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Altirra 3.00 released


phaeron

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Version 3.00 of my emulator Altirra is now out:

http://www.virtualdub.org/altirra.html

As usual, thanks to everyone providing feedback on its development. 3.00 is the same as 2.99-test25 except for version and date fixups. Here are the highlights since 2.90:

 

Usability suggestion:

 

I don't know if others feel the same, but for me, it would be nice if the Printer Output window would behave like a terminal window and constantly scroll through the text to keep the most recent output on screen, and at the bottom of the screen. The current behavior is to stay on the current page if new output is printed (and that'd be the first page if you've never scrolled down). I can't say if others share this preference or not, but I wanted to submit this for you to judge.

 

ALSO: Wow. The overall quality (and accuracy) of this emulator has exceeded my expectations. I don't see that I'll ever go back to Atari800.

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Phaeron, I'm having a problem with Altirra-3.10-test6. I'm using linux/wine/Altirra so I'm not sure it's Altirra's issue or not.

 

While using RVerter emulation when I attempt to make a connection I get an Altirra minidump (enclosed).

 

.post-9154-0-40800100-1517949338.png

 

I've gone back as far as 2.99 test 25. The issue exists there as well.

 

I don't have the same problem using Atari 850 emulation

 

Sorry, I didn't test this combination long ago.

altirra_minidump.zip

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While using RVerter emulation when I attempt to make a connection I get an Altirra minidump (enclosed).

 

.attachicon.gifAltirra_minidump.png

 

This appears to be caused by an old configuration that doesn't have a connect baud rate specified for the modem. As a result, it is "connecting" at 0 baud which then causes the failure. I'll put in a guard for this, but you should be able to fix this by adjusting the modem device configuration.

 

Update:

Never mind, found it -- also happened if a byte got received before the modem could send CONNECT. Fixed now:

 

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-3.10-test7.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-3.10-test7-src.zip

 

Also adds support for a new VFS protocol, atfs: -- allows access to files within filesystems in disc images. Added because I was annoyed at a DCM inside of an ARC and didn't want to bother manually extracting it. The syntax is atfs://(image)!(filename), e.g.: altirra64 "atfs://f:\downloads\atari800\mydo4534.arc!mydo4534.dcm".

Edited by phaeron
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Ok, never to late to mention I guess.

Just discovered this while coding for 400/800 hardware.

 

In 400/800 configuration:

The memory-settings 24k, 32k, 40k do not work properly.

They always emulate 16k

 

Other 400/800 memory-settings are fine, I like the 52k option :-)

 

Seems to be in Altirra 2.90, 3.00 and the latest 3.10t7

 

Any change of fixing this in the 3.00 release?

That is the my current main version.

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LOL Windows Smart Screen will not allow unrecognized app to run.... I've not run into that before... what's that about.... Go windows woot!

 

What version of Windows are you using? Win10 pops up with a security warning. You can click "More Info," get their generic warning (frankly good security advice for most random-ware out there in the wild), but on the second screen you can click "Run Anyway" and you won't get warnings again (until you download Avery's next test build :) ).

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Ok, never to late to mention I guess.

Just discovered this while coding for 400/800 hardware.

 

In 400/800 configuration:

The memory-settings 24k, 32k, 40k do not work properly.

They always emulate 16k

 

Other 400/800 memory-settings are fine, I like the 52k option :-)

 

Seems to be in Altirra 2.90, 3.00 and the latest 3.10t7

 

Any change of fixing this in the 3.00 release?

That is the my current main version.

 

Fix:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-3.10-test8.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-3.10-test8-src.zip

 

I'm not going to crack the 3.00 release line for this, too minor.

 

Depends on the machine, but it's happening in 8.1, and 10 (someone else's computer, as I've relegated 10 to the bin)

 

There's a good chance that you were the very first person in the world to run that build -- because the other person would have been me, and I don't always run both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the final build.

 

That having been said, I'd like to remind everyone of the damage that occurs when mechanisms like this cast doubt on software written by innocent small developers. The antivirus companies have been ignoring issues with false positives for years. I got pretty tired of getting emails from random people angrily asking me why my program was getting falsely detected as malware when there was absolutely nothing I could do about the bogus false positive.

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Hey it's built in to the O.S. to a degree these days, I didn't do like so many and blather on about a virus etc... Just heads up so the appropriate steps can be taken to make it not happen for the future by myself or others. Many new Emu and Atari users out there. I'm sure if it's submitted normally by the author it can be cleared. The jerks at microsoft are linking all this stuff to their app store slowly but surely. I've had a small conversation about it. I don't know the exact path for a person to get stuff in 'the app store' but if it's submitted and put up there. They scan blah blah blah and certify it and put it on the whitelist. Looks like stuff is going to be getting tougher for everybody that uses any of Micro$oft's products.

