New GUI for the Atari 8-bit

[flashjazzcat]

1 hour ago, bradc said:

Is it possible to try this out in an emulator?

Certainly. The easiest method is to use one of the flashcart ROM images with Altirra or any other emulator which supports them. You should be able to mount them, set up mouse emulation on port 2, and be good to go.

[bradc]

I've given it a go but I'm not sure which ROM to select and what kind of "Cartridge Type" to use.  Screenshots of my options are attached.

 

I'm using the atari800 emulator available on Ubuntu, setup as a 130XE.  Not sure if that is correct.

 

Thank you!

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

AtariMax 128 KB Flash Cartridge.

[Wrathchild]

The "MF" in the ROM's filename stands for AtariMax Flash Cartridge.

 

The Atari800 emulator is auto-detecting the size here so showing you 128 Kbytes which is the 1MB (bits) also seen in the filename.

[Jeffrey Worley]

HI all.  I hadn't even booted the GOS8 until just now, as I had no mouse.  Recently I aquired a couple of ST mice and wanted to test, so....  The mouse driver in GOS is amazing.  I was blown away at how responsive and modern it feels.  The profiler runs, and the text display-er runs, but everything else is pretty much static.  Is that the state of things right now?  Is there a more functional version available than the one that ships with v3.02 of the U1MB flash?  I'm running it on a U1MB 1200xl with Side2 and UAV.  The display is pretty doggone gorgeous, even in color.  I imagine it would be cleaner still in mono or with a Sophia or VBXE (no artifacting), but it seems that Flashjazzcat took a lot of trouble with the pattern of the pixels, as the text, rather than being blurry for artifacting, actually takes on a rainbow effect.  Is this deliberate?  At any rate, it looks a great start.  I'd like to help test whatever is out there or comes down the pike for it.  Please advise.

 

best,

 

Jeff

 

P.S. Call Cheeze Daddy's House of Funk BBS!  telnet (or better, use Syncterm!) in ascii or atascii to:  Atari8.us on portr 10001

(I'm looking for a co-sysop to work on the board, so if you are game to setting up screens and bases, let me know!)

[flashjazzcat]

1 minute ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

The mouse driver in GOS is amazing.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. The fact it works well with janky old ST/Amiga mice means it should work even better with something less primitive.

Just now, Jeffrey Worley said:

Is that the state of things right now?

Yes.

Just now, Jeffrey Worley said:

Is there a more functional version available than the one that ships with v3.02 of the U1MB flash?

No.

 

I'm just about finished with development on U1MB/Incognito/SIDE for now (as soon as I get the firmware update released), and what with the general situation at the moment, I'm kind of feeling like working on the GOS again. SIDE3 is still to complete, of course, but the programmer I need for that still hasn't arrived from China after seven weeks or so. Development is therefore stuck until I get my hands on that.

 

[Jeffrey Worley]

3 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. The fact it works well with janky old ST/Amiga mice means it should work even better with something less primitive.

Yes.

No.

 

I'm just about finished with development on U1MB/Incognito/SIDE for now (as soon as I get the firmware update released), and what with the general situation at the moment, I'm kind of feeling like working on the GOS again. SIDE3 is still to complete, of course, but the programmer I need for that still hasn't arrived from China after seven weeks or so. Development is therefore stuck until I get my hands on that.

 

Not another programmer.  I have a xylinx platform programmer and an Altira programmer, plus a Tl866cs Eprom burner, and, of course, serial devices for things like the Gotek.  Do I need to buy another :-0

 

best,

 

jeff

 

[+Stephen]

21 minutes ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

Not another programmer.  I have a xylinx platform programmer and an Altira programmer, plus a Tl866cs Eprom burner, and, of course, serial devices for things like the Gotek.  Do I need to buy another :-0

 

best,

 

jeff

 

Hope not - I am in the same boat.  Gets a tad annoying buying a programmer for a single device.

[flashjazzcat]

27 minutes ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

Do I need to buy another

Not unless you are me or Candle.

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

The display is pretty doggone gorgeous, even in color.  I imagine it would be cleaner still in mono or with a Sophia or VBXE (no artifacting), but it seems that Flashjazzcat took a lot of trouble with the pattern of the pixels, as the text, rather than being blurry for artifacting, actually takes on a rainbow effect.  Is this deliberate?

The GUI is intended for an s-video or better setup. However, you can find a some discussions about artifacting and a few accommodations in this thread. Most compatibilities with artifacting are incidental.

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by MrFish

[flashjazzcat]

Yes: no deliberate rainbow effects here, since I regard artifacting as the Coronavirus of video display technology.

