JB
-
Content Count
9,517 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by JB
-
-
Yup. I don't actually think wireless video is a good idea. Just thought an objective look at the idea was better than completely ignoring it.Feature creep.
Personally, I want VGA output, but understand all too well the argument against.
(I'd also like the option of original composite output after the upgrade, but really only for the sake of Parsec's rainbow lines in the terrain.)
-
1
-
-
How about an end-run?
First I'll state for the record that I don't know how much this would add to cost to a finished product, or if it's truly feasible, but I'm thinking WHY would the F18A MKII even need a HDMI connector in the first place? Would it be possible to just replace the output stage with a WiFi transmitter that could just stream the data to a Chromecast device already plugged into a TV or monitors HDMI connector? Personally, I'd be happy with one less cable coming out of the TI. -- Just an idea.
That's an interesting idea, certainly.
But with F18A2 already a very crowded board, it'd be pretty hard to implement. It requires a not-insignificant amount of additional processing power be added to handle video encoding and TCP/IP/802.11 protocol details, to say nothing of the space taken by the wifi module and antenna.
It also probably requires you to remove some RF shielding so the radio waves can escape, rendering your prized 99 in violation of FCC regulations(the horror!).
Also, it would require everyone that wants to use it to buy a matching receiver, which is contrary to the goal of making it directly usable to the most people(the goal that started the whole "HDMI licensing" brouhaha in the first place). I feel that Chromecast is likely as much of an inconvenient rarity as VGA.
-
-
The RS232/PIO option is better, because you PROBABLY need an infrared light for data transfer rather than visible light.
I suppose if the new sidecar is using a red LED there's a chance of it getting through the IR window anyways, but I wouldn't place bets.
-
As does the Indivision AGA Mk2. It also carries SVGA signalling. The DVI data stream does not carry audio, but can HDMI-compatible audio be injected without interfering with DVI signalling? Is DVI-to-HDMI conversion passive adaptation or is there actual processing?
Thanks for pointing out the Sophia. I now want one for my 130XE.
DVI-to-HDMI conversion is passive. Nothin' more than changing the plug. Adapters can be had for just a few bucks, and consist of little more than a DVI connector soldered to an HDMI connector.
But audio injection requires active processing, as there is no provision within DVI for carrying audio.
-
1
-
-
Tursi, many thanks for the more realistic speed estimate.
I "knew" we weren't going near those speeds. But I lacked the hardware knowledge to make the point with anything better than those wildly optimistic numbers.
As for why...
A. if we were going that fast, it wouldn't take a visible amount of time to load Funnelweb off a Horizon. Used to do that a lot, typing homework up. Way faster than floppies, but definitely not instant.
B. If the 4A could move anywhere close to six megabytes a second, TI wouldn't have been in a price war with the frickin' VIC-20 back in 1981, because they would've been too busy devastating the minicomputer industry to care what Commodore was doing... or this fictional super-4A would've been cancelled to protect the 990 line's profits. Either way, no one would have been pretending the 4A and VIC-20 were on even footing. Six megabytes a second was simply too fast to be overlooked, so it obviously wasn't ever there.
-
I was thinking that while the SD card accesses things faster than a floppy, accessing the SD card might be a 'slow down down point'.
You're not WRONG about SD being much slower than the Pi's RAM, but the bottleneck still winds up being the TI anyways, so it is a moot point.
Here's my logic(and the part where I beat the problem to death with words).
Foundation: A bargin-bin class 4 SD card is supposed to offer, under worst-case conditions, a minimum sustained write speed of 4 megabytes per second. If we can't beat that, then SD card access is no worse than an actual RAM disk.
Sloppy paper-napkin estimates begin here.
3 MHz times 16 bits = copying 6 megabytes per second, assuming every two-byte copy takes one cycle(I didn't check, because it rapidly becomes irrelevant). The CPU might be able to outpace the SD card IF it could concern itself solely with moving data across a 16-bit bus and never service interrupts, read from GROM, touch VDP RAM, or hit the expansion bus.
This is already a wildly unrealistic upper boundary, but it lets us quickly define the situation. We're BARELY able to outrun a slow SD card under this generous best-case scenario.
But, as I said, that's quite an unrealistic situation. For starters, there's not even a kilobyte of 16-bit RAM in the system(without a somewhat involved modification that isn't currently TIPI-compatible). And once you leave that tiny handful of full-speed RAM, the 8-bit multiplexed expansion bus and wait state generator are going to keep you well south of that hypothetical upper boundary.
