4 Sep
2006
4 Sep
'06
2:05 p.m.
Then, and reports vary as to why, CBM tried to beef it
up into an entire
product line. It was designed for absolute low parts count (the design
puts VIC-like sound back in the video, it lacks sprites, etc.) The
CV364 (with the speech synthesizer) would be the top end, with the 264
coming in second. Cameron can provide more detail on when the C16 (116
spec in a VIC/64 case) was added, I think it came later in the process.
It was a pretty late add in the 264 line. My best guess is Q1 1985.
Here are some more notes on the 264 series:
http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/x64.html
And the little C116 that originally held so much
promise? A small
production was dumped in Japan, where they were not received all that
well. Mine is a prototype unit, which is why it is NTSC. Either
Cameron or Bo Zimmerman has a production unit, which I think is PAL.
I have a PAL production unit, but it was converted to NTSC by its previous
owner (a Kernal and crystal swap are all that's necessary; a Kernal from an
NTSC 16 will do nicely); I demoed it at VCF a couple years back.
I hate the 116 keyboard -- it's bad even amongst chiclet keyboards.
Well, technically, I'm talking about the ROMH,
ROML, EXROM, etc. lines
of the 64, which would change the memory map. The IC controlling them
is the PLA. Calling it an MMU (given the current usage of the term) is
probably misleading. The C128 has a better attempt at an MMU, where
memory can be programmatically remapped. IN essence, the EXROM, ROMH,
ROML were only intended to be changed upon powerup, but on the 64, they
could be changed at any time to affect the memory map. Some carts would
use this to an advantage. The C128 had issues with this usage of the lines.
The Magic Voice comes to mind ...
--
--------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ ---
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- NO, I'M NOT AN ELITIST...WHY DO YOU ASK, PEASANT? -- Rusty Spoon -----------