[+Stephen]

5 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Yes: no deliberate rainbow effects here, since I regard artifacting as the Coronavirus of video display technology.

Careful there - as I found out recently, saying anything disparaging about artifacting does not go over well ?

[+mytek]

1 hour ago, Stephen said:

Careful there - as I found out recently, saying anything disparaging about artifacting does not go over well ?

I'll toss in my 2 cents -- to rely on artifacting to create color, although a novel method to do so, is a poor substitute for doing it correctly. I know the Apple II used this method extensively to enable simple generation of color in their highly successful computers, but things progressed rapidly in the computers that followed in order to not have to resort to this crude method. Just because you still can, doesn't mean that you should.

 

22 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

I'm kind of feeling like working on the GOS again.

That would be awesome ? . And things have certainly changed over the last 2-3 years to make this even more attractive due to the 1088XEL/XLD series with built-in PS/2 mouse support that mimics an ST mouse. So people don't have to look for sources of working ST mice, and can instead tap into the multitude of PS/2 optical mice like the Logitech M-SBF96 being sold for cheap on eBay every day. In fact the M-SBF96 is the best mouse to use with the 1088XEL/XLD, and works very well in your GUI demo.

 

[_The Doctor__]

it could always be a theme scheme. since great care is taken to make sure artifact-ion doesn't interfere with non high resolution solutions, svideo(LCA) and others. Some folks could go with a readable artifact color scheme that quite usable on an old NEC, RCA, Maganavox, Philips monitor. The GOS would be usable across the entire spectrum. I know a few folks may have VBXE and HDMI this or that.

Given what FJC has described he intended or wanted to do... who knows maybe there will be a toggle or theme function to allow whatever solution or display they wish. It sounded like modules and drivers might be where he was going or thinking about. If it looks great with and without artifact showing that awesome.

I always have used monitors with nice dot pitch so even old software 80 column display was readable and didn't have much if any color or rainbow showing... and yet games looked as they should (more than likely because of the graphics are shaped, draw and dithered in larger areas rather then the font that a person chose to avoid the artifact issue. Most text fonts have lots of adjacent cells lit together where as aliens,monster and other things have every other pixel or half clock issues being used to color them purposefully. I think bryan? did an excellent study of this drawing knowledge from a number of us.

[jamm]

1 hour ago, mytek said:

I'll toss in my 2 cents -- to rely on artifacting to create color, although a novel method to do so, is a poor substitute for doing it correctly. I know the Apple II used this method extensively to enable simple generation of color in their highly successful computers, but things progressed rapidly in the computers that followed in order to not have to resort to this crude method. Just because you still can, doesn't mean that you should.

 

I think the only push-back on the "artifacting is bad" comments had to do with properly handling old software that expected artifacting to be there as a feature.  I don't think there's any argument that it shouldn't be used that way in new software.

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by jamm

[flashjazzcat]

54 minutes ago, jamm said:

I think the only push-back on the "artifacting is bad" comments had to do with properly handling old software that expected artifacting to be there as a feature.  I don't think there's any argument that it shouldn't be used that way in new software.

Absolutely. I have no problems with artifacting being supported in hardware for the software which exploits it, and if the user needs same. But no software I write will deliberately exploit artifacting. Never has, never will.

[Jeffrey Worley]

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Absolutely. I have no problems with artifacting being supported in hardware for the software which exploits it, and if the user needs same. But no software I write will deliberately exploit artifacting. Never has, never will.

I gather that PAL machines don't artifact? or the effects are different and greatly diminished?  On the Atari it had its uses in memory savings and in giving hi-res (gr.8) displays a pseudo 4 colors.  Nowadays we know a lot more about this hardware than was known then.  I was always kind of impressed with the fact that patterning your pixels could produce these effects and that this 'artifact' of the technology could be leveraged for a purpose.  I don't like what I call 'cheats' in technology either, but at the time, it wasn't exactly a cheat.  The 1meg Rayrace demo is more of a cheat that this, just page-flipping pre-computed images.  I really like the demo, but it isn't doing the ray tracing, and I think the Atari wasn't actually even involved in the production of the raytracing.  ?

 

Probably the biggest beef I have with artifacting is that it is unavoidable with our display technology and that makes an 80-column bit3 font mode on the Atari a real hard sell.  It would be nice if one could toggle it off or on as one needed.  I have converters for the 8-bit, to vga, to hdmi, but they also kill artifacting, and that interferes with my retro-experience, so I don't use them much.  I DO use modern flat-panel displays, but they all seem to do a pretty good job of emulating an NTSC screen and the artifacts are there in spades.  I'll take a picture of the rainbow effect, it is pretty cool, actually, although it would be better for the GUI if they weren't there. 

