[Coco] Orchestra 90cc High Speed Mode

[Arthur Flexser]

P.S.  Now that I think about it, it's possible that another step was
needed at startup to enable the double-speed mode.  If shift-enter
termination of the play command doesn't work by itself, try it after
the pak is booted up with shift and enter being held down.

On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
> Wow, a message of mine from 25 years ago!
>
> I never owned the Orch 90cc pak, but I do recall trying that mode out
> in a RS store with the demo tune that is stored in the pak, and it did
> sound better than in normal mode.  The video goes bonkers on a CoCo
> 1/2 in that mode, and then returns to normal when the song stops
> playing.  (I assume that's why the mode was not "officially"
> documented--I learned of it on Compuserve from a posting or a chat
> with Brian Eggers, the author.)
>
> If the screen didn't go bonkers on your F-board, it's likely that I
> misremembered something about Brian's communication in the interval,
> possibly several years, between when I heard about this feature and
> when I posted that message on Delphi.  My recollection is that the
> shift-enter is used instead of just enter to terminate the command
> that tells the music to play.  Is that how you tried it?  (I suspect
> not, since that's far from apparent in my Delphi note.)
>
> Art
>
> On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 6:40 PM, Rogelio Perea <os9dude at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >From an old Delphi conversation:
>>
>> - - - - - - - -
>>
>> 10024 1JUL86-1959 Hardware Hacking
>> RE: POKE65497,0 (Re: Msg 10012)
>> From: ARTFLEXSER To: MARTYGOODMAN
>>
>> Actually, that double-speed mode does work pretty nicely with the
>> Orchestra-90 rompack, which has an undocumented command (shift-enter) for
>> throwing it into that mode. So long as the code being executed is not in a
>> tight loop (which can be planned for by the designer), the all-ram
>> double-speed mode does a nice job in enhancing the music quality. Though,
>> of course, not every CoCo will run properly with it. (Memory will get
>> refreshed okay in the course of executing instructions
>> - - - - - - - -
>>
>> Always been intrigued about the details on this high speed mode, now that I
>> have been playing with the O90cc pak for the Holidays music the thought
>> came up again: what exactly does that SHIFT-ENTER sequence engage when done
>> at the pak's boot screen? is it supposed to throw a CoCo 1/2 into the all
>> ram double speed?
>>
>> It apparently does nothing in my F board setup... need to record and play
>> back head to head two music renditions to see if any HF aliasing smooths
>> out or not when in that mode.
>>
>> >From Basic the F board's video goes bonkers as expected on the POKE&HFFD9,0
>>
>>
>> -- RP
>>
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