Even more interesting as it's not dual-core as in two 6502 cores, but one 6502(or 6510, I expect, as bank switching and the tape port won't work on the C64 otherwise) and one Z-80...
This is similar to the level of "brain transplants" it seems most remaining classic-Amigas has these days (accelerator boards with FPGAs + a graphics core and what-not on the FPGA in addition to the CPU core + fast RAM), to the extent that the original boards are increasingly mostly a fat keyboard with IO ports.
On one hands these hacks are quite cool. On another hand many of them are pretty much full computers where going the whole hog and replacing the motherboard is increasingly looking like the better alternative..
E.g there's a "emulator in a C64 cartridge" that's powerful enough to emulate Amiga's, where the C64 is basically just turned into an IO device when it's plugged in - but at least there's some poetry in that, as some Amiga models - A500(+) and A2000 at least - had a 6502 compatible SoC as the keyboard controller.
> Even more interesting as it's not dual-core as in two 6502 cores, but one 6502(or 6510, I expect, as bank switching and the tape port won't work on the C64 otherwise) and one Z-80...
There was a bbc setup with a second CPU on the other side of the 'tube' which had a Z80 option.
Years ago I tried running my old C64 games on faster hardware was disappointed that many games from back then seemed to assume a particular CPU speed. For instance all the D&D boxed set games (like pool of radiance/curse of the azure bonds) would have characters move during combat based on the the speed of the computer. On a faster processor combat was over in a blink of an eye making the game unplayable.
I believe most of the software emulators slow down the clock speed so games are playable, but on actual faster hardware, there's prob a lot of non-playable games. I really don't know why this was the case :/
Ah yes... it's finally been long enough... in the old days we used to see the first attempts to make programs run at the same speed everywhere or at least on two different PCs.... and it was a huge pain... wasted extra cycles to figure out how fast things were moving....
And no consistent sw arch to run things at a steady rate. And even when they did run at mostly the same rate in most of the sections of the program heh, they usually did so by wasting cycles, so the prg ran no better on faster hw....
But that was a long time ago, before sw libraries were common! And when APIS were scarcely heard of, at least for home computers and also took too much overheard....
It was the best of times, the worst of times hahaha. No one could foresee the techniques and platforms we have now. :) ah the good old days...
Alley Cat managed just fine, and that's a game from 1983-1984
> One of the most amazing things about the game is that it actually sets its own clock speed so that the speed of your computer is irrelevant. This means you don't need Moslo to enjoy the game :)
I've always wondered what made the C64 so lasting in our memories. My Commodore 64 days were 1986-1990 when I switched to IBM clones. I still hold my C64 days as the "good ole' days," some 26 years later. Perhaps it was because I was young.
This is similar to the level of "brain transplants" it seems most remaining classic-Amigas has these days (accelerator boards with FPGAs + a graphics core and what-not on the FPGA in addition to the CPU core + fast RAM), to the extent that the original boards are increasingly mostly a fat keyboard with IO ports.
On one hands these hacks are quite cool. On another hand many of them are pretty much full computers where going the whole hog and replacing the motherboard is increasingly looking like the better alternative..
E.g there's a "emulator in a C64 cartridge" that's powerful enough to emulate Amiga's, where the C64 is basically just turned into an IO device when it's plugged in - but at least there's some poetry in that, as some Amiga models - A500(+) and A2000 at least - had a 6502 compatible SoC as the keyboard controller.