>Due to a hardware bug on the CIA on the 64, the protocol is much slower than it should
If that were true then carts like Fastload wouldn't work using the same hardware and same cabling, to load programs many times faster than the stock C64 code.
The C64 ROM code worked, but slowly. This was also true for the built-in serial routines. When I got a 2400bps modem for my C64, the computer couldn't keep up, there was garbage coming through,I couldn't upload or download, and it was caused by the slow ROM serial code. I hacked my favorite terminal program with my own assembly language bit-banged serial driver, and then the 2400bps modem worked flawlessly. The same is true for the slow disk drive serial code. To my knowledge, that wasn't caused by any flaw in the hardware, it was just slow driver code.
Everyone I knew had a Fastload cartridge, but I was in "the scene", so maybe not the average user back then.
Did fastload speed up the protocol, or did it compress the data? I remember using other software for speeding up reading and writing from cassettes, but if I remember correctly this was achieved using compression.
If that were true then carts like Fastload wouldn't work using the same hardware and same cabling, to load programs many times faster than the stock C64 code.
The C64 ROM code worked, but slowly. This was also true for the built-in serial routines. When I got a 2400bps modem for my C64, the computer couldn't keep up, there was garbage coming through,I couldn't upload or download, and it was caused by the slow ROM serial code. I hacked my favorite terminal program with my own assembly language bit-banged serial driver, and then the 2400bps modem worked flawlessly. The same is true for the slow disk drive serial code. To my knowledge, that wasn't caused by any flaw in the hardware, it was just slow driver code.
Everyone I knew had a Fastload cartridge, but I was in "the scene", so maybe not the average user back then.
https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58317