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The REU HackPack. History... Back in 1991 when Tron made the first virsions of the Xmem system, we in FairLight started using our 17XX REU seriously. Until then only very few programs took advantage of the capacity of the extra memory the REU offered. But now... With the Xmem kit containing the kicking assembler and TronMon - the REU monitor, life got much easier. The disadvantage was that our old utilitycarts couldn't be used any longer, atleast not at the same time as the REU was in use! So what to do? Our winegod, Bacchus, wanted a system witch could be built into the REU. So we started thinking.... A long time! The first HW was built back in '91, but it's not until now that I have got the time to finish the HW. Now the heavy part starts with writing all the software. Some is however allready done. Features... The hardware is fitted in the empty socket in the REU, plus a few additional wires down to the REU motherboard. Since I havn't made a real board yet, I'm not sure if the REU case can be closed, or if you have to make a hole in the cover. The hardware allows you to access 1Mb of RAM, 64Kb of ROM and a freezer. Just imagine what you can do with this little beauty! Currently there is a wedge which handles all new commands. The wedge is accessed in the same way as most other cartridges, through an interfacepage in the I/O area!. In our case we use the page at $de00. Bankswitching of the ROM and control of the extra RAM is done by accessing the unused bits in register $df06. What more to come... The wedge will be equipped with a RAMdisk using the upper parts of the REU memory. The lower banks will be available for the Xmem Assembler (with also will be programmed in the ROM) and RAM available to the user. Imagine... Just type XASS, and you will be in your favourite tool at once! Do some programming, load a game and play for a while, and then go back editing where you left! Or even... Play a game, freeze, enter the assembler and program some tricky patch, unfreeze and continue playing the modifyed game! The freezer will be equipped with all necessary features such as a monitor (TronMON), sprite, grafix and music rippers (or should we say analysers!) etc. Compatibliy. This is a good question... I don't own a RAMLink, nor a Harddisk or even a SuperCPU, so I can't test this. But the expansion will work with JiffyDOS, and probably also a stock Kernal. But I will not implement features that's allready in the JiffyDOS. Most programs will work and take advantage of the new features, unless they do something tricky. If there is a problem with the software you can either startup your system without the wedge, of with a flick of a switch compleatly make it unvisible. There is also a switch to disable the extra 512k of RAM. |