IEEE-488 and Commodore (was: GP-IB) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

18 Feb 1998

...
   Pardon me if I
ask a stupid question, but If they were going to 
 implement a high-speed serial bus for the C64/VIC/1541's, why would 
 they use  a device that was primarily designed for PARALLEL 
 operation?

 It seems that a 6850/6851 ACIA would have been much more appropriate, 
 and would have not been such a software mess.   
 If computer holy war zealots knew the story behind this Commodore debacle 
 back in the 80's when the flames were at their highest temperatures, the 
 anti-C64 contingent would have had a field day. 
Wouldn't they just!

It seems to me that if it's anything like the PET, they were using this 
parallel chip for all sorts of functions - keyboard scanning for a start 
- and they were trying to save a chip by putting the high speed serial 
link onto the shift register function.

<rant> It doesn't take that much more time/effort/money to do it 
properly.... <\rant>

Philip.