>FRAM might work for your extra databuffer for the display if you can't get
a
>SIMM to work right
>
>The only other problem I would see is what Wouter brought up - the amount
of
>write cycles for FLASH.  Each time you are loading a game, it is writing to
>the flash - granted, it would take a good while to wear out the flash,, but
>it could be done.

The way to deal with this is to have a token interpreter in the pic, and
have your game as tokens in the plug-in cartridge. Then you limit the number
of times the flash rom needs updating, as it only changes during interpreter
code development, not game development. This way you would end up with a
library of routines in code for line drawing, char writing, etc which get
represented in the game by a token, and some parameters.

This is the way the old RCA video game that was built around a COSMAC micro
worked, and it seemed to have acceptable speed, despite the slow processor
speed. It should work OK in this case as well, as your display speed is
limited by the LCD, and you have only simple input sensors.

The other trick would be to start out from the outset using an 18F452 with
its larger ROM space. Have not looked too closely at the data sheet yet to
compare RAM space. With the comparisons that have been wandering through
this list recently, people seem to be saying it is around the same price as
the 16F877 you are considering anyway, so why not go straight to the bigger
ROM.

It's higher potential speed may also be an advantage when implementing an
interpreter as well :)

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