Search found 4673 matches

by Mike
Sun May 19, 2013 1:42 am
Forum: General Topics
Topic: How Do you Go About Converting a TAP to PRG?
Replies: 14
Views: 1640

Re: How Do you Go About Converting a TAP to PRG?

Pedro, Unless the game has no protection, the type of conversion you want to do is more or less a matter of cracking the software you want to convert. just to give you a small hint at what is involved in this: - one would at first simply load in the game as normal, checking the type of the autostart...
by Mike
Sat May 18, 2013 4:14 am
Forum: Hardware and Tech
Topic: vic-1110 8k ram cart upgrade (and other solutions)
Replies: 59
Views: 10853

This is probably for compatibility with self modifying code cartridges but as demonstrated with the game Crazy Antics, you MUST place in read-only mode ALL the RAM for full compatibility with dumped cartridges. I had to try this out. With the NTSC dump on zimmers, I could successfully run K-razy An...
by Mike
Fri May 17, 2013 1:38 pm
Forum: Hardware and Tech
Topic: vic-1110 8k ram cart upgrade (and other solutions)
Replies: 59
Views: 10853

Furthermore I'm trying to comprehend the concept of generating A13 and A14 out of BLK1-3, which Mike has given me some insight already. You need to differentiate between the address range of the 6502 and the address range of the RAM chip. CA0 .. CA13 are the lower 14 bits of the C PU A ddress-Bus e...
by Mike
Thu May 16, 2013 4:19 pm
Forum: Hardware and Tech
Topic: vic-1110 8k ram cart upgrade (and other solutions)
Replies: 59
Views: 10853

Indeed there are different ways to combine /BLK1, /BLK2, /BLK3 and /BLK5 to form A13, A14 and /CS. The only prerequisite is, that one of the /BLKx going low results in a unique one of the four possible combinations of A13, A14; and if any one of the /BLKx signals goes low, so should also do /CS. Tak...
by Mike
Thu May 16, 2013 1:58 pm
Forum: Hardware and Tech
Topic: vic-1110 8k ram cart upgrade (and other solutions)
Replies: 59
Views: 10853

I didn't put the resistor network in place, but it already works. Without the resistor network, only the inputs of UD9 remain to define the signal level of the original /RAMx lines on the mainboard. UD9 itself regards these open lines as having H-level (but only barely), for this reason the VIC-20 ...
by Mike
Thu May 16, 2013 1:25 pm
Forum: Hardware and Tech
Topic: Need help diagnosing video issue with a recently bought VIC
Replies: 6
Views: 1125

In my VIC-20, I also have a MOS 6502B. That's just the variant of the 6502 rated for 3 MHz (bare 6502: 1 MHz, 6502A: 2 MHz). Of course it also runs at lower frequencies like the ~1 MHz of the VIC-20. Commodore just used any CPU that was available. The variant of the 6502 used in the 8-bit Ataris and...
by Mike
Wed May 15, 2013 8:24 am
Forum: Programming
Topic: CBM BASIC 2.0 using STR$
Replies: 12
Views: 1889

Witzo wrote:Or was it [...]?
In CBM BASIC, -1 for true, 0 for false. :)
by Mike
Wed May 15, 2013 8:08 am
Forum: Programming
Topic: Userport Serial programming nonsense
Replies: 7
Views: 1994

Re: Userport Serial programming nonsense

Just two points to these two lines of the program: 370 if a$<>"" then print #5,chr$(t%(asc(a$))); [...] 400 if(peek(37151)and 64)=1 then 400 Line 370: normally, BASIC V2 isn't too picky about the placement of spaces, but in the case of PRINT# and INPUT#, the hash character actually is part...
by Mike
Wed May 15, 2013 7:57 am
Forum: Hardware and Tech
Topic: vic-1110 8k ram cart upgrade (and other solutions)
Replies: 59
Views: 10853

So I have a vic-20 (with dynamic ram) which is faster than a c64 because the c64 has dynamic ram. Erm, no. On the C64, the VIC-II is responsible for DRAM refresh. For this it does 5 refresh cycles on each raster line, during horizontal retrace. What slows down the CPU a bit, is the extra DMA necess...
by Mike
Tue May 14, 2013 11:16 am
Forum: Programming
Topic: CBM BASIC 2.0 using STR$
Replies: 12
Views: 1889

Z0rbVIC wrote:How can I bump that up for a 16 bit address in hex? :lol:
I deliberately left that as exercise. :P
by Mike
Tue May 14, 2013 10:01 am
Forum: Hardware and Tech
Topic: vic-1110 8k ram cart upgrade (and other solutions)
Replies: 59
Views: 10853

pallas wrote:I was thinking the same: is my ram expansion slower? Here is the screenshot: [...]
... which confirms my later edit. Your DRAM expander does not introduce wait states for the CPU. :)
by Mike
Tue May 14, 2013 9:55 am
Forum: Programming
Topic: CBM BASIC 2.0 using STR$
Replies: 12
Views: 1889

You can use MID$(STR$(...),2) to strip off the first character of the numeric string. The blank character serves as placeholder for the minus sign, so negative numbers wouldn't disturb the layout. And the conversion of numbers in the range 0 .. 255 into a two-digit hex string can be expressed somewh...
by Mike
Mon May 13, 2013 10:44 am
Forum: Hardware and Tech
Topic: vic-1110 8k ram cart upgrade (and other solutions)
Replies: 59
Views: 10853

- it has dynamic ram instead of static It would be interesting to know if the DRAM refresh introduces wait cycles. The program MG Raster employs a cycle exact interrupt to change the VIC registers several times on each line, and during the visible part of the screen it relies upon that there are 71...
by Mike
Mon May 13, 2013 10:33 am
Forum: Games
Topic: Looking for some recommendations..
Replies: 6
Views: 1295

I'd like to add these two:

* Frogger '07 - plays like the arcade, and

* Omega Fury - great successor of Omega Race.
by Mike
Sun May 12, 2013 3:05 pm
Forum: Programming
Topic: MINIGRAFIK batch processing suite
Replies: 55
Views: 50487

Another one for a rainy Sunday - the rendition of a broken Penrose tribar with MINIGRAFIK: ( download ) https://dateipfa.de/.Public/denial/images/minigrafik/tribar.png Here's the listing. The assignment 'A=5/3' in line 11 refers to PAL, NTSC users should replace it with 'A=3/2' to compensate for the...