Re: LZ: optimizing zshell programs for turbo calcs

Subject: Re: LZ: optimizing zshell programs for turbo calcs
From: barrym <barrym@neosoft.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 20:22:34 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To: <3044BE72.3F0E@inil.com>

On Wed, 30 Aug 1995, becker wrote:

> I asked this a while ago but never got answered:
> Is anyone making or modifying zshell games to make use of turboed
> calculators?  I was also wondering if maybe in zshell 4.5, you could
> have a software switch to optimize the turboed versions, so that they a
> program will run fast when it needs to and slow when it doesn't??
> 
> take, for instance XC1701, when there are a lot of enemies on screen it
> goes really slow, then speeds up when there are fewer. isn't there some
> way of making zshell even this out? or does it have to be dome within
> the code???  What's the point of turboing a calc if 90% of the stuff
> runs too fast??

Thats only true if 90% of what you do is games.

An asm program can be made to time itself on the cpu or the clock,
in most systems.  That's up to the programmer.  In most systems I
always use the clock for just the reason you mention.  Is there a
real-time clock on the 85?  Or can you access an interrupt with
sufficiently high resolution to use it for a timer?

Are there many turboed 85's?  If I were writing for the 85, my first
thought would be to just use the cpu since they all run about the
same speed.  Even if there are a few exceptions.  But not if there
are a lot of exceptions.

Also, if there is a real-time clock and/or a fast regular interrupt,
would they be sped up by the turbo switch?  The program might not
have any way to know.

Barry

References:

From: