How about an 8 Bit Internet Service?

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Fri Oct 21, 2022 6:50 am

On 10/20/2022 at 12:34 PM, kelli217 said:

That it's possible given the then-current slot specification to build an expansion card that could probably get the 65C02 to pause long enough to do DMA. But you'd have to 'be nice' and not hold the bus for too long or other things could start to be a problem, like VIA, I2C for keyboard and mouse, VERA, YM2151... and there's no intention of including any DMA in the system as it is.

Bluntly, neutrino, you're coming WAY late to the party, and offering up ideas and suggestions that are not going to get included because the system is in the final stages of development before manufacture. Things are not likely to change at this point in any major architectural ways. Even the removal of the second 6522 from the motherboard is not going to represent that much of a change in the way the system operates, but will only take away one of the 32-byte I/O channels (and free it up as an I/O channel for other uses) and require some addresses in the KERNAL to be revised.

This.

The hardware is done.

If anyone wants to offer useful suggestions, you should:

Be ready to design it yourself. Everyone here that can design hardware is already designing something. They're not going to build your pet project when they have several of their own already in the pipeline.

See what you can do with software. The system has some interesting programs already, but we there's always going to be room for new games and programs.

On 10/20/2022 at 11:40 AM, neutrino said:

What was the td;lr consensus on DMA ?

There will be no DMA in the release hardware.

If you decide to design, build, and sell a DMA controller, more power to you.

martinot · Post by **martinot** » Sun Oct 23, 2022 3:10 pm

If the X16 get a network card, or if it possible to connect an RS-232 WiFi-module, it would be possible to connect and logon to the many cool 8-bit retro BBS via Telnet.

Captain's Quarters II BBS (cqbbs.ddns.net) :6502

Level 29: The BBS (retrobattlestations.com)

Search engine for 8-bit computers: FrogFind!

BruceMcF · Post by **BruceMcF** » Sun Oct 23, 2022 5:06 pm

On 10/23/2022 at 11:10 AM, martinot said:

If the X16 get a network card, or if it possible to connect an RS-232 WiFi-module, it would be possible to connect and logon to the many cool 8-bit retro BBS via Telnet.

Captain's Quarters II BBS (cqbbs.ddns.net) :6502

Level 29: The BBS (retrobattlestations.com)

Search engine for 8-bit computers: FrogFind!

Exactly. At 9600bps it would be able to use any of the modern RS-232-Wifi solutions already available for C64 with the enhanced User-Port RS-232C serial. At 56K through a serial expansion card or an SPI UART based serial card or direct SPI channel into a network card, it "smooths out the rough edges" of experiencing the pace of a file download at mid 1980s speeds.

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Mon Oct 24, 2022 6:26 am

On 10/23/2022 at 8:10 AM, martinot said:

If the X16 get a network card, or if it possible to connect an RS-232 WiFi-module, it would be possible to connect and logon to the many cool 8-bit retro BBS via Telnet.

Captain's Quarters II BBS (cqbbs.ddns.net) :6502

Level 29: The BBS (retrobattlestations.com)

Search engine for 8-bit computers: FrogFind!

Enough people want a network interface and a serial interface that I'm expecting someone to create a card that will handle those tasks, something like 2 6551 ACIA sockets with a DE-9 RS-232 and a place to tie in an ESP32 or ESP8266 microcontroller.

neutrino · Post by **neutrino** » Mon Oct 24, 2022 11:45 am

On 10/24/2022 at 8:26 AM, TomXP411 said:

Enough people want a network interface and a serial interface that I'm expecting someone to create a card that will handle those tasks,

The existing microcontroller attached to the VIA #1 can likely handle it. Requires only access to two GPIO pins.

BruceMcF · Post by **BruceMcF** » Mon Oct 24, 2022 6:32 pm

On 10/24/2022 at 7:45 AM, neutrino said:

The existing microcontroller attached to the VIA #1 can likely handle it. Requires only access to two GPIO pins.

Note that it's not a 32bit ARM processor ... it's also an 8bit chip. It's also not established that it will have any free pins, nor whether any free pins would be taken out to a User Port (though that is an interesting idea).

neutrino · Post by **neutrino** » Tue Oct 25, 2022 12:07 am

On 10/24/2022 at 8:32 PM, BruceMcF said:

Note that it's not a 32bit ARM processor ... it's also an 8bit chip.

ATtiny861 is a 20 MHz RISC-based microcontroller with 1 instruction/clock cycle. It should be able to handle asynchronous RS-232. Even a plain 1 MHz C64 is able to handle 2400 bit/s using standard kernal bit-bang and 9600 bit/s using the UP9600 trick.

And 16 GPIO pins which should be sufficient.

https://www.microchip.com/en-us/product/ATTINY861

https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/Atmel-2588-8-bit-AVR-Microcontrollers-tinyAVR-ATtiny261-ATtiny461-ATtiny861_Datasheet.pdf

https://commodore.software/downloads/category/19-novaterm

https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1656

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:23 am

On 10/24/2022 at 4:45 AM, neutrino said:

The existing microcontroller attached to the VIA #1 can likely handle it. Requires only access to two GPIO pins.

That's really not a good choice. The best way to do RS-232 on a 6502 is a 6551 chip. Clocked at 8MHz, it should have no problem doing 115.2K, which is as fast as you'll reliably get on most computers. The 6551 can also do proper flow control with RTS/CTS and DSR/DTR and can sense the RI and DCD signals. You're not going to get all of those at full speed with 2 pins connected through the VIA.

There's a reason serial UARTs exist, and bit-banged I/O through a microcontroller that's also doing 3 other tasks is not a suitable replacement.

neutrino · Post by **neutrino** » Tue Oct 25, 2022 1:51 am

It's a choice that does what is possible with the existing hardware. Adding a 6551 means more PCB area and the cost of another chip.

The time critical PS/2 will likely be handled by MCU hardware. The I2C connection isn't that time critical. And the asynchronous communication can be handled using co-operative multitasking state machine or with a IRQ, unless there's serial hardware to handle it.

On the C64, people did all kinds of tricks to make the most of the existing hardware.

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Tue Oct 25, 2022 3:00 am

On 10/24/2022 at 6:51 PM, neutrino said:

It's a choice that does what is possible with the existing hardware. Adding a 6551 means more PCB area and the cost of another chip.

The time critical PS/2 will likely be handled by MCU hardware. The I2C connection isn't that time critical. And the asynchronous communication can be handled using co-operative multitasking state machine or with a IRQ, unless there's serial hardware to handle it.

I have written enough code for that chip (or a very close cousin) that I doubt this is possible. Soft serial on these processors simply isn't fast enough, and as I already said, there aren't enough GPIO pins for a full RS-232 connection anyway, after dealing with all the other I/O ports.