CPUs. -
One drawback to the C64 full screen editor, is that it limited line lengths.
It can get ugly looking, but you can pack 256(?) characters onto a line on most TRS-80s.
The MC-10 doesn't have an editor, but I think the line buffer is 128 characters.
Less lines means less memory needed, the interpreter has to deal with fewer line changes, and it doesn't have to search through as many lines for GOTO, or GOSUB, so it's faster.
Each line has the overhead of 5 bytes. Two for the line # as an integer, two for the pointer to the next line, and one for the line terminator.
If you have a 1000 line program for the C64, and it can fit in 750 lines on a TRS-80 by using longer lines, then it saves 250*5=1250 bytes.
Applesoft II BASIC does something other Microsoft BASICs don't.
It removes spaces during tokenization.
This speed up the interpreter slightly.
When you list the program, it inserts spaces around tokens. -
35 minutes ago, The Usotsuki said:Acorn used it too, and I think the Atari Lynx had a 'C02 too.
The BBC Micro only used it in the 2nd CPU expansion, and the Lynx isn't a personal computer.
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On 9/15/2020 at 9:13 AM, Hwlngmad said:Throwing my two cents in, these are my thoughts on the matter. The options for each category are as follows:
1. Price: Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, C64, Vic-20, TI-99/4a, Coco 2
2. Game library: A8, C64, Apple II, CoCo 2, Amiga, ST, Mac, MS-DOS / PC clone
3. Ease of file transfers to/from modern devices: A8, C64, and CoCo 2 have dead simple SD card solutions of some kind
4. Powerfulness (or whatever you call it) of the computer: A8, C64, Apple II, Amiga, ST, Mac, MS-DOS / PC clone
5. Ease of use: A8, C64, and CoCo 2 (due largely in part to #3)
6. Reliability: Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Apple II, CoCo 2, MS-DOS / PC clone
7. Video output: A8, C64, MS-DOS / PC clone
8. BASIC: Apple II, Vic-20, C64, CoCo 2
Obviously my take on this is from a U.S. perspective and just my opinion. Other machines to consider if one lives abroad could include ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, and Dragon 32/64 machines, apart from the Amiga and ST which I believe are easier and cheaper to find abroad, especially in England.
Regardless, there are lots of good options out there. It is just a matter of what one likes, what one is willing to pay, and what one wants to do. There are lots of computers for some good gaming, but perhaps not as much for more serious computing, or so it seems to me.
Hopefully this list and the other comments help someone out.
Exactly what do you mean by powerfulness?
The CoCo 1/2 can RUN at double speed when accessing the ROM area which is also where game carts are located.
This speeds up BASIC by around 30%, making it one of the faster machines out there in BASIC, and it can speed up game carts though I think only 1 cart has used that.
The CoCo 3 can RUN at double speed all the time (1.77MHz) while still offering backwards compatibility.
The 6809 has a hardware multiply instruction. Microsoft didn't use it in their BASIC, but I created a patch to replace the floating point multiply with one that uses it.
I haven't benchmarked the CoCo 3 patch, but my MC-10 BASIC rewrite uses it, and math intensive programs like 3D plots are over 40% faster.
The MC-10 with my BASIC can complete Ahl's benchmark (BASIC) in 1:06, where the Apple II & C64 take about 1:53. The MC-10 is clocked at 0.89MHz.
You can swap out the 6809 for a 6309, and once native mode is enabled, 6809 software can run at over 20% faster, 6309 software can run 30% faster.
The 6309 extends the 6809's 16 bit support, it adds some 32 bit support, has memory move instructions, additional registers, and it has a hardware divide.
The FLEX OS and can run on 64K CoCos. It's a CP/M like OS available for 6800 or 6809 machines with a lot of programs (programs are CPU specific).
OS-9 Level 1 runs on any 64K CoCo, and OS-9 Level II runs on the CoCo 3.
It's a fully multitasking OS with some powerful applications that brought preemptive multitasking to micros years before the Amiga.
Trying to multi-task on a 6502 is dreadful, but the 6809's fully relocatable code, relocatable direct page (Page 0 to you 6502 fans) makes it easy.
Dynacalc is one of the best spreadsheets ever created for an 8 bit, and it has CoCo DOS & OS-9 versions.
On Level II OS-9, you can run a CP/M emulator, and it's programs as well at the same time as OS-9 programs.
CP/M programs can continue to run in the background while you do something else, so if you print from Wordstar, it can continue to print while you do something else.
