@Lou

It runs smooth in the video. The palette is hard to make out at times. Looks like a young Harrison Ford on the bottom. There were some 3d games at the time but not to that level. I wonder if they optimised it by using custom characters that had different zoom levels they could plot in place.

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @OlafS25 There was the usual hardware setup, ports management, screen routines, interrupts and DOS routines. In particular DOS routines would be important, although a fast loader would upload patch code to a 1541, because DOS can still be used for loading files. So the kernal sat at the topmost place at $E000 but could be switched out to RAM I read. So, with kernal pointers still intact, it could be switched in to load and switched back out to reclaim RAM. I recall the C64 had about 48K for use but the memory map wasn't linear with chips mapped inside. By comparison a Plus/4 offered about 60K in linear space, with 4K reserved on bottom, and TED mapped on top.

IIRC, the TED was a prequel to the 128's VDC.
Fascinating thing about the VDC is that it runs on it's own clock.

@Lou

I suppose the TED was. I thought the VDC would be like a VICII with TED features on to for a superior graphic chip. But I when I looked it up I was disappointed to find it only had a 16 colour palette and had no sprites except for a hardware cursor. If they didn't include a VICII in the package it would have flopped! But where was the VICIII?

The redeeming features it has were high res and interlace. But at that point it looks more like a serious PC than a fun home computer. It just seemed inferior that it didn't totally beat a TED. I suppose the oddly named C65 was the answer to that with a late 256 colour mode but it looks like the Amiga took first place and killed that off.

@Lou

Quote:

Lou wrote: @OneTimer1 I don't see this any different than a PPC accelerator for a 68k Amiga. Why did people buy those instead of a PPC Mac?

No one plugged an Mac into an Amiga, the PPC accelerator was cheaper than a Mac and it was never used in a stand alone configuration.

If a PPC (ARM, AMD, INTEL) driven computer runs an Amiga like OS or if it can simulate an Amiga, you can use it to run your Amiga software. If it is cheap, fast and compatible enough use it instead of your original hardware.

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 09-Apr-2023 at 02:15 PM.

@Hypex

Yeah, the C65's VIC III actually gave it better overall graphics than an A1000. Sprites remained unenhanced, IIRC.

I'm tempted to buy a Mega65 just to play around with.