Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!hybrid!scifi!bywater!uunet!mcrware!jejones
From: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809
Subject: Re: TC9
Message-ID: <4996@mcrware.UUCP>
Date: 11 Feb 91 11:30:42 GMT
References: <22@sandv.UUCP> <2567@batman.moravian.EDU>
Reply-To: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones)
Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Des Moines, Iowa
Lines: 38

In article <2567@batman.moravian.EDU> halkoD@batman.moravian.EDU (David Halko) writes:
>I'm a little disappointed with Frank on only a couple of points with the
>TC9... I was hoping for more than 2MHz on that 6809 box... I was wishing
>for 3MHz, but Oh Well.... that is about my only disappointment...

I'm disappointed by that, too.  That means that the only respect in
which a TC09 as such will run OS-9 faster than a CoCo 3 is that some of
the device drivers won't have to go through bogosity such as the CoCo
high-res mouse adapter (but there are already ways to hook up a serial
mouse to a CoCo 3) or the keyboard matrix scan. 

>If a 68K board was dropped in, existing OS9 would get a boost without the 
>need for 68K OS9...

Has FHL written the software needed for that?

>That, my friend, is the key... 6809 OS9 software is becoming available... GOOD
>6809 RSDos software is becoming available monthly now... with 1Meg, packages
>already written in 6809 assembler which will never be ported (like Studio
>Works, Sound Trax, etc) will gain a little speed, double the memory, and
>be clear winners...

How will non-OS-9 software gain speed? It's the software that will have
to go through the I/O emulation rigamarole--each instruction that peeks
and pokes at what are memory-mapped I/O addresses will be trapped and
disassembled, and what the results would have been on a CoCo 3 figured
out and emulated, so that, unless non-OS-9 software is converted, it
will slow down when it does I/O, to some extent that I don't know, not
having seen a running TC09.  Every non-OS-9 program is a law unto
itself, and would have to be individually converted to avoid the I/O
emulation, aside from a couple of routines like POLCAT--is FHL going to
supply patches for all those applications, or will CoCo software houses
sell two versions of everything?

(I wonder just how fast non-OS-9 CoCo terminal programs will run, with
I/O emulation of the bit-banger pseudo-serial port.)

	James Jones