Cyprian
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Posts posted by Cyprian
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23 hours ago, Mr. Undo said:
Interesting appreciation @Cyprian! So they used the same PC-GEM icons for this proto-TOS. I’m glad that this thread has been reborn, shedding some more light on the subject.
It look like they haven't customized the icons and fonts yet (window's closer is also the same as on the PC-GEM).
PC-GEM has two icons sets: DESKHI.IMG and DESKLO.IMG. Atari decided to use only one icon set, my guess is that due to ROM size limitations: 192kB. I read somewhere that initially the plan was to use smaller ROM in the ST: 128KB.
Regarding CP/M and GEMDOS, below is a screenshot from Atari Corp. book before GEMDOS was born:
I heard that GEMDOS was initially a private project one of the DRI employee - Jason Loveman and was called "Jason DOS" / "Project Jason" and it was DOS 2.x based. Therefore history has come full circle: DRI CP/M --> SCP 86-DOS/QDOS --> MS DOS 1.x --> MS DOS 2.x --> DRI GEMDOS
Ok I've found that article: http://cd.textfiles.com/crawlycrypt1/program/books/progem/gemdos.15
There you can find GEMDOS vs DOS vs CP/M comparison:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12XHJ6YHRDfvNhtnlzEINBjRRXZPKvDQgI7AI424oTws/edit?usp=sharing-
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19 minutes ago, MrFish said:
I'm not sure why they would need to, unless their OSes were just that much less efficient internally. Both the Atari 520 ST and Amiga 500 were running the same processor as the original Mac, at the same speed (Motorola 68000 @ 8 MHz) -- although the Amiga 500 was running it just slightly slower at ~ 7 MHz.
I'm not sure what processor people were using to run GEM on the PC's with -- maybe a 80286 @ 8 or 10 MHz in the same time frame, which should have been comparable to the 68000 being run on the competition.
why mono-spaced spacing fonts? because it's faster - each letter (8x8 or 8x16) fits in its own byte in memory, so you just need to copy the font data from the source to the destination. Whereas with a proportional font, each letter must be also ORed and shifted in the destination memory.
Btw. GEM supports proportional from the beginning (this is GDOS in Atari world)
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On 3/20/2024 at 4:35 AM, MrFish said:
I know those are various speed and usability enhancements. Did any of them provide proportional fonts for the filenames and menus (I can't remember if they did or not)?
GEM (on both platforms -PC and Atari) and Amiga OS used mono-spaced fonts due to performance issue.
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21 hours ago, Irgendwer said:
(Just to support my statement...)
These fonts look cool, what's their name (menu, icon, file list)?
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On 3/19/2024 at 12:29 PM, JPF997 said:
The conspiracy theory that Sony simply stole the Falcon prototypes design has existed as a sort of urban legend for a while now , I don't think they ever payed Atari a single cent for the original PS2 fat design.
Sony mentioned Atari Falcon 040 and Atari Falcon Microbox 030 in its design patent:
https://www.feedme.design/was-the-playstation-2-design-really-based-on-an-old-atari/
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"Is this a good system?"
Yes, it is.
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I've heard about hair dryer and screen heating
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my way was 800 XL -> 1040 ST --> Falcon 030 --> PC
9 hours ago, Megalomaniac said:I'm just curious as to where people went next.
partially in 1999
3 minutes ago, DarkLord said:Oh, I did keep my Atari's though...
same with me, my /|\ are in the shelf behind me
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interesting story
1 hour ago, Lostdragon said:Now I have seen Whittaker tweet about original name for the Jaguar,
what was that name?
1 hour ago, Lostdragon said:ATD were debugging the Jaguar hardware, asking for hardware changes, which Atari implemented, AVP used..
do you know what hardware changes were requested?
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On 9/1/2021 at 9:31 PM, krupkaj said:
Together with Bob!k we made this version last year. We tested it successfully with BattleSphere and Aircars in 3 players. I think I still have some spare PCB yet.
nice one,
is there a schematic of the right board available somewhere?
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for me Atari ST mini sounds interesting.
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2 hours ago, Zafinn Books said:
There was an external ROM plugged into the January 1985 CES ST's (2 x working IIRC) - these were strictly policed and were demo'ed by authorised staff. I have some notes somewhere about these, but if any staffers are still around (Landon?), perhaps you can confirm if these ROM Carts (see picture) were loaded with the pre-internal TOS/GEM for the show? I'll check some old HD's for those CES notes to confirm as I can't remember off the top of my head. Picture courtesy of https://www.stcarchiv.de/hc1985/04/ces-1985-kampf-der-kolosse and another image here https://www.gamopat.com/2015/02/quand-atari-a-voulu-bouffer-la-pomme.html
TOS on the cartridge - sounds interesting, would be cool to find it.
