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snicklin

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Posts posted by snicklin

    Using xBios to load data from floppy

    in Atari 5200 / 8-bit Programming

    Posted

    For anyone reading this, either now, or twenty years in the future, I created an English xBios documentation page, which was a translation of the original instructions.

     

    https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=XBIOS

     

    Please note, I collated a lot of stuff and put it in the link above, in English, but I do not call myself an xBios expert, so please don't ask me questions on xBios as I cannot remember. I've done way too many other things in the meantime!!!

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1

    Images generated by RastaConverter

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    31 minutes ago, ilmenit said:

     

    - The addition of default auto-save functionality, which will save your work every 100K iterations.

     

    Wow, you have put a lot of work in here, as well as others.

     

    Just to say though, this auto save option is not a good idea for people who have SSD's. Writing to SSD every few seconds will damage them, with each bit having limited write counts. It may be an idea not to use this...

     

    Is there a way that by default this is switched off for people with SSD's if you can detect them over HDD's? 

    Images generated by RastaConverter

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    1 hour ago, drunkeneye said:

     

    why would you use Go?

    i'd prefer strongly python, much more portable (and readable for me),

    and there are a lot of genetic algorithm/programming tools (PyGAD),

    and would allow for easy use of deep networks/reinforcement (PyTorch/Keras etc).

    not sure, if these libraries exist in Go.

    i do not believe that Go will be that much faster, will it?

    would prefer strongly more efficient algorithms, or at least

    have several options for that, instead of the late acceptance hill climbing.

     

     

    Well, for a start, I can't program Python!
     

    It is also a lot slower, so I wouldn't really be gaining anything there. Go is a quick language, not the quickest, but up there and allows concurrency easily.

     

    As for libraries, I cannot comment on the mentioned libraries, are they totally applicable to this situation? I only ask because RC is a very specialised bit of software, would they help, I am not sure.... not being negative, I really don't know.

     

    Good algorithms will always be better, but is there one better than LHC, also, I am not sure. A good algorithm with the right language would be a killer here. C++ though is well up there with the fastest languages, probably only beaten by C and Assembly.

     

     

     

    • Like 1

    Images generated by RastaConverter

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted · Edited by snicklin
    typo

    Has anyone ever considered porting this to Go (Golang)?

     

    I thought it might be good to see if the concurrency capabilities of Go would make conversion quicker? It may not, as C++ is quicker than Go on a single thread. 

     

    I have taken a look at the code, but it is a lot of work to do to potentially find out you have wasted your time.

     

    I noticed some mentions of concurrency in the Rastaconverter code, but didn't really understand that side of it as I am not a c++ person, though can read general code. From memory from what I have read here, there is some concurrency.....

    Bill Halsall?

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    Now here is a name that is a blast from the past. Sorry, no idea what happened to him. If you find out, see of he knows what happened to Les and Sandy Ellingham! I miss them, they'd be pretty old now if they are still alive.

    • Like 1

    Go / Golang Packages Wanted

    in Atari 5200 / 8-bit Programming

    Posted

    On 11/10/2023 at 10:16 PM, scottinNH said:

    Hi Steve,

     

    thanks. Good advice.
     

    Yeah so my time is also irregular and budgeting it is sometimes difficult. So nobody would hold me up lol. My Atari is packed away and I’m not running emulators presently. Time and space.

    I’m just plowing through Head First Go (35% through) and Exercism. So my Atari/project motivation/use case is a bit undefined, and given all that I’m leery of starting something.
     

    While I’m learning Go, I’m looking for very small Issues I can snipe a PR for then unplug my mind from it. If I don’t find those later, there’s some FujiNet related stuff I can imagine up. And the Atari community has decades of Perl/Python/C utilities that could be re-implemented. 

     

    Once I get further along I can think about larger or self-driven projects, but not there yet. Cheers.

     

    I felt kind of bad before saying that I couldn't work with you (or anyone, not you personally).

     

    As you're not reliant on me, as you're unable to find time a lot of the time, we won't be too dependent on one another. So go on, how do you feel about writing a general purpose package for reading / writing / extracting from ATR's? It seems like a little bit too much for one person (I tend to keep my packages quite small). I could write up the template for such a package with the functions in there and me and you can then fill in the details for each function? And if anyone else wants to join in, they can? I can host it on GitHub. I can give you a GitHub location when a template is available?

