Author: Kllrnohj
Posted: 20 Jan 2013 02:42:34 pm (GMT -5)
Well it wouldn't have to be "magically" - TI does have a processor division, after all, and they could have modified the Z80 to have a wider address pins. Intel did that twice, after all - 16-bit CPU with a 20-bit and 24-bit RAM address pins.
But cynically I expect TI went with the easiest, cheapest solution and just half-assed this purely to be able to say they have a high resolution color screen since their competition has that.
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There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses. (Bjarne Stroustrup)
Posted: 20 Jan 2013 02:42:34 pm (GMT -5)
KermMartian wrote: |
DJ_O, the whole screen buffer absolutely doesn't fit into the address space, though it might fit into RAM, since we don't know anything public about the RAM chip in this device. The bigger problem is that we almost definitely can't address the whole thing at once, unless the z80 magically got a log2(320*240*2)=log2(153.6KB)=18-bit address space. |
Well it wouldn't have to be "magically" - TI does have a processor division, after all, and they could have modified the Z80 to have a wider address pins. Intel did that twice, after all - 16-bit CPU with a 20-bit and 24-bit RAM address pins.
But cynically I expect TI went with the easiest, cheapest solution and just half-assed this purely to be able to say they have a high resolution color screen since their competition has that.
_________________
There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses. (Bjarne Stroustrup)