It seems it is a bit different than the final one - I see PC GEM icons, and the Desktop is surrounded by the black border
1 hour ago, tjlazer said:Where did you find it?
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On 3/5/2021 at 3:28 PM, Mr. Undo said:
Yes, that’s also true for sure. So we can affirm here that those finished ROM TOS were delivered at least to some buyers, definitively not all of them.
And what about DESKHI.IMG and DESKLO.IMG? What could that “high” and “low” distinction have meant?
both files contains Icons:
e.g. PC GEM 1.1 in 640x200 mode (picture below) uses icons from "DESKLO" file:
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12 hours ago, TGB1718 said:
Not sure all the code is for the ST, the .ASM files are not 68000, they may be Intel assembler
and PROTO.H does say
"LANGUAGE............. Turbo C 2.0 for the IBM PC"
Maybe he was creating a cross system compile as STRUCT.H says
"LANGUAGE............. Turbo C 1.0 for the Atari ST"
I see that some .ASM functions are called from IBM.C
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2 hours ago, drpeter said:
The Atari has modes which increase or decrease the standard horizontal resolution by 20% (by increasing or decreasing the horizontal width of the field in which graphics are displayed, not by narrowing or widening the pixels) which would for example give modes of 192 or 128 pixels wide rather than the standard 160 pixel mode, or 48 or 32 characters wide rather than the standard 40 characters. See the Altirra Hardware Manual or De Re Atari for details.
unfortunately 192 / 384px per line is just Atari's b/s marketing. The real result is 352px (or 356px thanks to Mono) in Hires per line and half of that in 4 color modes.
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"GEM Desktop 1.1 was released on 10 April 1985"
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16 hours ago, thedocbwarren said:
There are so many aspects of the GEM desktop that is weird given what it was released on. For example, PC versions and other platform versions were also on 640x200 resolutions and look terrible just like Medium res TOS. Given this was more common than a VGA-like aspect, why the miss on design? I always assumed this was due to lacking UI designers to both making the UI correct the aspect ratio, something Apple did not miss.
GEM screen resolution depends on the capabilities of the graphics card, at that time (1985) 640x200 was quite popular. I see there https://www.seasip.info/Gem/Drivers/video.html drivers for GEM 1.x for e.g. Hercules 720x348
Actually PC GEM 1.1 in 640x200 wasn't so bad:
On 1/16/2024 at 10:28 AM, thedocbwarren said:Anyone have the reasons on why the ST used a white background vs black like older systems (8-bit) and the Amiga? Mac did so to mimic paper (White with black pixels.)
Digital Research Inc designed GEM in that way that, based on XEROX experiences.
On 1/16/2024 at 10:28 AM, thedocbwarren said:Also what is the story behind using bright green as the desktop background color?
Regarding green desktop, if I remember correctly the first 16 colors in GEM were standardized by Digital Research. Blue was reserved for PC GEM, therefore Atari didn't have much choice:
PC GEM:
ST GEM:
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13 minutes ago, sirlynxalot said:
Thanks, what's up with the camera/steering? Did you have no compatible analogue controller?
It is not mine, I tole this link from BigPemu discord
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some useful links:
Hardware:
https://www.temlib.org/AtariForumWiki/index.php/Atari_ST/STe/MSTe/TT/F030_Hardware_Register_Listing
OS:
https://freemint.github.io/tos.hyp/en/index.html
Nice FAQ about STE Hardware specific registers
ST Synclock demosystem v1.0:
https://dhs.nu/files.php?t=democreation
Coding forum (more active than here on AA):
https://atari-forum.com/viewforum.php?f=16
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2 hours ago, Stechmann said:
are these ports the same as on 5200?
no, different pin layout
STE:
5200:
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2 hours ago, Ericde45 said:
and 60 fps is better than 15, that's obvious
3D games running are 10 fps are very unattractive
but now you have a challenge, you must do Jumping at shadows without using the GPU. and if you don't manage to do it, just ask agraneuneu. he will explain you how to code better, as he does with me
obviously 120fps is better than 60
but in retro computer world we have used to live with 25 and less fps.
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nice setup