Wolfram

its still not useless from software perspective. its the chip that makes possible keyboard/paddles/joystick/serial/rs232/parallel I/O on the c64. including timer interrupts, time of day clocks and what not. and you call it useless from software perspective.....

and I am allowed aswell to stress the words I find important in your text. it happens everywhere with quotes, you know. just usually its in itallic. but nobody calls it tampering, because it doesnt changes the text itself. It does change it. I stressed the word "superiority"-- you are stressing the entire line and out of context. Stick to modifying your own posts. no it doesnt changes the text itself. and stressing parts in quotes is regarded as a normal thing everywhere in the world.

I havent said CIA makes c64's joy I/O superior, so why do you ask that? it wouldnt make A8's I/O superior either. the CPU makes A8's joy I/O faster, I have told you several times already. The I/O ports can do the same on both machines. It's the same chip core used for it.

and I am allowed aswell to stress the words I find important in your text. it happens everywhere with quotes, you know. just usually its in itallic. but nobody calls it tampering, because it doesnt changes the text itself.

That's your problem... You're in denial.... Exactly. He modified my quotes in post #4442 and #4445. He also modified his own several times. yes. I have changed fontsize in your post, but that's hardly tampering, what you have said remained unchanged and shows how do you change the subjects: - you said: "CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer." - then I have showed you its not useless - then you answer: "The real point is joystick i/o speed" sorry I cant follow that. once you say CIA superiority is useless compared to PIA, then you say thats not the point, but joystick I/O speed. you are changing the subject from answer to answer and not me. here is the evidence. Because you are suffering from schizophrenia. That point was originally made in the context of discussing joystick i/o. sorry but if YOU talk about "CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer.", and I give an answer to it thats straight on subject. look at that sentense again: "CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer." so CIA is better, but still useless? how can something be both better and useless ? the sentence denies itself. compared to PIA, CIA has extra functions CIA can do everything a PIA can do AND MORE! how is that useless compared to PIA ? you are in reality denial!

That's your problem... You're in denial.... Exactly. He modified my quotes in post #4442 and #4445. He also modified his own several times. yes. I have changed fontsize in your post, but that's hardly tampering, what you have said remained unchanged and shows how do you change the subjects: - you said: "CIA superiority IS useless compared to what PIA has to offer." - then I have showed you its not useless - then you answer: "The real point is joystick i/o speed" sorry I cant follow that. once you say CIA superiority is useless compared to PIA, then you say thats not the point, but joystick I/O speed. you are changing the subject from answer to answer and not me. here is the evidence.

so you give me sometimes correct sometimes incorrect information. nice one mr atariksi. how they call it in english? a freudism ? when you accidentally say the truth you dont want to say Everything I argued for is the truth-- based on what I experimented on and/or proved rationally. I don't accept anything to be an accident in the world-- read this thread and you would have known. except for example that I am tampering my posts. I have explicitly told you that my post has changed since you have replied to it, to avoid being accused with this, and you still do it. also you can check all my posts, there's only 1-2 which have been altered AFTER it stopped being the last post in the thread. now you even make up that I am changing your quotes. well sir that needs evidence. you have stated something you bring the evidence, or else its not true. because I deny it, except not quoting everything you wrote, but that's something everyone does, isnt it ?

so you give me sometimes correct sometimes incorrect information. nice one mr atariksi. how they call it in english? a freudism ? when you accidentally say the truth you dont want to say

...and can they be latched? You can set direction on joystick ports on both PIA and CIA. Amiga uses same CIA chips but they weren't stupid enough to map the keyboard/paddles/etc. on top of the parallel port and split the parallel port so you are forced to use nibbles to output to a parallel port. Are you talking about latching like Triggers do on Atari? and some people are not as stupid as you and use the port which allows for 8 bit on the c64 instead of the 4 bit ones. ofcourse you are extremely unbiased thats why you want to use the 4bit port. which is in fact 5 bits atleast, but you're not confused you know it all better

it doesnt matter if you dont like to hear this facts, I talk about what I want, and the fact is A8 is lacking timers compared to c64. it has to give up on sound channels for loading, while the c64 has not. CIA is superior to PIA. and the "joystick" ports doesnt make a difference between the machines, because the max I/O speed is defined by the CPU frequency on both machines. So there's no better joystick port just a faster cpu on the a8 side. >>wood_ said that the "slow" drive does 19200 and a drive simulator does smth like 58960 bps. >And I stated that I have seen 357,000bps on SIO port. cool. and I've seen a c64 playing back 160x200~x16 anim 12 fps + digi music. that's what the max streaming speed makes possible, it uses special tricks, because there's no handshake whatsoever, just LDA I/Oport sta mem unrolled loops. >>atari timers are more accurate, but that doesnt derives to an advantage in the real world, just like 1541 beats the drive simulator. more timers are better than a 2x timer resolution. >You are so biased and confused. 1541 does not beat a drive simulator. You don't know how many timers Atari has so you can stop arguing against them. not knowing everything from the other machine doesnt means someone is biased and confused. you didnt know that the c64 joysticks can be read with one lda. I didnt know drive simulators can not be beaten by 1541 (wrong info came from an a8 boy). its okay we're humans. we can be wrong sometimes I guess. can you accept that ?

