7 ms·
To clarify, "PAL" refers to the European TV standard, correct? Commodore had to make a different sub-model for Europe versus US because the TV signals are gover
by tabtab 7y ago
To clarify, "PAL" refers to the European TV standard, correct? Commodore had to make a different sub-model for Europe versus US because the TV signals are governed by different standards in each continent. The screen refresh rate in particular is different. Some software depended on (assumed) one or the other, probably because it was intended to be continent-specific or used hardware tricks to squeeze out higher perceived performance.
- jchw 7y agoYes and yes. The different PAL version though, was the exact same mainboard. In order to support PAL or NTSC, they have only two real differences: the clock and the VIC-II chip that generates the video signal. By my understanding, for simplicity and to make it cheaper to manufacture, the machine is largely driven by a single clock, and that clock revolves around the pixel timings for the respective video standards. You need the PAL VIC-II for a lot of software because a lot of its coded for PAL, and in the best case, runs too fast (and in the worst case, crashes violently because its cycle counting beam racing tricks don’t line up right.) (Fortunately, modern LCD TVs dont care very much and decode PAL signals fine. Though the cheap one I’m using seems to frequently assume its NTSC50, where the picture is correct but black and white - what the hell outputs that?)
- reaperducer 7y agoWas there a SECAM version? I remember a lot of French software for the 64.