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New GUI for the Atari 8-bit


flashjazzcat

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1 hour ago, LoTonah said:

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.

 

I agree.

 

Only Jon should have the right to post here ah ah! ?

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On 3/21/2020 at 6:18 AM, flashjazzcat said:

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

I've got the UAV in my U1MB, stereo, built-in serial, built-in SIo2PC(USB), 800xl (:-)).  The UAV really helps the gui a lot.  I discovered this recently by putting my XEGS on my desk for the time-being and discovering that the 'rainbow effect is HUGELY more pronounced on an unmodified video circuit.  The XEGS' video is excellent, but it BLEEDS artifacts on your desktop.  So a UAV would be a minimum thing, or, a mono monitor driven by luma only.

 

Best,

 

Jeff

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The desktop looks good on my 1200XL with SV 2.1 upgrade, I also have a switch to turn off composite for an even cleaner S-video signal though. No artifact issues at all. With composite on, just a minute trace, but it still is very clear and legible, but I'm also using PAL, I use my 800 for NTSC composite artifacts. I will be upgrading my 800's video with at least the resister change, when I get around to installing my Incognito. I'll do more than that if needed, once I get the finished GOS from FJC on that 64K flash reserved for it.

 

Indeed though, I too get over-excited every time I see FJC's name with a new post on this thread, but even if it is someone else, I'm hoping it's regarding a post from @flashjazzcat with an update or surprise finish...

Edited by Gunstar
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Proto-GUI desktop, on STOCK 800 (except R189), Y/C output, DVDO iScan HD+, And final output on Viewsonic VP950B (DVI):

 

AD956D94-90D3-4336-8C21-1964CF735EFA.thumb.jpeg.6de40a2980c20540c803dbe4175772fa.jpeg

 

Click / touch sample up to two times.

 

No trace of aliasing or beating-patterns to the naked-eye. Also, it looks gray / B&W (there are no signs of color impurity on Y-component of 800's Y/C signal). A testament to its on-board video quality.

 

Easy as pie.

 

 

Edited by Faicuai
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35 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Proto-GUI desktop, on STOCK 800 (except R189), Y/C output, DVDO iScan HD+, And final output on Viewsonic VP950B (DVI):

 

AD956D94-90D3-4336-8C21-1964CF735EFA.thumb.jpeg.6de40a2980c20540c803dbe4175772fa.jpeg

 

Click / touch sample up to two times.

 

No trace of aliasing or beating-patterns to the naked-eye. Also, it looks gray / B&W (there are no signs of color impurity on Y-component of 800's Y/C signal). A testament to its on-board video quality.

 

Easy as pie.

 

 

That looks about the same, from what I recall (the 1200 has been down for about 6 months, no time to finish repairs yet), as my PAL 1200XL's Y/C mentioned above. I did forget to mention, in that post, that I also run the Y/C through a converter, my Ambery S-video to VGA converter/upscaler with the 3D Y/C filtering off it looks like your 800 Y/C through your DVDO image there. With the filtering on, it's just as clear but the up-scaling and anti-aliasing makes all the edges as smooth as a baby's butt. 

 

anyway, I'm glad to know your image is so good, because I now expect mine to be as good once I swap R189. That's great news. Right now, with the original resistor at R189, I can't even get color on any of my LCD TV's from my 800 except converting it to VGA through the Ambery converter first. I'm very happy to know my 800's video will be every bit as good as my upgraded 1200XL's with just the one resistor change. Though I'm only referring to hi-res mode, my 800's chroma is great through the converter, but it doesn't compare to the incredible, sharp, saturated colors I get from the fixed chroma boost circuit on my 1200XL, since it was fixed and connected as part of the SV 2.1 upgrade. I just have too poor of cameras to capture it's image properly.

 

So if I still find the 800's chroma lacking, compared to my 1200XL, I'll probably try and get the Super Video OS Card from @tf_hh. I pm'd him once last fall, but never pulled the trigger until I see how much I can improve it DIY.

Edited by Gunstar
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  • 3 months later...
  • 2 months later...
28 minutes ago, Gury said:

I understand you completely, I have similar situation with the projects. Don't be distracted, just follow your planned roadmap.

 

I wish I had one. :) It's frustrating, because I promised several other parties that I would prepare code from other projects as open-source libraries, write firmware for other hardware designs, etc. It seems incredible but there is just not enough time to do everything.

 

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Yeah, it can become frustrating in behalf of promises made to users/programmers, because of your good will. They expect the results, but it is up to them to understand that it is harder to do something than to talk about something. Of course, if there is enough time and motivation, the results pop up.

 

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  • 2 months later...
On 1/6/2020 at 4:00 PM, flashjazzcat said:

AtariMax 128 KB Flash Cartridge. :)

Wow, I finally got back to this and I tried what you suggested and got it running in the atari800 emulator.

 

Fantastic!