dwhyte, bps is "bits per second". Since there is also start and stop bits, a byte needs 10 bits. 19200 bps = 1.875 kB/sec 57600 bps = 5.625 kB/sec Now that's bus transfer only! No disk access counted. The numbers I measured INCLUDE disk access, they are from actual loading times and not theoretic bus transfer speeds. Let's repeat the post I did earlier this day: I hope you agree that 5.625 kB/sec < 5.88 kB/sec, especially if you consider that those 5.88 kB/s INCLUDE disk access which basically means the actual bus transfer speed is 3 times faster than that, the rest of the time is wasted on reading sectors from disk.

the extra timers are useless from software perspective? Those missing timers make it impossible to play 4 or 3 channel music and do I/O at the same time on a8. Imagine having CIAs in the a8, how would it be useless from a software perspective, being able to use all 4 channels for music AND loading at the same time. >The other topic is drive simulators/real drives interfaced to C64/A8 (I did not start that subject), but drive simulators are FASTER than real drives. I don't see any proof by you indicating otherwise. wood_ said that the "slow" drive does 19200 and a drive simulator does smth like 58960 bps. fact is a real 1541 drive can do faster than that. if you take into acount the 10bit/byte etc stuff to get the kb/sec values. and STILL the 58960bps is just the serial speed without accounting for real disk access. while on the 1541 we have counted with true loading speeds. >Let's not start a 3rd subject yet; you can't even understand the first two. You are just looking for fault. You already indicated what a mess your >overloading the CIA is. Atari timers are more accurate but that's going to be hard for you if you can't understand above two points. facts are facts. c64 has 4 16 bit timers, a8 has 2, even those shared for being both timers/freq counters for sound. c64 sound chip has its own 16/24 whatever bit counters. so its like 7-10 (or even more with all the shit in the SID.. ADSR..) timers alltogether vs 2. atari timers are more accurate, but that doesnt derives to an advantage in the real world, just like 1541 beats the drive simulator. more timers are better than a 2x timer resolution.

CIA is a superior chip including implementation. You want to say that CIA is useless compared to PIA when we compare them both built into a c64&A8, because in a non real life situation PIA can be ~1.8x faster. now just one thought: how much faster is a pc in any way than a c64 or a8. do you think your a8 is useless ? no. one more thought: maxxed out I/O speed doesnt really matters. it was already proven that a real 1541 beats an a8 drive simulator (!). they are using the CIA and the PIA. now which one is the useless ? top speed of the chip I/O just doesnt matter here. secondly: timers are done by the pokey = a8 has less features here. having to use the "sound" chip for I/O ? thats not an advantage. c64 has seperate sound & I/O chips.

p.s.: I am Wolfram, and I will not attack your info, nor you saying you are someone else.

hmm, what PIA has to offer compared to the CIA? lets see: - missing 2 16 bit timers - missing various timer modes - missing timer can count each other - missing timers can trigger interrupts - missing timers can count incoming signals - missing time of day clock - missing time of day clock alarm the rest is the same. so lets count thats like 7 missing features (I could have blown it to 2x as more easily) in the PIA compared to the CIA. and the CIA is useless compared to the PIA ? are you serious ? I mean SERIOUS ? It's chewbacca defense. The real point is joystick i/o speed but you want to argue other aspects because you can't stand it that are PROVEN false several times. the real point is on bold and in BIG FONT above. it was said by you. dont change the subject. just face the truth: CIA is a better chip than the PIA. you have even already said that once. should I quote you to proove it? once you say the CIA is useless compared to PIA, and once you say the CIA is superior to pia. now which of those statments have you said honestly ? can you be taken seriously ? you are talking gibberish.

yeah, and the truth is you said something, I have agreed, and then you still complained that the cia is useless. I have said ok I agree the cia is useless, then you said I am biased. it cant be more hillarious than that. really.

okay, for fairness lets add the overhead time you need to boot up windows and the drive simulator, for each a8 load.

hmm, what PIA has to offer compared to the CIA? lets see: - missing 2 16 bit timers - missing various timer modes - missing timer can count each other - missing timers can trigger interrupts - missing timers can count incoming signals - missing time of day clock - missing time of day clock alarm the rest is the same. so lets count thats like 7 missing features (I could have blown it to 2x as more easily) in the PIA compared to the CIA. and the CIA is useless compared to the PIA ? are you serious ? I mean SERIOUS ?

