Gideon Zweijtzer, developer of the successful 1541 Ultimate drive, has formally announced that he is tackling another difficult project, that of building a SuperCPU clone!
Gideon (http://www.1541ultimate.net/content/index.php) writes, "There are indeed plans to create a SCPU image for the 1541U Hardware. That means: no hardware change, but a completely different behaviour of the cartridge. The FPGA content would be different of course, offering you SCPU functionality. So *NO* built-in 1541, but just SCPU. [Of course the idea is that two 1541U's should work in a cart-expander, one as SCPU, one as 1541U.]"
Shaun Bebbington of the Commodore Computer Club (UK) gives further details:
"I've been speaking to Gideon about implementing a SuperCPU-compatible device; how he does this is up to him, and he is choosing to implement in within the U1541+, which is fairly sensible from his point of view. The suggestion was made back in the summer, and Gideon said that he wanted to wait until the Autumn, but would like to work with us as we had experienced SCPU users in our ranks.
Anyway, the Commodore Computer Club (UK) is working with Gideon and providing him with a SuperCPU initially, and will further provide him with a C128 + MMU so that he may observe how the MMU works, and how it allows the SCPU 128 to access the 128's modes. The first thing though is to get his implementation working in 64 mode. After he is satisfied, and we have something basically does the same job, he can then look at further improvements to the hardware.
He seemed reluctant at the idea of our offer of funding, as our club is not for profit. So, on that basis, we will simply pre-order these devices for our club shop. Some of these will be offered to programmers on the agreement that they actually create something useful, be it a game or application.
Further more, we will be seeking agreement with the Ultimate New Comer team and Protovision to bundle authorised copies of UNC, Metal Dust and Virtual Assembler 16 with this device, which will make a nice bundle. UNC is being developed to take advantage of the SuperCPU by putting all of the game data into RAM, meaning no more disk swapping - It should also be just a little bit faster.
As this device will be available through our shop, member prices will be 10% less than non-member prices, in accordance with our club rules.
[snip]
More details will soon be available at www.supercpu.co.uk. For now, that domain points to the CCC (UK) homepage."
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Gideon Zweijtzer announces SCPU plans
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