... není virus, nýbrž...
is a co-processor for the SAM. Featuring 8 DAC sound channels, four and a half megabytes of RAM, the main core of Symbiote is focussed around a Zilog eZ80 processor at 48MHz. The far superior architecture gives the equivalent of over 32 times the raw processing power of the SAM's 6MHz Z80. Zilog describe the eZ80 as a Z80 on steroids and they aren't wrong, it's a real powerhouse of an 8-bit processor! If you can code in Z80 then adapting to the eZ80 should not take you long at all. Despite the jump in power the archetecture inside is just an expanded version of Z80.
Sound wise Symbiote will offer full backwards compatibility with the original Quazar Surround soundcard when running in legacy mode (which it defaults to on startup) but the interface will be light years ahead when running its own native code, both for sound generation or other processing tasks on behalf of the SAM. https://twitter.com/i/status/1036211316954935297 + https://twitter.com/i/status/1009177847846580224
I have to stress that Symbiote is not just a replacement for the Quazar Surround soundcard - it’s a whole new processor system added to the SAM Coupe. Think of what would be possible if a game engine is running on the eZ80 and data is passed back to the SAM’s Z80 to display. There's so many exciting possiblities in terms of sound, games, emulators etc. I've already had a few chats with SAM programmers and the ideas to take advantage of the additional processing power of Symbiote are quite astonishing!
https://twitter.com/QuazarSamCoupe/stat ... 7822788608