 

If I wasn't actively trying stuff I wouldn't be able to mention it and by some small measure be of service.

Edited by _The Doctor__
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If I click on "Don't ask this again", does that mean it won't ask me about that particular website, the full destination URL (not shown), or any and all future browser requests? By ticking off the box, is default answer going to be the choice that I selected, or Allow, or Deny? Does the setting last for this session only, or does it persist across sessions? If it persists, is there a documented method for changing my mind? Can I phone a friend?

 

post-18231-0-13511500-1518146603.png

 

So to some users, this may seem like a series of super-dumb questions (especially if you assumed that it was just going to do exactly what you wanted it to do for you). Surprisingly, one person's simple and seemingly obvious tickbox can host one or more unresolved ambiguities.

 

ATTENTION IRATA WORD WARRIORS!

Somewhere in the text above, I've tucked away a small joke and followed it up with a related pun.

If you caught onto both items, and without my prompting, then a Great Atari Winner is You!

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If you check that box and then select Allow, all browser popup confirmations for all websites are suppressed and just launch without confirmation. It's ignored if you pick Deny, as always defaulting to Deny would be pretty useless. The cooldown timer lets you nuke the program if it is spamming requests.

 

It's part of a new generic confirmation dialog that I'm slowly plugging in across the emulator. There is a button in Options to reset the don't-ask state for all dialogs.

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yes because you don't want to ask about the ambiguous url... it can be difficult to change your mind once the procedure has begun, certainly would require and expert to give you answers to reverse the process. I'm glad there is an option to reset this, many have made revelations later on necessitating the reversal of all the adjustments.

Edited by _The Doctor__
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If you check that box and then select Allow, all browser popup confirmations for all websites are suppressed and just launch without confirmation. It's ignored if you pick Deny, as always defaulting to Deny would be pretty useless. The cooldown timer lets you nuke the program if it is spamming requests.

 

It's part of a new generic confirmation dialog that I'm slowly plugging in across the emulator. There is a button in Options to reset the don't-ask state for all dialogs.

 

For the option "Don't ask this again", if this refers to a browser request dialog, then I can't object to you on the handling of Deny (except, perhaps, for denying the user the immediate convenience of disabling a feature that can be manually turned off elsewhere).

 

I'd encourage you to re-evaluate what a set of diverse users might believe that 'this' actually refers to. (Some examples previously provided.) I'd also challenge you to look at what their expectations might be as far as duration: session, permanent, or even something seemingly as absurd (to the expert designer/programmer) as just for the currently emulated program. (Admittedly, you've probably got some really smart users, so that last one should be a much lower probability.)

 

The root of the problem, IMHO, is a vague pronoun reference. 'This' creates a situation that is easily colored by any expectations or experiences that each individual user approaches the (implied) question with. Or whatever word, annoyance, or desire they happened to focus on when the box popped up. Also, because the duration is not explicitly stated, the user will likely determine it to be as long as whatever context first pops into their mind, without even considering that other durations might have been intended. State the duration, if possible, and you'll knock that second problem away.

 

In this type of circumstance, generally, If a user complains (on 'this' or duration) then they'll report the application for having a really obvious bug. The programmer will promptly dismiss it as a user who has reading, intelligence, or comprehension problems. Root cause will be all the above, and none of the above, all at the same time.

 

I applaud something as forward-thinking as allowing default choices for a wide range of dialog boxes, but my first concern would be that a similar vague pronoun reference could present the user (in this particular circumstance as well as others circumstances across your application) with an indeterminable number of unintended choices that the application would not be equipped to reach into their minds to understand, much less obey. Verifying (and/or customizing) the (implied) question in each specific box would seem to be important.

 

yes because you don't want to ask about the ambiguous url... it can be difficult to change your mind once the procedure has begun, certainly would require and expert to give you answers to reverse the process. I'm glad there is an option to reset this, many have made revelations later on necessitating the reversal of all the adjustments.

 

Your reply was far more humorous than I deserved, and yet at the same time, delightfully stingy with any additional spoilers. Very nicely played, good sir!

Edited by jmccorm
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You are overthinking the problem.

 

First of all, in order to see this dialog you have to explicitly add the Browser (B:) device, which means they will be expecting this event. There's a grand total of one program I know of that uses it so far. That's not exactly a lot of situations for frequency for this dialog to appear, nor is there significant demand for it, so it is premature for fine-grained permissions.

