BigDumbDinosaur wrote:
VDA alone does not indicate if the 816 is in a dead cycle.
Yes, we agree on that point. As well as during dead cycles, VDA is also low during program fetches other than opcodes fetches. In other words, VDA being low is ambiguous. It could mean either a dead cycle or a Program Fetch Other than an Opcode fetch. (In case anyone needs a reminder, every 65xx instruction includes one opcode byte and zero or more PFOO's, aka operand bytes. And, the 816's VPA/VDA signals vary according to four categories of bus cycle I'll call opcode fetch, PFOO fetch,
data fetch/store, and dead cycle. )
Now here's the thing. VDA being low is ambiguous.
But for an IO device, the ambiguity doesn't matter. I suggested the glue logic should require VDA high in order for the IO device to become selected, and that means dead cycles will result in de-selection, just as we require. De-selection will also result from PFOO's... but this is not a problem! The ambiguity doesn't matter as long as we're dealing with IO devices only.
I think the confusion arises when the go/no-go signal is
applied at a point (such as a decoder)
which controls both IO and memory... and I believe your POC's fit this description. Now you
do need a go/no-go signal which identifies dead cycles unambiguously. A moment ago I said it's alright for IO to be de-selected during PFOO's, but the same isn't true for memory! And if IO and memory are both subject to a single go/no-go signal, then the logic generating that signal does need to consider both VPA and VDA. So we agree on that, too.
But with different design decisions the circumstances become more relaxed. If the go/no-go signal is
applied at a point which only controls IO then VPA can be ignored, and that makes things faster and simpler. For example, 65xx peripheral chips can be effectively protected, with no extra gates and no added propagation delay, simply by driving their active-high Chip Selects with VDA.
-- Jeff
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In 1988 my 65C02 got six new registers and 44 new full-speed instructions!
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