Even with a large pool of 16-bit RAM to work with, the SD card is still on the wrong side of that multiplexer, so we're already moving a byte every cycle instead of two bytes every cycle. That's 3 megabytes per second. We've already fallen below the threshold just by virtue of being a sidecar.
And then the processor starts servicing the VBlank interrupt, and now you're accessing system GROMs and VDP RAM. And... yeah, you aren't even moving 3 megabytes per second anymore. I don't know what you ARE moving, but I know that isn't it.
So in my off-the-cuff estimation, an SD card can be considered equivalent to a RAM disk, for TI storage purposes.
A 99/8, Geneve, or SGCPU user could see a benefit, but... that's not a cross most of us are going to have to bear. I think the poor souls stuck with those systems might have to pay extra for class 10 SD cards.
As an aside, I can't figure out a reason that the TIPI's modified Raspbian install wouldn't be doing disk caching, like every other modern OS does to improve performance and reduce wear on the storage device.
So the OS is, presumably, already working behind the scenes to give you an approximation of the authentic RAM disk experience. Ain't modern technology great?
-
2
-
-
I suspect(without having used it) that the TIPI's current disk emulation is already pretty close to RAM disk speed on the TI.
Experience with ye olde Horizon RAM disk tells me that the speed limit is going to be set by the TI long before the Pi starts struggling.
-
2
-
-
Add ti99 to the search, and it turns up a magazine wiki claiming it was reviewed in "Computer Gamer issue 1", which was apparently a british magazine in 1985.Any chance you remember which magazine?
All i get on google for "snout of spout" is masters of the universe related toys and videos.
-
I downloaded that to muck with the other day....
Then found out my .NET install was totally hosed. The .NET installer won't run because it thinks it's there already. Nothing else will run because it ISN'T there.
Yeah Ben is having trouble getting this to work on his machine. If I come up with any bright ideas I'll let you know. Basically if you have an OS that comes with .NET 2 you're set, otherwise you could be in for a huge headache.
I solved it.
Was due a new computer anyways. Fresh XP installs work wonders.
-
So who remembers back in the day, when DVD players were new, if your DVD could get through The Matrix, you knew you had a good unit?Ah, yes... the good ol' layer transition fiasco.
Fun times, fun times.
BlueRay already had higher license fees than HD-DVD and SONY owns most of the Patents. Make no mistake, SONY is in the drivers seat and their products are generally more expensive than similar competitors...They've also widely licensed the format. Unless they eject everyone from the BluRay Disc Association, that might be problematic.
It's also worth noting that they own the patents for VHS. JVC licensed the Beta patents from Sony to create the competing format.
Sony doesn't really care, as long as they get paid.
-
Hmm... that's an idea. I was finally able to take the wheel cap off the hard drive, but can't remove the assembly from the bottom. Arrgh!Yeah... the hard drives I've busted open had it molded into the bottom. It sucked.
You could look for a Wingman Warrior controller. THat had a nice spinner control on itI have one of those. Can't figure out how to get the spinner free. Looks like it's locked in with a pressure pin.
Wish it actually worked on anything semi-recent.
-
As someone that spent way too much time on the 4a and TI's educational toy line(Speak&Spell, Speak&Spell Compact, Speak&Math, Touch&Tell, Magic Wand Reader, even a Speak&Read until it broke), both as a kid and recently(mad scientist moment #547: hooking a Speak&Spell up to a home theater system)...Actually, to my ear and from what I remember with what little time I spent on a TI-99/4a, the speech synthesis sounds more like what you'd expect to hear out of a Speak 'n Spell.You can hear three of the phrases from a game called "Parsec", which used the speech synthesis module. Link to the page is here.
It won't win any realism points, but the 4a is MUCH better than the S&S and company.
And the 5220 used in the 4a's Speech Synthesizer was the EXACT same part used in Gauntlet and 720.
Differences will be down to ROM space constraints and just plain poor mastering.
Parsec is somewhat amusing. The selection of a female voice for the ship computer was done for two reasons. One, it was like Star Trek and related sci-fi. Two, the developers were told that female voices didn't work for speech synthesis.
-
I downloaded that to muck with the other day.
...
