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Special request [message #121985] Wed, 20 July 2005 13:23 Go to next message
dunric is currently offline  dunric
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I'm not too knowledge about V-Loader or Speed loaders on the Commodore
64 but...

Could anyone with knowledge of this look into the possibility of
writing a speed loader for HLA ADVENTURE 64?

I know it sounds weird to ask for someone to 'pry open' the game and
patch it for speed, but a compile or speed loader in the game would
seriously speed it up.

Paul
Re: Special request [message #121986 is a reply to message #121985] Wed, 20 July 2005 13:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
sta is currently offline  sta
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Hi Paul,

> Could anyone with knowledge of this look into the possibility of
> writing a speed loader for HLA ADVENTURE 64?

See http://www.the-dreams.de/sources.html for Ninja & Doc Bacardi/The
Dreams' Dreamload, a 2-bit IRQ fast loader for lots of CBM and CMD drives,
with PAL/NTSC support and the ability to load files as well as raw data
off sectors. (What else would anyone want?!)

Joe
--
KOVÁCS Balázs alias Joe Forster/STA sta@c64.org; http://sta.c64.org
Don't E-mail spam, HTML or uncompressed files! More contacts on homepage
Re: Special request [message #121988 is a reply to message #121986] Wed, 20 July 2005 14:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
dunric is currently offline  dunric
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Hey Joe,

Looks good, but I don't have any idea how to implement it. My knowledge
on the CBM is BASIC and not much else. :(

Paul

Joe Forster/STA wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
>> Could anyone with knowledge of this look into the possibility of
>> writing a speed loader for HLA ADVENTURE 64?
>
> See http://www.the-dreams.de/sources.html for Ninja & Doc Bacardi/The
> Dreams' Dreamload, a 2-bit IRQ fast loader for lots of CBM and CMD drives,
> with PAL/NTSC support and the ability to load files as well as raw data
> off sectors. (What else would anyone want?!)
>
> Joe
> --
> KOVÁCS Balázs alias Joe Forster/STA sta@c64.org; http://sta.c64.org
> Don't E-mail spam, HTML or uncompressed files! More contacts on homepage
Re: Special request [message #121998 is a reply to message #121988] Wed, 20 July 2005 15:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
dunric is currently offline  dunric
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Registered: December 2004
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I think someone mentioned they'd try to write a loder for
it...hopefully something to speeds up disk access all the way
through...because all of the data loads from disk, and the speed of the
game is highly dependent on the speed of the disk drive access.

Paul
Re: Special request [message #122014 is a reply to message #121986] Wed, 20 July 2005 16:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jim Brain is currently offline  Jim Brain
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> off sectors. (What else would anyone want?!)

Hmm, a speeder that will allow multiple drives to be active on the
bus?
Re: Special request [message #122077 is a reply to message #122014] Thu, 21 July 2005 05:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
sta is currently offline  sta
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Hi Jim,

> Hmm, a speeder that will allow multiple drives to be active on the
> bus?

Uhm, yeah. It's definitely possible but then you will lose the 2-bit
transfer and drop it down to 1-bit only. :-(

Joe
--
KOVÁCS Balázs alias Joe Forster/STA sta@c64.org; http://sta.c64.org
Don't E-mail spam, HTML or uncompressed files! More contacts on homepage
Re: Special request [message #122079 is a reply to message #121988] Thu, 21 July 2005 05:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
sta is currently offline  sta
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Registered: July 2003
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Hi Paul,

>>> Could anyone with knowledge of this look into the possibility of
>>> writing a speed loader for HLA ADVENTURE 64?
>>
>> See http://www.the-dreams.de/sources.html for Ninja & Doc Bacardi/The
>> Dreams' Dreamload, a 2-bit IRQ fast loader for lots of CBM and CMD drives,
>> with PAL/NTSC support and the ability to load files as well as raw data
>> off sectors. (What else would anyone want?!)
>
> Looks good, but I don't have any idea how to implement it. My knowledge
> on the CBM is BASIC and not much else. :(

Why would that be such a problem? Noone was born omniscient! I'm sure there
are lots of Commodore assembly books and tutorials online that some fellow
newsgroup members can point you to. Good luck,

Joe
--
KOVÁCS Balázs alias Joe Forster/STA sta@c64.org; http://sta.c64.org
Don't E-mail spam, HTML or uncompressed files! More contacts on homepage
Re: Special request [message #122102 is a reply to message #122077] Thu, 21 July 2005 11:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jim Brain is currently offline  Jim Brain
Messages: 962
Registered: August 2012
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Joe Forster/STA wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
>
>> Hmm, a speeder that will allow multiple drives to be active on the
>> bus?
>
>
> Uhm, yeah. It's definitely possible but then you will lose the 2-bit
> transfer and drop it down to 1-bit only. :-(
>
> Joe

Hmm, JiffyDOS does 2 bit sync-less transfers and does not need ATN.

Jim


--
Jim Brain, Brain Innovations
brain@jbrain.com http://www.jbrain.com
Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!
Re: Special request [message #122173 is a reply to message #122102] Thu, 21 July 2005 23:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anton Treuenfels is currently offline  Anton Treuenfels
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Wizardry 5 from Sir-Tech can do it. IIRC it uses high-level commands for
everything but the actual transfer of 256-byte blocks via 2-bit serial from
1541 drives to the C64. So it commands which drive and what block it wants,
then whatever comes is the requested data from that drive. Seems to work out
okay - reading from the disk to the drive buffer happens at around 50K/sec,
so commanding that at a high level doesn't hurt too much. Transfer from
drive buffer to computer is only around 2K/sec (5X speedup). Might be faster
if it wasn't working in text mode!

- Anton Treuenfels

"Jim Brain" <brain@jbrain.com> wrote in message
news:GPODe.168817$x96.105252@attbi_s72...
> Joe Forster/STA wrote:
>> Hi Jim,
>>
>>
>>> Hmm, a speeder that will allow multiple drives to be active on the
>>> bus?
>>
>>
>> Uhm, yeah. It's definitely possible but then you will lose the 2-bit
>> transfer and drop it down to 1-bit only. :-(
>>
>> Joe
>
> Hmm, JiffyDOS does 2 bit sync-less transfers and does not need ATN.
>
> Jim
>
>
> --
> Jim Brain, Brain Innovations
> brain@jbrain.com http://www.jbrain.com
> Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!
Re: Special request [message #122183 is a reply to message #122173] Fri, 22 July 2005 00:10 Go to previous message
dunric is currently offline  dunric
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Registered: December 2004
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Senior Member
Anton:

Would such a fast loader be possible with HLA Adventure 64?

Someone suggested "ripping out" the loading routine and replacing it
with a much better one.

Is that possible?

Paul
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