 

 

With my last order, Lotharek ws kind enough to drop a baggie with the crystal I need for the VBXE that's been unassembled in a box here for some months.  Maybe I can get it going now.  I'd love to have one of my own.  This is an old one, from Candle.

 

best,

 

jeff

 

 

[Faicuai]

5 hours ago, mytek said:

I'll toss in my 2 cents -- to rely on artifacting to create color, although a novel method to do so, is a poor substitute for doing it correctly. I know the Apple II used this method extensively to enable simple generation of color in their highly successful computers, but things progressed rapidly in the computers that followed in order to not have to resort to this crude method. Just because you still can, doesn't mean that you should.

 

 

Well, in all honesty, coloring by Artifacting (NTSC) is not really new (at all), and, most importantly, only way to get real color-artifacts is... in graphics modes where NO POSSIBLE color-generating means exist (Gr. 8, which outputs on B&W, and assuming you do not overlay color-bands on it). For this reason, it is next to impossible to make an "improper" use of color-artifacting, unless ALL OTHER graphic modes are discarded.

 

There is, however, a BIG exception (which I believe 99% has overlooked)... and that is when playing real-time 60fps video from Avery's player. Dragon Lair's (NTSC) video output over COMPOSITE *beats the crap* out of the very same feed over Y/C (sVideo). Color density, saturation, and even gradients all explode in your screen and create a much more appealing image when running it over composite. Of course, the Y/C decode-function of your screen or video-path is key, but the difference is to be seen.

 

My 0.01c

 

 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Faicuai

[+Stephen]

30 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

 

Well, in all honesty, coloring by Artifacting (NTSC) is not really new (at all), and, most importantly, only way to get real color-artifacts is... in graphics modes where NO POSSIBLE color-generating means exist (Gr. 8, which outputs on B&W, and assuming you do not overlay color-bands on it). For this reason, it is next to impossible to make an "improper" use of color-artifacting, unless ALL OTHER graphic modes are discarded.

 

There is, however, a BIG exception (which I believe 99% has overlooked)... and that is when playing real-time 60fps video from Avery's player. Dragon Lair's (NTSC) video output over COMPOSITE *beats the crap* out of the very same feed over Y/C (sVideo). Color density, saturation, and even gradients all explode in your screen and create a much more appealing image when running it over composite. Of course, the Y/C decode-function of your screen or video-path is key, but the difference is to be seen.

 

My 0.01c

I'd love to try that - I think I can use my AVG cart to play videos, that would be I think the only way to try them on any of my NTSC gear.

[kogden]

5 hours ago, Faicuai said:

 

Well, in all honesty, coloring by Artifacting (NTSC) is not really new (at all), and, most importantly, only way to get real color-artifacts is... in graphics modes where NO POSSIBLE color-generating means exist (Gr. 8, which outputs on B&W, and assuming you do not overlay color-bands on it). For this reason, it is next to impossible to make an "improper" use of color-artifacting, unless ALL OTHER graphic modes are discarded.

 

There is, however, a BIG exception (which I believe 99% has overlooked)... and that is when playing real-time 60fps video from Avery's player. Dragon Lair's (NTSC) video output over COMPOSITE *beats the crap* out of the very same feed over Y/C (sVideo). Color density, saturation, and even gradients all explode in your screen and create a much more appealing image when running it over composite. Of course, the Y/C decode-function of your screen or video-path is key, but the difference is to be seen.

 

My 0.01c

 

 

 

 

Sounds like we need a playable version of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace for IDE-equipped machines now.  Probably fairly easy to pull off.  

[flashjazzcat]

18 hours ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

I gather that PAL machines don't artifact?

They do; I remember being frustrated by hi-res PAL artifacting when trying to generate clean hi-res mono displays on a TV over RF. The PAL effect isn't so predictable as the artifacting on NTSC displays, however (as I understand it, at least), and is a little more difficult to leverage in a useful way.

 

There's also 'PAL blending', which is used to good effect in APAC modes and similar. Chrominance on one scan line propagates to the next, allowing generation of pseudo high bit-depth colour modes across two lines. Not sure offhand how well this works on NTSC.

18 hours ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

Probably the biggest beef I have with artifacting is that it is unavoidable with our display technology and that makes an 80-column bit3 font mode on the Atari a real hard sell.  It would be nice if one could toggle it off or on as one needed.  I have converters for the 8-bit, to vga, to hdmi, but they also kill artifacting, and that interferes with my retro-experience, so I don't use them much.