You can even run multiple CP/M programs at once.
The CoCo 3 has 2MB RAM expansions that OS-9 can already use, and there are larger expansions on the way. There were 2MB OS-9 machines back in the day.
There is a GIME chip (CoCo 3) upgrade in beta test that adds additional graphics modes, VGA output, and an even higher speed mode.
There are word processors, data bases, etc... that can run on a CoCo 1/2 that will display text in 51/64/81 characters per line using graphics (81 is for page formatting only, 64 is only readable on monochrome composite output)
Many of these applications offer 80 column versions for the CoCo 3.
There are graphical word processors similar to Mac Write, Desktop Publishers, music composition software with MIDI support, etc...
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FWIW, putting REM at the end of lines or executing lines that have a REM statement will slow down your program in Microsoft BASIC.
When BASIC encounters GOTO, GOSUB, REM, or has an IF, it has to scan for the end of line marker character by character.
This is one of the things I've changed in the optimized BASIC I've been working on for the MC-10.-
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On 9/15/2020 at 7:55 AM, The Usotsuki said:An advantage of the 65C02 over the 6502 is the ability to push and push the indexes directly (phx, phy, plx, ply).
Apple was the only company I'm aware of that used it, and you couldn't just plug it in to a lot of computers.
I *think* there are even mods in Apple Assembly Lines on how to get it working in some older Apples.
FWIW, I wrote a Mockingboard music player several years ago, and I added 65C02 support to see what improvement it offered.
It ended up around 5% smaller, but the test program was rather small, so the interrupt handler probably skewed that a little high.
Rockwell's version offers additional instructions, but they were mostly bit operations you'd use in an embedded system.
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3 hours ago, hloberg said:I tried to port it to TI console BASIC and ran out of memory. I wonder if I would have the same problem with the MC-10. the program doesn't use that many extended commands so if it fits would be simple to port.
There are upgrades that will let you have access to 32K from BASIC.
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1 hour ago, potatohead said:With a 6809, spiffy auto increment, decrement modes, blasting pixels is fast.
Abuse the stack, and it's even faster.
And before anyone says "those aren't real colors", they are as real as anything produced on the wildly successful 8 bit Apple line.
Too bad that didn't see more use like CGA 16 color mode did.
We've swung way off topic, but...
Funny thing, the separate 6803 instructions to load or store plus the increment or decrement instruction take the same number of clock cycles as the 6809's instructions with auto increment.
The 6809 is really memory efficient, but not so much on clock cycles.
The speed difference comes when you start dealing with a compiler.
The stack relative addressing, LEA instructions, and ability to push/pull multiple registers with a single instruction don't exist on other 8 bit CPUs.
You can't even push/pull the index registers directly to/from the stack on the 6800 or 6502.
6809:
STA ,X+
6803:
STAA ,X
INX
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12 minutes ago, Mr SQL said:A famous CoCo programmer from the scene explained to me a few years ago that he had unlocked this mode and got it working on a stock CoCo III and that Tandy had deliberately disabled it. I don't think he was the only programmer to do so.
I know an engineer supposedly said he tested the 256 color mode, but that might of been on the prototype.
Leaving that out could have had to do with the number of gates that would fit on the chip, or other costs.
That's one case where I'm not sure it had anything to do with competing with the 1000 line, though I don't blame people for being suspicious. -
31 minutes ago, wongojack said:I hear where you are coming from here, but this bullsh!+ below is also very believable. "I want more funds for my product. I've reviewed the numbers, can't you see how much better it is? Just look at the difference" <points at wrong screen>. I mean, I've been in that meeting!
I got chills reading that last part. The more things change . . .
Corporate turf wars are common.
I have plenty of stories myself.
*edit*
Check the Chuck Peddle story from Motorola at just after the 48 minute markClassic corporate turf war crap
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29 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:The conspiracy theories with companies purposely sabotaging their own products, like Coleco with the Atari 2600 and Intellivision ports of Donkey Kong, Apple with the IIGS, Tandy with the CoCo 3, etc., really have to go away. Rarely, if ever, will a company purposely do something to weaken or diminish their own product. After all, it's their product with their name on it, and the only harm they'd do is directly to themselves. If they really didn't want a product out there, they'd either discontinue it or not release it in the first place. It's almost always other factors at play, like resources, time, or skill.
