Re: TransWarpGS Clone

[Conrad <conrad.russo@gmail.com>]

@Rob: No I don't take your comment as a joke at all. Not one bit. You have stated your need. I absolutely agree with you that a super fast IIGS would be amazing for certain applications. I take it from your comment regarding hardware geniuses that you're more of a software guy? My explaination regarding why the TWGS cannot reach those speeds without a major redesign might have been a bit heavy on hardware lingo, so I will explain it a bit better. Currently, the 65816 processor that is the center of the IIGS and the TransWarpGS has an official top speed of 14MHz according to its designers (Western Design Center or WDC for short). Its possible to push it a tiny bit past that, so let's say the real top speed is 15-16MHz. In order for this barrier to ever be broken, one of two things will have to happen: WDC would have to release a new version of the 65816 with a faster top speed, or someone would have to design a 65816 in some hardware description language such as VHDL or Verilog. The first option is pretty much out of the question unless something motivates WDC to do so, which probably will never happen. That leaves us with the second option. This is not trivial either, as it requires the CPU to be reverse engineered. WDC does offer what is called an RTL (Register Transfer Level) description of the 65816. This means they have described the internal interactions of the 65816, thus allowing someone who knows what they're doing to model the CPU in a hardware description language. Its still not simple though, it would still require a significant amount of work, and then the TWGS itself would have to be redesigned to use an FPGA (field programmable gate array, a reconfigurable logic device) instead of a physical CPU. Like I said, once the clone is finished I will definitely look at trying to do this, but for now I only want to focus on the clone, just to make sure it gets done. 

@Ken and @Chuck: Excellent! I will add you guys to the list! Maybe just so I can keep track of everyone who is interested you guys can email me with your declared interest, how many you want, and your shipping address, just so I can file it all away for later on. My email is conrad(nospam).(beatitspambot)russo@(blahgoawayspammers)gmail.com. I think you guys can figure out how to redact it so I don't get spammed by usenet trolling spambots.