I read the following off an old Slashdot article... can someone explain what this is about?
--------------
Well if you want to cook a C64, there is a BASIC command that may do it:
WARNING: Use of this is at your own risk! May destroy hardware! Not recommended for any machine you'd like to keep! I WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE WHATSOEVER
POKE 53270, PEEK(53270) OR 32
I did it and I could feel heat coming up from the keyboard and a smell like thermal paste overheating or something.
I turned it off very quickly and it did survive.
It was responsive and with a normal display right until I cut the power.
Some C64 docs say bit 5 of register 53270 is the reset bit for the VIC controller.
Some just say, ominously:
"ALWAYS SET THIS BIT TO 0!"
Why a reset bit would cause an overheat is beyond me. Anyone have a clue? I'd really like to know what is so bad about setting that bit. I was hoping it would just be a reset bit.
'Mapping the Commodore 64' merely says that this is the 'reset' bit, and setting it will 'stop the video chip from operating'. No warnings. No caveats.
Do you have a spare C64 to try it out? :)
Heh, no way. My one and only 128 sits across the room and unknowing of what this will do... it will never see that code... ;) VICE, on the other hand, couldnt care less about that line of code. How freaky it would have been if my PC running VICE all of a sudden went nuts. Then I would have blamed Vista. (Which isnt a shock to me... Vista is already on my bad list these days.)