Re: BeamRacer is coming… request for comments

From: Chriz <chris_at_lachriz.de>
Date: Sun, 31 May 2020 00:47:57 +0200
Message-Id: <C4BF742C-C439-4004-BF8C-C6C64A38C3F9_at_lachriz.de>
This is an absolutely fascinating project - congrats!

Will there also be a BeamRacer for C128?

The C128 has a VIC which is slightly enhanced compared to the C64's VIC. It has two additional registers at $d02f and $d030 which are also available in C128's C64 mode. The first one allows reading the numeric keypad, the second one uses bit 0 for switching the processor to 2 MHz and bit 1 for incrementing the raster line counter each cycle.
Incredible demo effects by using $d030 have been shown - Krill's posting on
https://csdb.dk/forums/index.php?roomid=11&topicid=99597
describes the technical background quite nicely. :-)

From my understanding the C128 would greatly benefit from BeamRacer, e.g. by being able to view graphics in 2MHz mode, producing real interlace, 60Hz refresh rate, .... and of course using the emerging c64 tools and watching c64 demos based on BeamRacer!

So one thing comes to my mind: Maybe it would be a good idea for BeamRacer not to use $d030 for its own activation/configuration but to use a different address instead? Maybe shift all register addresses one byte upwards?

Thanks,
Chriz
Received on 2020-05-31 01:00:02

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