Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!jgreco
From: jgreco@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Joe Greco)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: More on fastloaders, etc
Message-ID: <1376@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Date: 1 Mar 89 16:36:32 GMT
Sender: news@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
Reply-To: jgreco@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Joe Greco)
Organization: UW-Milwaukee Home for Out-of-date 8 bit Hackers
Lines: 117

In-Reply-To: <89Feb10.182236est.2718@godzilla.eecg.toronto.edu>; from "Marcel LeBlanc" at Feb 10, 89 4:04 pm
Word-of-the-day: tommy

] Since nobody else seems to be responding to our postings on speeding up file
] transfers, I decided to respond by mail.  BTW, I used a section of your
] posting to introduce the topic of file operation speedup in another posting.

I think I missed it.... ah well

] Anyway, here are a few of my comments (since you did ask about SS V4) :-).
] [...]
] >That sounds fine, 'cept there's no reason that you'd need to buffer
] >with IEEE, and sending a block to the REU would cause a bad Z-Modem
] >block.  RAMDOS (or any REU access) will momentarily suspend the CPU's
] >operations to perform the transfer.
] 
] True, and the same applies to using fast serial routines.  You will loose
] characters while you are saving to disk.  This is why I wanted to use a very
] large buffer, so that you wouldn't be dropping packets very often.
] Otherwise, the only solution left is to use IEEE drives.  This is a perfectly
] acceptable solution in your case, but not for most others, including me.

Well, as Geoff suggested, perhaps the SLOW serial routines can be
worked a little (or the RS232 drivers) in such a way that they don't
interfere.  I don't like the idea of dropping packets at all....

] >Well, how does it help me?  Does SSVx have anything desirable that
] >either a BusCard II, ISEPIC, and/or SysRes doesn't?  I'm open minded..
] 
] That depends on what you're looking for in a cartridge.  Buscard II and
] SysRes give you an IEEE port and great BASIC extensions.  There may be

The BusCard II also gives BASIC 4.0, a reasonably indecent minimonitor
(remember that speed test in ML I posted? :-)  and other miscellaneous
things.

] thousands of people out there with IEEE drives, but there are millions who
] use serial drives like 1541/71/81.  By comparison, Isepic is a dinosaur.

Agreed, at least in terms of "breaking utilities"....

But what more does SS V4 really provide?  ISEPIC hasn't run into any
problems on the programs I've used it on.

> It works for it's limited range of uses, but even for these it's very slow
> and cumbersome.  SS V4 doesn't give you an IEEE interface (I know, that
> alone means you aren't interested :-( ), or the same variety of basic
> extensions that you get from Sysres (BTW, SS V4 doesn't have BASIC
> extensions on ROM, if you want these something like Sysres works fine).

Just because SS V4 doesn't give an IEEE interface doesn't mean that
I'm not interested.  But would SS V4 work WITH a BusCard II?  If SS V4
offers anything of true interest to me, and works with my systems, I'm
interested.

> What SS V4 does give you, is the fastest serial loaders on the market. 12x
> speed increase for 1541 & 1581 (INDEPENDENT OF INTERLEAVE), and about 8x for
> 1571 (dependent on interleave).  Epyx FastLoad and most other cartridges
> give you about 5.5x increase for load, nothing for save.  SS V4 also gives
> you a very powerful ML monitor (it's great for debugging software; you can
> "Freeze" a program to examine it, make modifications, then resume it as if
> nothing had happened, without every going to disk).  It also includes a

That would be nice, as long as it is not "corrupted" by unusual
settings on the machine.  That's one of the gripes I have with the
Card's monitor....  the BBS environment messes it up.  :-)

> range of other utilities, such as capturing screens to disk or printer
> (including standard or multi-color bitmaps), capturing sprites for editing,
> the fastest disk copier I have seen for 1541/71/81 (in any combination,
> including partition support for 1581), programmable function keys

I find the problem with programmable function keys is that they tend
to get really messy, especially with programs that expect to be able
to use them.  This brings up a more general question:  Overall, how
"compatible" IS this beastie?

> (pre-programmed and re-programmable), an auto-booting feature (when you
> reset your machine, you are presented with a menu of 'configurations', if
> you don't select one within about 30secs, it times out and tries to boot
> from device 8.  This would allow software such as BBS's to survive power
> failures.), and a few more that I'm probably forgetting.

That's a nice feature.  Too bad it's already part of my Kernal.  ;-)

> Of course since SS V4 ties up your cartridge port, you can't use an IEEE
> interface, so there's no need for SS to try to support IEEE disks.

Good IEEE interfaces allow you to plug in something else.  One system
at home had a 1750, BusCard II, and B.I.-80 plugged in all at once.

(grin)

> See you on comp.sys.cbm!

Let's move this back to c.s.c.... it's a little slow right now, anyways.

> Marcel A. LeBlanc	  | University of Toronto -- Toronto, Canada
> leblanc@eecg.toronto.edu  | also: LMS Technologies Ltd, Fredericton, NB, Canada
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> UUCP:	uunet!utai!eecg!leblanc    BITNET: leblanc@eecg.utoronto (may work)
> ARPA:	leblanc%eecg.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net  CDNNET: <...>.toronto.cdn
> 


-- 
jgreco@csd4.milw.wisc.edu		Joe Greco at FidoNet 1:154/200
USnail: 9905 W Montana Ave			     PunterNet Node 30 or 31
	West Allis, WI  53227-3329	"These aren't anybody's opinions."
Voice:	414/321-6184			Data: 414/321-9287 (Happy Hacker's BBS)
"Never put off until tomorrow something that you can get out of doing today."

--
jgreco@csd4.milw.wisc.edu		Joe Greco at FidoNet 1:154/200
USnail: 9905 W Montana Ave			     PunterNet Node 30 or 31
	West Allis, WI  53227-3329	"These aren't anybody's opinions."
Voice:	414/321-6184			Data: 414/321-9287 (Happy Hacker's BBS)