Then found out my .NET install was totally hosed. The .NET installer won't run because it thinks it's there already. Nothing else will run because it ISN'T there.
-
My experience with H.264 gives me the impression that it can at least equal MPEG2 in around 1/4 of the space but that will vary with content. That is based on conversion from MPEG2 to H.264. Without access to the uncompressed source video I don't consider it a totally valid comparison since the converted video can never be better than the source MPEG2.The 2x BlueRay capability in the PS3 is for games, not video. Other players probably don't have that.
I actually checked the numbers. The bandwidth spec'ed for BluRay movies is right in the middle between the max 1X bandwidth and the max 2x bandwidth.
And it reminded me of something I'd read back when the format was introduced that said movies were at 2x.
And then I had a flashback to me banging my head against the wall repeatedly at the stupidity of the situation.
And then I repeated the incident.
I really should run some test encodes.
Ah well... laziness wins.
-
FYI, You can now download and try this out for nothing.Go to the marketplace and download the XNA Creators Club Game Launcher.
Once that is done go to the Games blade and pick Games Library and the "My Games"
There should now be a tab along the top that says XNA Creators Club move over to that and hit the "Y" button.
You can download all the cuurent games (7 of them) right now for free.
Thing is you have to snag them by Feb 24th and they stop working March 9th I think.
After that you have to pay like $10 a month to be a member.
I haven't checked out any of the games yet, just now downloaded them. I've heard Jelly Car and The Dishwasher are kick ass though.
I'm not sure if I'll invest the $10 a month after the trial is over, I have too many retail 360 games sitting on the shelf as it is, but I figured I pass this on since it's free for the next few days.
I saw this,but after I saw the $49 and $99 tags,I said "yikes,Ill pass".The idea of testing out games developed from the regular Joe is intriguing,but paying to do it turns me off a bit.Interesting concept,but Im not made of money,M$.Now to punch in my $20 3 month Live code
Well, you're paying for the ability to write 360 games and upload them to others as well...
Don't think of it as being gouged for homebrews.
Think of it as Sony's NetYaroze, only done right.
-
Found the HDMI concern...
The publishers agreed not to activate the Image Constraint Token, which is the part of the standard that forces downsampling on non-HDCP delivery paths, until 2012.
Of course, they're able to renege at any time, since it's a completely voluntary action.
But it's not very likely, given the reason they agreed not to in the first place is that a LOT of HDTVs only have component HD inputs instead of HDMI.
Very few DVDs activate the player's Macrovision circuit for similar reasons(it makes a lot of setups choke).
More likely to have a lossless audio track?Have any of you actually looked at the capacity of HD-DVD? It's freakin huge!
It can hold a lot more hours of video than a typical movie so I'm sure it has plenty of room for audio.
On top of that, to have lossless audio along with the video you'd need to spin the disk pretty fast.
Then you need hardware capable of reading and converting that fast on the input end as well as the output.
I'm guessing there is a maximum data input rate spec that limits both formats.
I think audio quality is probably the same for any of the movies out there.
BR is a lot easier to say too.
HD-DVD and BR aren't as large as you think.
Let's compare... Dual-layer DVD is 8.5 GB, and holds a video at 720*480, which is 345,600 pixels per frame.
HD-DVD is 30 GB. 3.5 times more space. And holds a video at 1920*1080, which is 2,073,600 pixels. Which is 6x more pixels per frame.
Seeing a problem?
That's where the new codecs come in. H.264 and VC-1 are a good deal more efficient than MPEG2. They have to be, since HD-DVD needs to get twice as much detail per gigabyte. I've been lead to believe that's about the difference in compression levels, though I can't find a real number anywhere.
BluRay is a little better, since it holds 50 GB, for 5.9 times the space. A dual-layer BR disk could hold a 1080p movie at almost the same quality level as DVD with the same codecs. With the more advanced codecs, BluRay has more space to play with.
As far as transfer rates go...
DVD gets 11 Megabits per second.
HD-DVD gets 36.55.
BluRay gets 53.95.
This is all by the video spec. Again, BluRay has extra headroom that HD-DVD doesn't have.
Certainly, higher read rates are possible(which is why the 360's 12x DVD-ROM with a whopping 133 megabit transfer rate loads faster than the PS3's 2x BluRay drive and it's not-insignificant 73 megabit transfer rate). But they're not relevant to video playback.
