[HN Gopher] Mimic Systems Spartan: Apple II emulator for the C-64
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Mimic Systems Spartan: Apple II emulator for the C-64
Author : ethanpil
Score : 41 points
Date : 2022-06-14 16:09 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (dfarq.homeip.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (dfarq.homeip.net)
| LocalH wrote:
| Not really an "emulator". It bolted on an entire Apple II-
| compatible system. Much like some of the earlier compatibility
| products (both the Amiga and Mac had expansions that added a
| whole-ass PC on the side, the Amiga product was an official
| Commodore one while the Mac addon was third-party).
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| ah the MacCharlie and the Amiga Sidecar, both horrendously
| overpriced for their respective markets. Though the Amiga
| peripheral arguably did a much better job owing to the host
| system's ability to both display color as well as multitask
| natively, so one could use both environments simultaneously. I
| believe even possible to exchange data between the two while
| both were rinning, due to the use of dual-port RAM on the
| Sidecar and some sort of simple driver running on both sides
| handled mutexes, locks and such.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| > The technology world moved much more slowly then than it does
| now.
|
| Respectfully disagree.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I feel it is slower now.
|
| 1981 IBM PC - turn key useful but expensive and clunky
|
| 1982 Commodore 64 - cheap, good gfx + sound
|
| 1985 Amiga - you could drop someone from today (2022) on an
| Amiga and they could still find their way around the UI and
| write a document, save it, print it, use the calculator,
| whatever. (Before you start comparing with MacOS _v1_ and
| Windows _v1_ , yes, true, but Windows 1 has clunky UI and
| neither MacOS nor Windows could execute more than program at a
| time. Only Amiga had that.)
|
| So, within 4 years we went from the "Personal Computer"
| becoming a real actual thing with the PC, to having basically
| the same desktop metaphor we still use today, with the Amiga.
| That's incredible development speed.
|
| The only thing I have seen which was just as fast, was the
| iPhone driving adoption of touch interfaces and mobile
| Internet. This also drove the concept of an "app" as something
| you pick and choose and expect to be there for major brands and
| services.
|
| It's hard to say if the "PC" (I mean that loosely) or the
| iPhone/touch/mobile trifecta had a greater impact.
|
| On the one hand, almost "everyone" are or will soon have a
| smartphone, so that has a _huge_ impact.
|
| On the other hand, while "PC" adoption was not ubiquitous, it
| drove major changes in mass culture (printing, music, video)
| and industry and economy. Not everyone had a computer, but
| everyone was aware of them and were impacted by them in ways
| large and small.
| bluedino wrote:
| > So, within 4 years we went from the "Personal Computer"
| becoming a real actual thing with the PC, to having basically
| the same desktop metaphor we still use today, with the Amiga.
| That's incredible development speed.
|
| Except in 1984 we had the Macintosh, and a year before that
| we had the Apple Lisa. So only 2 years. Even faster.
| LocalH wrote:
| The Amiga had proper preemptive multitasking (what I would
| consider a key part of today's "desktop metaphor"), long
| before the Mac.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| _(Before you start comparing with MacOS v1 and Windows v1,
| yes, true, but Windows 1 has clunky UI and neither MacOS
| nor Windows could execute more than program at a time. Only
| Amiga had that.)_
|
| I picked my goal posts arbitrarily, but an Amiga could
| basically run all software we have today, if the CPU was
| faster. Stream music + download something + editing a text,
| for instance. The Mac OS could only have done this a little
| bit later.
|
| But sure, yes, the UI of the Mac was incredible, only 2
| years after IBM PC.
| usrn wrote:
| I for one have gotten rid of my smartphone. Where the PC
| extended your mind smartphones are only tools for
| corporations to manipulate you.
| [deleted]
| flenserboy wrote:
| What makes it seem that it moved much more slowly -- look how
| long 8-bit machines held on -- was just how much it cost to get
| into a system. Platforms had _long_ lives then because people
| were not keen on seeing their investments disappear out from
| under them. Note that an Apple //c cost about $1300 in 1984,
| the equivalent of $3600 or so today. You're going to want to
| see just how long you can keep that going even though
| technology improvements are flying by outside your door, and
| they really were doing that back in the day. There were
| multiple, barely-interacting tech markets running concurrently.
| ethanpil wrote:
| Here is an interesting review of the product:
|
| http://mikenaberezny.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/spartan-...
| marcodiego wrote:
| > The Mimic Systems Spartan was an elusive bit of C-64 hardware
| that made it Apple II+ compatible.
|
| Interesting... so, it was an emulator that required special
| hardware. I wonder if it allows the use of a z-80 card. If so the
| C-64 would be able to run CP/M making it a very versatile system.
| Someone wrote:
| In case you don't know about it,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_128:
|
| _The C128 is a significantly expanded successor to the C64,
| with nearly full compatibility. The newer machine has 128 KB of
| RAM in two 64 KB banks, and an 80-column color video output. It
| has a redesigned case and keyboard. Also included is a Zilog
| Z80 CPU which allows the C128 to run CP /M, as an alternative
| to the usual Commodore BASIC environment. The presence of the
| Z80 and the huge CP/M software library it brings, coupled with
| the C64's software library, gave the C128 one of the broadest
| ranges of available software among its competitors.
|
| [...]
|
| The C128 runs CP/M noticeably slower than most dedicated CP/M
| systems, as the Z80 processor runs at an effective speed of
| only 2 MHz_
| jim_lawless wrote:
| Commodore sold a version of CP/M (2.2) with a Z-80 processor in
| a cartridge for the C-64. Due to slow 1541 disk drive speed,
| non-CP/M disk format, and a 40-column display, it was a slow
| and clumsy version of CP/M.
|
| As someone else posted, the C-128 and 1571 disk drive had much
| better CP/M support. The 128 had a built-in Z-80 and 80-column
| capability. The 1571 could read/write CP/M format (and MS-DOS
| format for that matter) disks.
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