     

    Just note, I have never worked collaboratively online (only within a company where we know exactly who does what and a minor contribution to RastaConverter a decade ago), so I hope we can balance it well?

     

    If it seems too big for you, I like lots of small functions rather than a few big ones, and if I template it well enough, you can pick off little bits here and there?

     

    • Like 2

    Go / Golang Packages Wanted

    in Atari 5200 / 8-bit Programming

    Posted · Edited by snicklin
    Changed wording of other to author

    On 11/11/2023 at 6:58 AM, Sheddy said:

    I've really not managed to learn much GO so thanks for the tips also. Will have to try the GUI libraries at some point but all GUI stuff seems steep learning curve

    I have felt the same way regarding this.

     

    I am still a beginner at using Fyne, but I am impressed with what I've been able to do so far, even if it is of no use.

     

    There is a good book from the author of Fyne. Note though that much of the material is similar to the online stuff, but if you like books, this one is good:

     

    https://www.amazon.com.au/Building-Cross-Platform-Applications-Fyne-platform-agnostic/dp/1800563167

     

    • Like 2

    Go / Golang Packages Wanted

    in Atari 5200 / 8-bit Programming

    Posted

    1 hour ago, scottinNH said:

    I’m learning go and I’m interested in finding ways to use with Atari. Got a plan for some tool and want to work on something?

     

    biggest opportunities I see are working with Fujinet apps and servers (clients for 5 car stud, etc) and tools to manage peripherals (cart flashers) or disk systems (mount images etc).

     

    Fyne looks neat for Guis but there’s also Ebinengine for web GuI.

     

    Hi Scott,

     

    I am glad that you are learning Go. It is a great language and I enjoy it a lot.

     

    I will politely say no to working with you, just because I am very sporadic in when I do things and don't wish to hold you up. I can't describe myself as reliable due to work and family committments.

     

    Yes, servers are a very good application that can be quite simply knocked up with Go. Other things I can think of would be file converters, something that maybe stripped text or graphics out of files etc. I wrote a FastBasic preprocessor in Go and a few other small utilities listed in my footer.

     

    I have used Ebitengine. I used it to try and write a GUI framework and managed to get backgrounds, splash screens, text and buttons working but nothing more due to time. Fyne is much better for it though, I am still in my early days with Fyne.

     

    Make sure you listen to the podcasts such as Cup o'Go and Go Time and sign up to the Golang Weekly news email.

     

    All the best and if you write any neat little Atari packages, let me know.

     

    Steve

     

     

    • Like 1

    Go / Golang Packages Wanted

    in Atari 5200 / 8-bit Programming

    Posted

    On 11/5/2023 at 7:34 PM, Sheddy said:

    I'm suspecting there's not much. Lack of native GUI support with GO means not many end user programs like PM graphics editors, for example - You'd have to write browser code for the interface and wouldn't need GO at all if someone could already do that. 

    I have code that reads an ATR and XEX but not in a separate package. Other things I've done seem to not be so useful for Atari in general - too low level and specific to use in other projects.

    Thanks for the reply Sheddy. I don't mind there being no UI as I program in Go and can also use the Fyne library for anything UI. 

     

    I just want to see if there is a way that I can build up a repository of Atari specific code I can use without me having to code the specifics of every possible kind of ATR for example. I might take another look at Copilot to see what it has.

     

    I would love to code a swiss army knife program on the CLI for doing Atari specific tasks.

     

    • Like 1

    ChatGPT and the atari 8 bit. help me debug this and get it working

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Ute said:

    Ha ha, true for the most part, however....

     

    ChatGPT has passed the BAR examination, albeit with a C+ average. As well it has written quite a few PHD thesis'. It has also been writing research papers for high schoolers and undergraduates, which has been very upsetting for the respective teachers and professors. I'm no AI expert but from what I understand, the limits to the potential are 1) the amount of data available and 2) the feedback received from users - compounded by time(And of course the original algorithms used to program the AI).

     

    The technology is very young, but it will only get better with time and larger data sets. There is potential there, But it may be decades away.

     

    Interestingly my wife is a teacher. She uses it to create lesson plans and loves it!

    • Like 2
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