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From: Jonno Downes on 1 Jul 2010 22:30
On Jul 2, 7:22 am, Ingo Korb <use...(a)mail.snowcat.de> wrote:
> christianlott1 <christianlo...(a)yahoo.com> writes:
> > I wonder what the per chip cost is for new 65C02s or CIAs?
>
> 65C02: USD 7.86 directly from WDC, CIAs were Commodore-only and as far
> as I know have not been produced since CSD has shut down.
>
> -ik

Would a 65c02 be compatible? The onboard I/O pins could be handled
with external logic, but aren't there differences in the way 'illegal'
opcodes are handled, which I assume would probably break copy
protected games & demos?
From: christianlott1 on 2 Jul 2010 10:25
On Jul 1, 9:30 pm, Jonno Downes <jonno...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 2, 7:22 am, Ingo Korb <use...(a)mail.snowcat.de> wrote:
>
> > christianlott1 <christianlo...(a)yahoo.com> writes:
> > > I wonder what the per chip cost is for new 65C02s or CIAs?
>
> > 65C02: USD 7.86 directly from WDC, CIAs were Commodore-only and as far
> > as I know have not been produced since CSD has shut down.

Maybe:

http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/w65c22-chip.cfm

> Would a 65c02 be compatible? The onboard I/O pins could be handled
> with external logic, but aren't there differences in the way 'illegal'
> opcodes are handled, which I assume would probably break copy
> protected games & demos?

That's why the fpga would be central and necessary.

Maybe something like this could be put together for less than $150?





From: Jonno Downes on 2 Jul 2010 10:50
On Jul 3, 12:25 am, christianlott1 <christianlo...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 1, 9:30 pm, Jonno Downes <jonno...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 2, 7:22 am, Ingo Korb <use...(a)mail.snowcat.de> wrote:
>
> > > christianlott1 <christianlo...(a)yahoo.com> writes:
> > > > I wonder what the per chip cost is for new 65C02s or CIAs?
>
> > > 65C02: USD 7.86 directly from WDC, CIAs were Commodore-only and as far
> > > as I know have not been produced since CSD has shut down.
>
> Maybe:
>
> http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/w65c22-chip.cfm
>
> > Would a 65c02 be compatible? The onboard I/O pins could be handled
> > with external logic, but aren't there differences in the way 'illegal'
> > opcodes are handled, which I assume would probably break copya
> > protected games & demos?
>
> That's why the fpga would be central and necessary.

I don't think an fpga could make a 65c02 handle undocumented opcodes
in the same way as a 6510, unless the fpga implemented the whole 6510,
which may be an option.

Although I suspect 6510s themselves are no harder to source or less
reliable than a VIC or SID chip. In which case the hypothetical
product here could be a motherboard with
- sockets for 6510, VIC, SID, EPROM
- DRAM and an FPGA
- IEC and cartridge connectors (although I'd happily do with cassette
and/or user port)
- PS/2 and/or c64 keyboard connector
- joystick connectors
- c64 & ATX power connectors (with on-board transformer to generate
the 9v/12v Ac components)

>
> Maybe something like this could be put together for less than $150?

From: christianlott1 on 2 Jul 2010 11:15
On Jul 2, 9:50 am, Jonno Downes <jonno...(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think an fpga could make a 65c02 handle undocumented opcodes
> in the same way as a 6510, unless the fpga implemented the whole 6510,
> which may be an option.

This is what I had in mind: fpga maintains a program counter parallel
to the processor and scans the instruction for anything illegal. If
nothing illegal, it passes it off to the main processor. While it may
slow the processor down, since they can run at 14mhz anyhow, this
isn't much of an issue for the few programs that use illegals.

Pre-scanning incoming instructions and the program counter works well
for debugging too.

Most of the programs I use do not use illegals though. The disk based
copy protection is the difficult part.


> Although I suspect 6510s themselves are no harder to source or less
> reliable than a VIC or SID chip. In which case the hypothetical
> product here could be a motherboard with
> - sockets for 6510, VIC, SID, EPROM
> - DRAM and an FPGA

Ah. I forgot about the vic/dram, though we've been over this problem
before and there was a solution allowing the vic to use normal cheaper
ram with a converter chip or something..


> - IEC and cartridge connectors (although I'd happily do with cassette
> and/or user port)
> - PS/2 and/or c64 keyboard connector
> - joystick connectors
> - c64 & ATX power connectors (with on-board transformer to generate
> the 9v/12v Ac components)

For cost I'd drop the IEC, PS/2 and (maybe) c64 kb connector. We'd
need the 9/12v converter for the VIC and SID, a project in itself, and
a USB interface. Not a small wish list :(

Since the 65816 is only a dollar more than a 65C02, I think dual
65816s would be the way to go if it's not a huge amount of trouble.
From: christianlott1 on 2 Jul 2010 11:40
Honestly though, I don't see this ever happening. I think you're more
on the money with a complete fpga model. Too many power conversion
issues, ram conversion, etc.

And once you strap on a 16 bit processor, it's no longer a classic 8
bit. And who really wants to learn assembly for a not so mainstream
processor anymore? Though it can address 16mb and did a great job for
the snes, we already have an amiga.

A little sad though :)
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