And mere mortals cannot hope to comprehend why the BluRay movie spec requires a 2x drive, but does not take full advantage of the 2x bandwidth, instead of making video playback the baseline 1x transfer rate.
-
Frankly, for a typical movie I don't think the extra capacity of BlueRay mattered. However, if you start looking at compilations of TV Series' or a lot of extras you have the potential to fit everything on a single disk or fewer disks which is cheaper and more convenient.I'm on the other end. I think it's a major step up. I've got plenty of DVDs where you can see the resolution becoming a major issue.
Um... yeah... too bad I was comparing HD-DVD vs BlueRay, not DVD vs BlueRay.
Oh.
Yeah, that makes more sense.
Whoops.
*goes and hides somwhere*
The extra space on BluRay winds up being used for better audio most of the time. BR is more likely to have a lossless audio track than HD-DVD.
...
I think I found another reason to like BetaRay. BR(Or the official BD abbreviation) is way easier to type than HD-DVD.
-
Frankly, for a typical movie I don't think the extra capacity of BlueRay mattered. However, if you start looking at compilations of TV Series' or a lot of extras you have the potential to fit everything on a single disk or fewer disks which is cheaper and more convenient.I'm on the other end. I think it's a major step up. I've got plenty of DVDs where you can see the resolution becoming a major issue.
Wouldn't a BD addon be an issue for non HDMI 360s at 1080p due to the whole DRM thing?I thought they were still leaving that off, since there were so many non-HDCP displays.
PS3 is stupid. It requires HDCP even for game output.
-
not true - Blu-Ray supports VC1 as well - "Both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc have adopted VC-1 as a mandatory video standard, meaning their video playback devices will be capable of decoding and playing video-content compressed using VC-1."I'm also talking in quality of the final video as MPEG-2 (BlueRay) is more lossy than VC1 (HD-DVD). For the same quality BlueRay HAS to up the storage capacity to generate equal quality to HD-DVD.Then the information I read must of been out of date or just wrong (on the internet? Noooooo...)
If that's the case I'm glad BlueRay won... at least in the long run. Prices probably won't drop as quick as HD-DVD could due to retooling but that won't last forever and HDTV still needs wider adoption for HD video to really take off.
I'm guessing the difference in early titles was either due to the authoring tools or possibly they used MPEG2 on those titles.
It was the authoring tools.
BluRay was forced out early to avoid giving HD-DVD time alone in the market.
The first revision of the authoring software could only use MPEG2. And the initial disks are all single-layer disks, while HD-DVD was dual-layer with full codec support from day 1.
So the first BR films are 25GB MPEG2, compared to 30GB VC1 or AVC on early HD-DVDs.
Later BR is 50 GB VC1 or AVC, compared to 30GB VC1 or AVC.
Though really, the extra space makes BR more likely to have a lossless audio track than HD-DVD, instead of BR being prettiererer. Once you get them on the same codec, there's not a lot of space issues in BR video.
I have to be honest, on my 40" HD TV using an HDMI connection, I can't tell much of a difference between the two regardless how close I'm sitting, although I've heard to really tell a difference you need a screen above 42" so maybe that's why I don't notice the difference.
I was led to believe that you didn't see that black line between the lines on Hi-Def. I've always been a skeptic as analog is infinite and digital is, well, discrete.
The black lines between the lines are purely a CRT artifact. They're the parts of the screen the electron beam doesn't sweep over during a frame.
They're aggravated in video games because older game systems don't do a proper interlaced display. They toy with the timings so they can scan the same HALF-FRAME on both fields. It makes for a clearer image at lower resolutions, and avoids fringing artifacts. But you get pronounced "scanlines" instead.
They won't show up on a discrete pixel display(LCD, DLP, plasma) because there's no beam scan. It takes the picture it receives and displays it. If it's a digital image, it's scaled to fit. If it's analog... it gets digitized at the display's native resolution.
All pixels are active in all cases, anyways.
They have nothing to do with analog or digital sources, or HD VS SD content.
Just CRT VS the world.
Also, analog isn't really infinite. There's maximums defined by the wavelengths used to transmit data.
In the case of NTSC video, your maximum resolution is 486 lines.
486 is a hard number, being the spec'ed number of visible scanlines. It is the only hard number available.
Horizontal resolution is a bit(read very very much) fuzzier.
