12 Jan
2012
12 Jan
'12
6:31 p.m.
On Jan 12 2012, Lance Lyon wrote:
It's practically BASIC 1.0, which is the version Jack Tramiel licensed from
Bill Gates in 1977 for a flat fee of $250,000 to use on as many units as he
liked.
The only two keywords added in BASIC 2.0 as far as I know are the pi symbol
and the GO keyword, and I have no idea what GO does, if indeed anything at
all. In BASIC 7.0 on the C128, it's used in "GO 64" to switch to C64 mode.
There is an expansion for BASIC 2.0, which is called Super Expander, for
both the VIC 20 and C64. Well worth seeking out, it's the same dialect
later used in BASIC 3.5 for the plus/4 and BASIC 7.0 for the C128.
Are there
any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does
it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I
couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs?
"Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 .......
Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs
aren't as good as the
older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and
with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old
breadboxes.
6581 SIDs have a very variable filter but when you get a good one it's
really nice. The transfer function for the cutoff frequency is roughly
speaking exponential. Whereas 8580 SIDs have much more consistent filters
between units, stronger resonance and a linear transfer function for the
cutoff frequency. The 6581 filter distorts a lot but in a very nice
"analogue synthesizer" sort of way. In the same way that a Korg MS20 filter
or a Moog filter is nice, so is the 6581 filter nice.