Re: Soft game settings vs. dipswitches?

> Other than the possible "nostalgia value" of doing it "the
>old-fashioned way" instead of using "them new-fangled menus", I don't see
>any disadvantage to it.

"My car gets thirty rands to the hogshead and that's the way I like it!"

> By the way - have you looked at Ramtron's ferroelectric RAM (FRAM)
>parts for this kind of thing?

Actually I've talked to them for stuff at work (didn't work out-- too low of
density, too expensive, and not enough volume production).

The main issue in this case is that the memory that does the saving is the
same stuff that's shadowed over the regular RAM area-- the CPU is actually
using the "save" RAM as page 0 and page 1 for the 6520. (So that means most
of your game variables and all the stack. It'll get hit thousands of times
a second.)

I'm just using an ST MK48Z02. (Zeropower SRAM) Cheap and available with
second sources. The battery is built-in, so ten years down the road people
will just have to replace it. I'll socket it to make it easy. On the cool
"geek" factor list it gives me the option to drop in one of their
"timekeeper" versions and have a realtime clock too. (Ooooh-- high scores
with the time and date it was set! ;-)

-Clay
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Received on Wed Apr 5 00:43:10 2000