It varies with TV as well as source(different sources have different bandwidths, but if the TV can't handle that much bandwidth, it doesn't matter).
The 720*486 of DVD is the max that's been forced through NTSC sets, as far as I know. But it's a moot point if your setup can't handle that much bandwidth and eats the picture.
Fortunately, it's all analog after it leaves the source. So rather than completely crapping out, you're just delivered a blurred image instead of no image(cheap TVs would be MUCH higher quality if they DID just choke and die once their limitations were exceeded).
Differences between chroma and luma resolution also exacerbate the issue. Color is at a different resolution than brightness in both NTSC and PAL.
-
Cool, so it'll work with componant in 720, I knew there was something people said it won'd tdo without the HDMI, I guess that was full HD.As far as waiting, eh...untell the next format comes out, I"m not really looking for a replacement to DVD honestly. But there are some cool stuff you can only get in an HD format, and most of what I am interexted in is currently only on HDDVD (A combo player would be nice, honestly, but when will that happen at a reasonable price?)
Well, HD-DVD is essentially dead in the water at this point.
Just about everything that's HD-DVD-exclusive now, I'd expect to see on BetaRay within a year.
Unless the HD players SERIOUSLY crash in price, I'd buy a BetaRay player at this point.
While I wouldn't have said this even 2 weeks ago, it simply doesn't make sense to buy an HD-DVD player now.
The combo players likely WOULD have come down fairly fast, but... now I expect them to just disappear.
-
BetaRay's never gonna take off. It's just another in a long line of doomed proprietary Sony formats.I doubt it will either. Too many people already caught up in standard DVDs and with companies offering digital downloads now, including flicks in HD, it's just gonna cut into the market I think. I plan on picking up all the cheap HD DVD now, and all the cheap Blu-Ray disks in a couple years.
Well, there's evidence that the average consumer sees DVD as near the end of it's life.
The market data from last Christmas showed that not only were people reluctant to commit to HD-DVD or BluRay, but they were also reluctant to buy more DVDs knowing that they were already obsolete.
That's part of why everyone started pushing so hard to make a single platform the winner this year. The format war was hurting DVD sales as well as HD disk sales, leading to lower sales overall.
Digital downloads are MUCH lower in quality, and as far as I know most consumers prefer to have a physical object they can point to and say "I own this."
I seriously doubt they're going to take over, much like pay-per-view didn't kill VHS.
I STILL think the HD-DVD camp TOTALLY missed the boat by not replacing all their standard DVD releases with hybrid DVD/HD-DVD disks. THAT would have given them an edge. People would buy HD-DVDs for their regular DVD players, then come back a little later and go "Ya know, I have all these HD-DVDs, why don't I get an HD player?"(or get confused and buy an HD-upsampling DVD player).
Had they done that from the start instead of releasing combo disks in the HD-DVD section and DVD-only releases in the DVD section, things might've gone very differently.
-
Thanks for the link. I was wondering about the lockout chip, myself. And the glass top of the NES is sweet, I might do that one.Also, I repaired mine by replacing the slot, but it still goes to blinking sometimes. Any idea why? Like, I can put the game in fully and click it down, and it won't work, but if I leave it UP and not clicked down it plays??? What's up with that?
Nathan
The replacement connector is so tight that it really doesn't need to be pushed down, and perhaps doing so just distorts it and makes it lose contact. In any case, it isn't necessary and will only wear it out faster.
It's a bit more than just being tighter.
The replacement connector isn't the same TYPE of connector as the original NES part.
The original is a Zero-Insertion Force connector. Which means that, by design, it doesn't engage until the cart is levered down.
The replacement is typically a non-ZIF connector. It's designed to engage as the cart is inserted, and to NOT move.
Wear out faster is a best-case scenario for levering carts down in the replacement. There's a chance of physical damage to the connector AND your cartridges. So don't do it.
....
It's also part of why I'd rather refurbish the original ZIF than replace it.
-
BetaRay's never gonna take off. It's just another in a long line of doomed proprietary Sony formats.
Thank you. That is all.
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
F18A MK2
in TI-99/4A Development
Posted
I've got a couple spares on-hand.
My plan for a while has been to put an F18A in the lone gray one, and keep a black one on standby in a stock configuration.
I think the gray one looks more "futuristic", so it feels more right to me for it to be the upgraded version. It is also the one I played games on as a kid, so I MAY be biased in my preference.