Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!godzilla.eecg.toronto.edu!leblanc From: leblanc@eecg.toronto.edu (Marcel LeBlanc) Subject: Re: More on fastloaders, etc Message-ID: <89Mar7.154848est.2399@godzilla.eecg.toronto.edu> Summary: answers about SS V4 Organization: EECG, University of Toronto References: <1376@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> Date: Tue, 7 Mar 89 15:48:43 EST In article <1376@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> jgreco@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Joe Greco) writes: >In-Reply-To: <89Feb10.182236est.2718@godzilla.eecg.toronto.edu>; from "Marcel LeBlanc" at Feb 10, 89 4:04 pm >] 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. I think it's safe to assume that I've tested both of these on far more programs than most users have. Some programs are not copyable using capture techniques. But ISEPIC chokes on many programs that it should be able to handle (SS V4 handles these with ease). >> 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. I've never tried it with a BusCard II, so I can't say. >> 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. :-) The monitor on SS V4, as well as most other features (except wedge, F-keys), will work in any machine state. I have never found a machine configuration that interferes with the monitor. As a test, try: $2000 ldy #0 lda #some_byte_value loop sta $0000,y iny bne loop inc loop+2 ldx loop+2 cpx #$10 ;erase 0 to $1000 bcc loop endless jmp endless This will overwrite all of memory from 0 to $1000. You can interrupt this with SS V4, enter the monitor, then RESUME without any difficulty. Just for fun, add some code to turn on NMI and IRQ interrupts from the CIAs or the VIC chip (raster IRQ), put the interrupt service routines in the RAM at $E000-$FFFF or $D000-DFFF, turn on any display mode, or anything else you can think of, and none of this will make any difference to the operation of SS V4. You will still be able to interrupt, make modifications with the monitor, and resume execution. Except for a few bytes on the stack generated by the interrupt, nothing will be corrupted by SS V4. >> 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? I haven't found any programs where the F-keys interfered, but I can't say that I've tried that many. If you do find a program where they interfere, you can disable the F-keys separately from the wedge and the fast loader/saver. If you haven't disabled the wedge, you can enable/disable any of these from the wedge, or you can use one of the menus in SS V4 to enable/disable features individually. All things considered, I think it's safe to say that SS V4 is AT LEAST as compatible as the classic Epyx FastLoad. 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