The Commodore 64 Kernal and Hardware Revealed
The Commodore 64 Kernal and Hardware Revealed is a 1985 book by Nick Hampshire with Richard Franklin and Carl Graham, published in London by Collins Professional and Technical Books (William Collins Sons & Co.). ISBN 0-00-383090-X.[1] The numbered pages run to 194.[2] Hampshire says it is meant to be used with an earlier volume in the series, The Commodore 64 ROMs Revealed, which gives the source code of the operating system.[3]
The book explains how the Commodore 64's Kernal routines and hardware work together: the keyboard, joysticks and screen; the serial bus and RS-232; the cassette interface, including high-speed tape routines, auto-running programs and tape protection; the user port and the 6526 CIAs; and interrupts.[3][4]
Hardware material
[edit | edit source]- Fig. 1.2 (pp. 2-4) is Commodore's own schematic of the 64, "reproduced by courtesy of Commodore Business Machines (UK) Ltd", and Fig. 1.3 (p. 6) is Commodore's printed circuit board assembly drawing.[5] Chapter 1 also describes the main chips, the PLA, the clock lines and the main system control signals.[6] The book does not say which board revision the drawings show.
- Section 3.1 describes the serial bus lines, driven by a 7406 open-collector inverter with its outputs tied to 5 V through 1 kΩ resistors (Figs. 3.1 and 3.2).[7]
- Section 4.1 describes the cassette hardware, including the motor supply taken from the unregulated +9 V line and switched from the 6510's port (Fig. 4.2); Fig. 4.3 shows the recording waveforms.[8]
- Chapter 5 covers parallel interfacing on the user port, a speech synthesiser using General Instrument allophone tables, digital-to-analogue and analogue-to-digital conversion, and the expansion port pins and ROM cartridges.[9]
The schematic is reproduced at book size and without Commodore's parts list. For component values and board identification use the Commodore 64 / 64C Service Manual and the Commodore 64 Technical Manual and Parts List.
Contents
[edit | edit source]Page numbers are from the book's contents list.[4]
- Preface, p. vii
- 1: Inside the Commodore 64, p. 1
- 2: The Keyboard, Joysticks and Screen, p. 15
- 3: Serial Communications, p. 32
- 4: The Cassette Units, p. 78
- 5: The User Port, p. 127
- 6: Interrupts and Their Use, p. 184
- Index, p. 193
Related pages
[edit | edit source]- Commodore 64 · Commodore 64 Troubleshooting Guide
- The Anatomy of the Commodore 64, which gives chip-level pin and register data but no schematic
Download: Collins The Commodore 64 Kernal and Hardware Revealed.pdf
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ Nick Hampshire, The Commodore 64 Kernal and Hardware Revealed (Collins Professional and Technical Books, 1985), title page and copyright page (PDF pp. 7-8).
- ↑ Hampshire, Kernal and Hardware Revealed, Index, pp. 193-194 (PDF pp. 205-206).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Hampshire, Kernal and Hardware Revealed, Preface, p. vii (PDF p. 11).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hampshire, Kernal and Hardware Revealed, Contents (PDF p. 9).
- ↑ Hampshire, Kernal and Hardware Revealed, chapter 1, pp. 2-6 (PDF pp. 14-18).
- ↑ Hampshire, Kernal and Hardware Revealed, sections 1.2-1.4, pp. 5-13 (PDF pp. 17-25).
- ↑ Hampshire, Kernal and Hardware Revealed, section 3.1, pp. 32-33 (PDF pp. 44-45).
- ↑ Hampshire, Kernal and Hardware Revealed, sections 4.1-4.5, pp. 78-82 (PDF pp. 90-94).
- ↑ Hampshire, Kernal and Hardware Revealed, sections 5.8-5.13, pp. 140-180 (PDF pp. 152-192).