Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!udel!mocha!gdtltr
From: gdtltr@mocha.it.udel.edu (Gary Duzan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Souping up the Atari cpu...
Message-ID: <6117@nigel.udel.EDU>
Date: 14 Dec 89 17:13:48 GMT
References: <24993@cup.portal.com>
Sender: usenet@udel.EDU
Reply-To: gdtltr@freezer.it.udel.edu (Gary Duzan)
Organization: University of Delaware -- 040 Smith Sun Lab
Lines: 44

In article <24993@cup.portal.com> Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com (Charles K Hughes) writes:
=>
=>   Ok, I know that millions of devoted atarians out there read USENET 
=>religiously EVERY day just looking for some interesting articles.  THIS
=>is one of them. :)
=>
   I'm listening!

=>   All you electronic BSers, PHD's (Piled Higher and Deeper :), etc...I 
=>need your help.  I want to speed up my Atari...doubling the speed would be
=>fine (3.59MHz) I just want to know how to do it.
=>   Here is a description of the problem:  
=>      The atari 8 bit has 3 types of chips in it: 65xx, ram/rom, and 
=>special purpose chips (antic, gtia, pokey).  All the chips in the atari
=>can handle an increase in speed (the 6502 and 6520 can be replaced) EXCEPT
=>the special purpose chips.  What I want to do is steal the a 3.59MHz clock 
=>from the onboard xtal and direct it to everything except the special purpose
=>chips.  The antic chip occasionally steals cycles from the cpu in order to 
=>read directly from ram.  Can this be done?  If so, how?
=>  [Redesigning the entire computer is not feasible, I just want to make the 
=>upgrade on my own machine.]
=>  If this is possible, could it be made switchable (to select 1.79/3.59)?
=>
=>Thanks
=> Charles Hughes
=> @cup.portal.com

   You might want to contact DataQue on this. I believe they have made some
attempts to up the clock on their Turbo-816 & had similar problems. As I recall
from my conversation with them, they has little success. When their new video
card come out there is a possibility that Antic et. al. could be disabled when
the new card is enabled. If you would like to contact DataQue, their BBS number
is 1-419-529-5197.

                                        Gary Duzan
                                        Time  Lord
                                    Third Regeneration




      _o_                                                            _o_
    [|o o|]        "Two hearts are better than one." -- Yes        [|o o|]
     |_O_|      "Don't listen to me; I never do." -- Doctor Who     |_O_|