Well, exactly: it totally depends on what your priorities are. My priority is hi-res pixels looking as clear as possible with no unintended colour hues. Good quality s-video is the nicest middle-ground; PAL blending still works but artifacting is gone. I don't play games so the absence of artifacting which relies on composite or RF is a non-issue for me. I don't even need PAL blending too often, so VBXE with stock (no PAL artifacts) core is OK 90 per cent of the time. If I want to enjoy demos which use PAL blending, I can either switch to s-video or activate the VBXE GTIA emulation core (which emulates PAL blending across RGB).

 

Software 80 column displays such as those employed by The Last Word are a bit of a marmite solution for some users, since they are generally not very readable when using composite or RF. I remember one YouTube viewer pointing this out on one of the GUI videos; basically stating that the whole thing was a waste of time because the display was unreadable on a stock machine (using composite, presumably). This purist stance relies on the idea that Y/C (s-video) output never existed, and since Y/C video exists on all Ataris from the 800 onwards (although chroma is left disconnected out of the factory on some models), it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You don't need a heavily modified machine to utilise clear, hi-resolution graphics, and those mods which are required arguably correct design defects in the original video circuit. Asserting that '1200XL video sucks out of the box so there's no point in writing software which depends on clear hi-res mono graphics' doesn't make a lot of logical sense in 2020 (or whenever the guy wrote the comments).

Edited March 22, 2020 by flashjazzcat

[_The Doctor__]

57 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

They do; I remember being frustrated by hi-res PAL artifacting when trying to generate clean hi-res mono displays on a TV over RF. The PAL effect isn't so predictable as the artifacting on NTSC displays, however (as I understand it, at least), and is a little more difficult to leverage in a useful way.

 

There's also 'PAL blending', which is used to good effect in APAC modes and similar. Chrominance on one scan line propagates to the next, allowing generation of pseudo high bit-depth colour modes across two lines. Not sure offhand how well this works on NTSC.

Well, exactly: it totally depends on what your priorities are. My priority is hi-res pixels looking as clear as possible with no unintended colour hues. Good quality s-video is the nicest middle-ground; PAL blending still works but artifacting is gone. I don't play games so the absence of artifacting which relies on composite or RF is a non-issue for me. I don't even need PAL blending too often, so VBXE with stock (no PAL artifacts) core is OK 90 per cent of the time. If I want to enjoy demos which use PAL blending, I can either switch to s-video or activate the VBXE GTIA emulation core (which emulates PAL blending across RGB).

 

Software 80 column displays such as those employed by The Last Word are a bit of a marmite solution for some users, since they are generally not very readable when using composite or RF. I remember one YouTube viewer pointing this out on one of the GUI videos; basically stating that the whole thing was a waste of time because the display was unreadable on a stock machine (using composite, presumably). This purist stance relies on the idea that Y/C (s-video) output never existed, and since Y/C video exists on all Ataris from the 800 onwards (although chroma is left disconnected out of the factory on some models), it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You don't need a heavily modified machine to utilise clear, hi-resolution graphics, and those mods which are required arguably correct design defects in the original video circuit. Asserting that '1200XL video sucks out of the box so there's no point in writing software which depends on clear hi-res mono graphics' doesn't make a lot of logical sense in 2020 (or whenever the guy wrote the comments).

Amazing this sort of thing still goes on since 2000 whatever... I mean all the monitor/tv/cabling/taroid coil dot pitch and fixes were ad nauseam level by 1990. A utart video about how terrible the output is and there is no point to this or that is quite lame. The individual neads to go back in time and realize they even made cords/monitors with switches to lower the levels or switch color off, and not just for or because of the Atari. 80 column crisp display was had via software/rom/or video card since the first two machines rolled off the line.... perhaps the comment cadre  should swoop in on such Utart channels and set it straight.

[+Philsan]

Computer Aided Design, a Turbo-Basic XL program that could be converted (with some enhancements) to GUI.

 

 

Computer Aided Design (1988)(Sawfish Software).atr

[+Stephen]

That was exactly my thought when I saw it.  Awesome looking CAD program but yeesh - pretty slow on the window/text functions

[LoTonah]

I gotta say, whenever this topic pops up on my screen, I feel far more excitement than a grown man should.  No idea why it matters so much to me, maybe as a "screw you" to the C64 boys 'cause they've had GEOS and Wings for so long and its time they were bested.

 

I'm not usually like that (hence my room full of Atari, Apple, Commodore, TRS-80s and more retro stuff) but this program is so sweet.  You've got a first-class program here, Flashjazzcat.