That's what I was referring to, the speed. When a couple friends of mine got 64's they'd put in a disk, start the load, and then go do something else. Occasionally, they'd pop the door open to see if the drive reacted or if the whole thing had locked up. I was envious of some of the 64's games, but that drive was such a turn-off. I'm glad for 64 users that it turned out to be fixable through software. The A8 wasn't a speed demon, but most things loaded in under 30 seconds. haha. you have no idea what a relief this SLOW disk drive was AFTER having to use tapes!

so, the conclusion is: the slowest/shittiest drive ever, the 1541, is faster than an atari drive simulator. "Regardless, when you make some absolute claim like "faster than a8 ever will be" that means using any means." well, a real drive is faster than a drive simulator, what else do you need? besides you really shouldnt complain. with your statements like "CIA is useless".

Commodore could only buy MOS because MOS was almost broke. - C= PET came out in 1977, and PET happened after C= bought MOS - 2600 came out in 1977

You forgot to add that they don't do what I feel is still their primary function - load games. If I were to go to a retro game con or swap meet, I'd be fine bringing one 1050 along to load/test games. If I were doing C64 disk testing, I'd want to take 2 or 3 tested and working drives because they all knock heads and read differently. This is what I hate about the SX-64. You can't take it to shows to test media cause the internal drive won't keep alignment under heavy use. never had an sx64, maybe its drive is outstandingly shitty, but bear you. I have been on oncounted numbers of such a parties, and never encountered such problems. Once with a friend we have mistakenly swapped drives, and had no problems with the other one. In fact never ever would think, I should have problems with it. Swapped games with like 50 ppl in the heyday, I have never met such a problem that a disk works on one drive but doesnt on another one. Did you know that in the 80's there were so called "swappers" on the c64 scene, who did nothing but snailmail out newly cracked games to their "contacts" get back new one etc etc. Many guys posted/got each day a few disks. And the problem you adress somehow just didnt occured. They could swap hundreds and thousands of disks, some guys had like 100 "contacts". that means 100 different drives. and guess what. swapping worked without aligning drives all day long. the swapping "scene" refutes this claim heavily.

guess what it's faster than a8 ever will be. it was faster when it mattered. and now when it doesnt matters anymore you take the advantage which made it faster and turn the tables and make it a disadvantage. very creative arguing I have to admit. "faster than a8 ever will be" reflects some emotional sentiment rather than fact. You really need to prove this if it's not just another biased conjecture. proof is a few posts above. HW modified a8 drive is slower then 1541 with a software speeder.

The 1541 is certainly a more capable piece of hardware than a 1050. Atari only put enough RAM in their drives to buffer a sector and keep a few variables for the ROM-based firmware. Of course there were plug-in hardware upgrades for the Atari drives, and there were speed-up cartridges you could buy for the 64. There were also enhanced 3rd party drives for the Atari. I never knew anyone that had a 3rd party C64 drive, though I saw them in magazines. Anyway, the 1541's problem was its FUBAR firmware which was nightmare for the kids with 64's back in 83-85. Once the speed-ups started becoming more commonplace, it wasn't so bad. nah, IF you didnt know the a8, typing in some commands was perfectly fine, and userfriendly, you just didnt knew it could be easyer I'm much more angry for the decision to keep compatiblity with vic20, which resulted in a 8-10x slower then possible loading speed. (HW bit banging vs SOFT bit banging) soft bit bang loaders managed to crank up the speed by 16x, so I assume even a lousy factory programmad HW bit banger would have been like 10x faster.

let me answer by qouting one of your collegaues "Yeah, sure. "BECAUSE YOU SAY SO", right? I've provided numbers and links as evidence. ... Proof? Numbers? Links? ... BWAH HA HA HA HA!!" "What you WON'T get is evidence and numbers to back up their claims, because there AREN'T ANY. What you'll get is the above quoted BS, and then a call to quickly change the subject" "it's like dogshit attracting flies - they don't leave but bullshit incessantly instead, with no proof, mind you." "Prove my point, ... Are there **ANY** weaknesses **AT ALL** ... or is it simply God's Absolute Perfection in 8-bit form?"