Paralel
Well-known member
I was looking at the way the memory is setup in the Classic II, and it finally dawned on me why the RAM is limited to 10 MB.
They only used 24 address lines! As such, 10 MB RAM + 4 MB ROM leaves 2 MB of addressable space for things like VRAM, etc... through the EAGLE Gate Array chip.
That's why it's impossible to go above 10 MB, there just aren't enough address lines run to the EAGLE Gate Array. In order to go above 10 MB one would need to make a new EAGLE chip, run new address lines to it, etc... it would be a huge task.
Its no wonder they let the Classic II be a cripple, the amount of work to make it address more RAM wasn't worth the effort.
They only used 24 address lines! As such, 10 MB RAM + 4 MB ROM leaves 2 MB of addressable space for things like VRAM, etc... through the EAGLE Gate Array chip.
That's why it's impossible to go above 10 MB, there just aren't enough address lines run to the EAGLE Gate Array. In order to go above 10 MB one would need to make a new EAGLE chip, run new address lines to it, etc... it would be a huge task.
Its no wonder they let the Classic II be a cripple, the amount of work to make it address more RAM wasn't worth the effort.