So as more than a thought experiment than anything else, I was thinking of what would go on a wishlist for a 5200 expansion module.
The AtariMax cartridge has the three things which first pop to mind:
1. Port for an alternate game format (SD Card)
2. More RAM
3. Non-volatile RAM for saving high scores and games.
So now things which the AtariMax doesn't have...
4. A passthrough for 5200 cartridges.
So I started thinking what programmer would want to aid development. There are some really powerful (and cheap) Microcontrollers out there (even if restricted to 8-bits), which could be used to emulate any kind of chip we could want.
A better sound chip seems tempting, but the POKEY is pretty decent, and the expansion port seems to have been designed for audio expansions, so that would be a seperate project. (Stereo expansion kit, anyone?)
A graphics chip is also tempting, but I don't think we can end run ANTIC (unless we added a composite port directly to the cartridge, sort of like how graphic cards connect directly to monitors.)
So I think a sort of coprocessor for the system would work. One of the Toshiba Microcontrollers I looked at had a clock speed of around 16Mhz, therefore we could program a bunch of stored procedures for things which would be very difficult to do using the 6502.
The first procedure I would add would be for graphics scaling. This would allow for making first-person and Space Harrier like games.
So....
5. Scaling Algorithm
Trig functions could also be useful, they're used in anti-aliasing, among other things:
6. Trig functions.
and let's just add the anti-aliasing function while we're at it:
7. Anti-alias function.
Okay, that's enough for this post. So all your homebrewers, actual or potential, what would you like in a 5200 coprocessor chip?
The AtariMax cartridge has the three things which first pop to mind:
1. Port for an alternate game format (SD Card)
2. More RAM
3. Non-volatile RAM for saving high scores and games.
So now things which the AtariMax doesn't have...
4. A passthrough for 5200 cartridges.
So I started thinking what programmer would want to aid development. There are some really powerful (and cheap) Microcontrollers out there (even if restricted to 8-bits), which could be used to emulate any kind of chip we could want.
A better sound chip seems tempting, but the POKEY is pretty decent, and the expansion port seems to have been designed for audio expansions, so that would be a seperate project. (Stereo expansion kit, anyone?)
A graphics chip is also tempting, but I don't think we can end run ANTIC (unless we added a composite port directly to the cartridge, sort of like how graphic cards connect directly to monitors.)
So I think a sort of coprocessor for the system would work. One of the Toshiba Microcontrollers I looked at had a clock speed of around 16Mhz, therefore we could program a bunch of stored procedures for things which would be very difficult to do using the 6502.
The first procedure I would add would be for graphics scaling. This would allow for making first-person and Space Harrier like games.
So....
5. Scaling Algorithm
Trig functions could also be useful, they're used in anti-aliasing, among other things:
6. Trig functions.
and let's just add the anti-aliasing function while we're at it:
7. Anti-alias function.
Okay, that's enough for this post. So all your homebrewers, actual or potential, what would you like in a 5200 coprocessor chip?