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From: jbh@mibte.UUCP (James Harvey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Re: 1200 +
Message-ID: <2277@mibte.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Aug-87 08:04:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: mibte.2277
Posted: Fri Aug  7 08:04:19 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Aug-87 02:28:00 EDT
References: <3989@udenva.UUCP> <503@otto.COM>
Organization: Michigan Bell Telephone Company
Lines: 32
Summary: Why no 6551 UART..


Subject: Re: 1200 +
In-Reply-To: your article <503@otto.COM>

> 
> Now my question: Considering the sotfware design, hardware design and the
> intended use for the serial port, why would it cost more to put a UART into the
> machine instead of what they actually did.
> 
>                                                             Rex.

According to an (excellent) article in the IEEE spectrum a couple of years ago,
The reason was that the 6551 UART was not perfected when the VIC-20 was 
developed.  It would probably have cost a lot more than two bucks at that 
time anyway.  Remember that the VIC shipped with five K of ram because RAM was
so expensive then.  

The Plus 4 and the C16 did use a 6551 and I understand they work much better as
terminals.

Another reason the C64 doesn't work well at 1200 BPS is because the 212 modem 
format acutally puts out about 1220 BPS to the terminal.  All successful
Term Emulators for the 64 plug in a custom baud rate to compensate for this.
I don't know if the popular 2400 BPS modems suffer from this peculiarity.

Jim Harvey
Michigan Bell Telephone Co.
Rm 3352
29777 Telegraph
Southfield, Mich.  48034

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