In terms of the CoCo 3, as Boisy and I covered in the book, CoCo: The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer (https://amzn.to/32s9lrW), it's a miracle it got made at all. The Deluxe Color Computer, which was a genuine upgrade for the CoCo series, was already nixed. The CoCo 3 was a budget-limited way to extend the line a bit further. Much-needed upgrades for sound and other extras were simply left off to keep the bill of materials as low as possible (and if the engineers had insisted, there would have never been a CoCo 3, so you take what you can get). Tandy knew exactly how much a product had to cost to turn a profit and they were going to stick to that metric. And yes, absolutely, the Tandy 1000 series was the lead computer series for Tandy, but if the CoCo and TRS-80 were still going to sell enough units, sure enough Tandy was going to sell them. That's why both the CoCo 3 and TRS-80 Model 4 made it into catalogs long past their respective primes and useful commercial lifespans. For modest 8-bit computers like the CoCo and TRS-80 series to last roughly a decade and 14 years, respectively, on the market, is no small feat.
The story about the meeting where the Tandy 1000 guys were trying to do away with the CoCo 3 was from Steve Bjork, the guy that wrote the CoCo 3 version of Rampage
Tell him he got it wrong
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44 minutes ago, JamesD said:RND, [email protected], and a couple other things need changed, but they are both Microsoft BASICs.
Porting to the Plus/4 can be pretty easy, but the C64 is missing some common commands you have to replace with POKEs and ROM calls.
I posted a link to your site in the news topics suggestions for CoCoTalk on the CoCo Discord server.
You might get a mention Saturday.
*edit*
If it wasn't already mentionedIt was mentioned in the August 29th show
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12 hours ago, micahcowan said:Hiya! Welcome to the Apple II scene - I'm new here as well, got my //c about a year ago.
Mille Bornes is a great game, I have it in a tin at home, and my first exposure to it was on the Mac, in the form of this game.
I enjoyed playing your creation very much! There were no surprising or confusing gameplay aspects (at least, for someone who already knows how to play the card game).
I did find that the card reading/shuffling portion had me twiddling my thumbs, wondering how long it would take. I added a progress status, and made the shuffle faster as well (by only randomizing one of the swapped cards, incrementing the other, ensuring every card gets swapped at least once but no more than 100 iterations, and half the random calculations).
Feel free to incorporate one or both changes. My modifications are:
1950 PRINT "READING CARDS...":I=0 2300 PRINT I;" CARDS. SHUFFLING."; 2310 II=0 2410 FOR Z=1 TO I:B = INT(RND(1)*I) + 1 2420 II = II + 1 : IF II = 10 THEN II = 0 : PRINT "."; 2500 T1$ = CR$(Z):CR$(Z) = CR$(B):CR$(B) = T1$: NEXT Z: REM REM [email protected]@@ 5 CARDS EACH 2900 PRINT
(BTW, is that REMark on line 2500 actually intended?)
That's the same RND change I had to make on the "Solitaire Solver" I ported to the Apple.
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If you didn't use Extended BASIC commands, that might run on an MC-10
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2 hours ago, hloberg said:I translated it from the CoCo by pulling it into Notepad+ on my laptop then did global replace for things like REM (' on the CoCo) and some of it came out looking a little odd. otherwise the CoCo to Applesoft was the easiest port I have done of the game. Worst was the 1st Atari BASIC to TI99. Atari BASIC is very non-standard in the way it uses strings. The TI99 version was an almost complete rewrite because. All other version been based on the TI99 version since.
RND, [email protected], and a couple other things need changed, but they are both Microsoft BASICs.
Porting to the Plus/4 can be pretty easy, but the C64 is missing some common commands you have to replace with POKEs and ROM calls.
I posted a link to your site in the news topics suggestions for CoCoTalk on the CoCo Discord server.
You might get a mention Saturday.
*edit*
If it wasn't already mentioned -
Just now, zzip said:but were the two really in competition with each other? Seemed like people flocked to the T1000 because they wanted an affordable PC clone. Those people were never going to buy a CoCo, likewise the audience for a CoCo wasn't looking for a PC.
They probably weren't but the PC group perceived the CoCo 3 as cannibalizing their sales.
Tandy said several times that the CoCo was their top selling machine, and that might have caused some jealousy.-
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Do you consider text adventures as video games?
in Classic Computing Discussion
Posted
I kinda saw them as computer games rather than video games, and the two were distinctly different in my mind.
Video games were more arcade like, and computer games involved more strategy, deeper game play, and often a slower pace.
I'd have to say it depends on the game