ClausB

These are some fun images. Just a shame that most of them are stretched way too wide.

We had fun with Star Trek too but only on the video terminal. Too much wasted paper on the teletype!

Mr. Dyk warned us never to touch the front panel switches. One day he caught me using RUN/STOP to pause a listing on the video terminal and gave me the evil eye. Later he let me toggle in the boot loader after a crash. Oh, joy of joys!

Nice! In 1976 in Mr. Dyk's class I learned BASIC on two 16K 8800a micros, one with a teletype and paper tape and cassette, the other with a video terminal and cassette. It was so fun I stayed after school often. We started a club and ran a computer dating service. The story here, page 8: cn0777.pdf

If you calculate all the endpoints before clearing the screen and drawing the lines, then it would be easier to judge the line drawing speed. Might not even need double buffering then. FS1 does just that and gets by without a double buffer.

Not exactly. 8 sets the speaker line to output mode and the console switch lines to input mode. So 8 doesn't have to be written before each read.

Portrait of her husband?

I can post the line drawing routine from SubLogic's FS1, if there's interest. It builds each byte before writing to RAM, saving many read-or-write cycles on shallow lines.

Are you using a kernel loop or a DLI to move the missiles?

Does that make it a FIG?

Nice. I thought it looked familiar.

Nice! Any use of PMG (sprites)?

Depends on the quality of storage. If dirty, dusty, damp, or vermin-ridden, then you should open and clean first.

This topic should help:

I see. Caching sounds nice. An option to cache the character set would save lots of cycles in text modes.

Could it be programmed to access memory during the first half of each cycle so it wouldn't have to halt the CPU at all? Of course the memory would have to be fast enough. How much RAM is built in to the FPGA?

Apparently not. According to Curt, Collette and 1200XL were parallel projects.

Looks like the Collette board was meant to fit in an unmodified 800 case. Even though the right cart connector is gone, there are still the rectangular holes for the old double cart seating plastic part. For further cost reduction they might have planned to: - simplify the power board: Eliminate -5V and reduce 12V and 5V current. - simplify shielding: Replace metal structure with plastic, maybe just sheet metal for shielding. - lower case top: redesign plastic case, maybe eliminate cart door. - go beyond 48K RAM: to be more competitive, allow access to unused 16K RAM on board. You can see where these ideas plus feature creep might have led to the 1200XL.

Were there any first person shooters before Star Raiders? On the A8? On other platforms?

Correction: There are two 680 Ohm resistors for RD4&5 near the LS32 on the chip side, just like the 800. Not sure what the 1Ks are for.

And some of it correct!

At the show I took close-ups of Collette with a crummy phone camera. Chip side came out OK but solder side not so much. Interesting that the LS42 is bodged underneath. That's the chip that creates the 8K ROM and RAM select signals in the 800 and 400. Also there are two 1K resistors for RD5 and RD4. Did they forget about those when laying out the board, or did they try an alternate circuit which failed?

R46?

Have you tried other values for R51? The 800 has 0 Ohms there, right? A quick test would be to short R51 with clip leads.

Not even with brightness and contrast adjustments on the monitor?