 

Details:

atari800 emulator, default Altira ROMs

Host: Raspberry Pi 3B, running remotely displaying (using X11) across SSH onto an MBP

800 XL

Atarimax 128KB

 

Screen Shot 2020-12-04 at 11.24.47 AM.png

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4 minutes ago, bradc said:

Wow, I finally got back to this and I tried what you suggested and got it running in the atari800 emulator.

 

Fantastic!

Great! It's inspitational to see people showing an interest in this. I'm working on the FAT driver for the SIDE3 loader, and a lot of that code will find its way into the filesystem drivers for the GOS when I eventually find time to get back to it. :)

 

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1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Great! It's inspitational to see people showing an interest in this. I'm working on the FAT driver for the SIDE3 loader, and a lot of that code will find its way into the filesystem drivers for the GOS when I eventually find time to get back to it. :)

I tell you - I demoed the hell out of the GUI on my Incognito 800 at both VCFMW shows I attended.  Overall reaction was "holy shit - this is really running on a stock machine - it's faster than an original Mac".

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4 minutes ago, Stephen said:

I tell you - I demoed the hell out of the GUI on my Incognito 800 at both VCFMW shows I attended.  Overall reaction was "holy shit - this is really running on a stock machine - it's faster than an original Mac".

I had it running at a couple of those shows too on a 130XE, all it needed was a game of minesweeper :D

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This was my inspiration for adding a PS/2 mouse port with ST mouse emulation as standard in both the 1088XEL and XLD projects. I figured with the added number of units being able to run this without the requirement of finding a working ST mouse, that it would add extra incentive to seeing the GUI development continue ;) .

 

But SIDE3 kinda kicked that to the curb ? .

 

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It's been a while since I've fired up the demo. It seems to be pretty bullet-proof. Were there ever any bugs reported for it in all these years?

 

One thing I noticed, which I know isn't a bug, is when the menus are used for an extended period of time -- with a Profiler (or Profilers) open -- the Monitor data seems to be cached in the background, and subsequently updated once the menus are exited and screen updates resume. However, I don't see this same behavior when holding down a scrollbar or dragging a window for an extended period of time; but rather the screen updates on the Monitor would just continue as if nothing (except a moment of high CPU usage) had occurred. No big deal, but it gets me wondering; was halting all screen updates the end point for such actions, or was there some outlook for getting screen updates active? I can't remember what might have already been discussed, since it's been so long.

 

Edited by MrFish
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2 hours ago, MrFish said:

One thing I noticed, which I know isn't a bug, is when the menus are used for an extended period of time -- with a Profiler (or Profilers) open -- the Monitor data seems to be cached in the background, and subsequently updated once the menus are exited and screen updates resume. However, I don't see this same behavior when holding down a scrollbar or dragging a window for an extended period of time; but rather the screen updates on the Monitor would just continue as if nothing (except a moment of high CPU usage) had occurred. No big deal, but it gets me wondering; was halting all screen updates the end point for such actions, or was there some outlook for getting screen updates active? I can't remember what might have already been discussed, since it's been so long.

 

Having a few minutes of thought on this myself, I think I can answer my own question. It doesn't seem feasible to update all the possible visible apps/windows on screen while using menus, dragging windows, or scrolling window contents, because the loss in performance would affect those operations, and they should be running as quickly and smoothly as possible. Unless the SymbOS author has some methods up his sleeve you intended on using...

 

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16 hours ago, MrFish said:

is when the menus are used for an extended period of time -- with a Profiler (or Profilers) open -- the Monitor data seems to be cached in the background, and subsequently updated once the menus are exited and screen updates resume

It's because the desktop redraws are completely disabled when menus are open. If the menus were implemented as windows in the rectangle manager, redraws could be performed around open windows, but the menus are simply blitted to the display for speed. SymbOS is exactly the same.

 

This makes no sense until you understand rectangle-based window managers, but there are solid reasons for things working as they do. The only sense in which the matter is related to performance is how quickly one wants menus to appear and disappear. I see no reason why the rectangle list couldn't be rebuilt every time a menu opens/closes, but it might have an adverse affect on responsiveness when leafing through the menu bar with the menus open. Implementing menus as windows - experimentally - has been on the to-do list for some time, and I'll give it a go one of these days.

Edited by flashjazzcat
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19 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

This makes no sense until you understand rectangle-based window managers, but there are solid reasons for things working as they do. The only sense in which the matter is related to performance is how quickly one wants menus to appear and disappear. I see no reason why the rectangle list couldn't be rebuilt every time a menu opens/closes, but it might have an adverse affect on responsiveness when leafing through the menu bar with the menus open. Implementing menus as windows - experimentally - has been on the to-do list for some time, and I'll give it a go one of these days.

Perhaps you can implement a priority system. Rectangle redraws of the currently open application get priority over background applications that are visible that want to redraw a rectangle. I believe Windows 95 had such system, that's why it felt way more snappy then X11 or MacOS at the time. It had other issues though ;)

 

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