 

Second, users don't read. Adding more text to a dialog box makes it less understandable. They don't read long text and they shouldn't have to, so principle of least surprise rules. If the user selects Allow, then the browser popping up is expected. "Don't show this again" options are common UI and auto-launching websites without confirmation after Allow+Don'tShow is both a reasonable use case and reasonable behavior. In my experience, trying to reduce the error rate further by piling on text in this kind of situation is counterproductive as it just causes users to read or understand even less of the text than they already would and the error rate instead goes up. So instead, the approach is to target both what the user is likely to want to do and what they would expect based on typical UI conventions. "Always Deny" is a useless use case that just results in a permanently broken B: device and is unlikely to be useful compared to just removing B:, so we block that case. And in the worst case, the emulator enforces only HTTP and HTTPS URLs so that the web browser's typical defenses are likely to be in effect, reducing the impact of a mistaken Always Accept.

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You are overthinking the problem.

 

That's typically not the response I see when I've shown a programmer their grammatical ambiguity. But then again, normally it is a one-line comment, and I don't go out of my way to explain it in great detail, so that comment may be richly deserved.

 

You're aware that you've used a vague pronoun reference. You indicated that this is something that you may use in other confirmation dialogs. You've weighed the cost and benefit of leaving it place versus the cost and benefit of remediation. Given that, either way, whatever decision you ended up with is a good choice because it is an informed choice. I support your decision in the matter, and I will trouble you no further on this issue.

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And lets not forget that at the end of the day Phaeron does whatever he likes to his emulator, he's the boss, we may point out issues and bugs which he fixes faster than most authors but content choice remains his alone and so far he's right on the money. :)

 

But its also important to have strong precise and educated discussion so its all good..

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Second, users don't read.

 

Shamefully, I am often guilty of this myself. :(

 

I sometimes end up asking for assistance for what turns out to be an easy fix and something that I probably should have been able to piece together from the HELP file.

Edited by SS
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Fix:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-3.10-test8.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-3.10-test8-src.zip

 

I'm not going to crack the 3.00 release line for this, too minor.

 

It's also in 2.50 & 2.81, older versions I keep around. ? FRE(0) in BASIC always yields 13326 if set to 24,32 or 40K

 

Any chance you could patch one of the older versions? I actually prefer menu-itis to the config window.

Edited by eccofonic
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Shamefully, I am often guilty of this myself. :(

 

I sometimes end up asking for assistance for what turns out to be an easy fix and something that I probably should have been able to piece together from the HELP file.

 

You are no different to me and many others, sometimes it can be so silly and its staring you in the face....Also, you know you will get excellent help in here :)

 

RTFM has existed for far too many years :)

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It's also in 2.50 & 2.81, older versions I keep around. ? FRE(0) in BASIC always yields 13326 if set to 24,32 or 40K

 

Any chance you could patch one of the older versions? I actually prefer menu-itis to the config window.

 

Sorry -- I won't be patching older versions either. For that matter there are a lot more serious bugs in those old versions than this issue.

 

Regarding menuitis vs. configzilla, could you elaborate? It's still a WIP and would like to know what works for you with the menus and doesn't with the config dialog so I can tweak.

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Sorry -- I won't be patching older versions either. For that matter there are a lot more serious bugs in those old versions than this issue.

 

Regarding menuitis vs. configzilla, could you elaborate? It's still a WIP and would like to know what works for you with the menus and doesn't with the config dialog so I can tweak.

 

Speed.

 

It's alot quicker accessing menus than a big window box that pops up every time I want to configure the emulator.

 

Try it yourself. I'm not trying to be a jerk.

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Speed.

 

It's alot quicker accessing menus than a big window box that pops up every time I want to configure the emulator.

 

Try it yourself. I'm not trying to be a jerk.

 

Uh, are you implying that I didn't already try the new interface I added? :?

 

Let's go at it from another angle. What are the most common changes that you do through the menu?

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Without some suggestions from each person as what is more intuitive, good, or bad about a thing and the reason why.... the coder can't make the improvement. Please instead of just saying it's wrong, explain how and why or what is difficult.

 

I eat number and have no problems with them, my other half not so much. This causes difficulties she does not get what I get when looking at or doing things that I find a logical progression. For her it is non-sequitur. She is a sharp person who can follow most anything. Add letters with numbers... it's all over. Any system based on a logical formula progression is a difficulty. Link objects and their proximate usage and it's all good. If a tree of items go to deep she will not find it. That does not mean kill all trees. It doe mean break down trees to a manageable and easy depth. Maybe he means please don't do all pop ups but rather put the thing in it's own tree to go directly to for a user. Our flow is often based on what works on the chip or code level.

The average user just wants to pick whats hooked up. for example add sio device or add device how would you do it? well I don't have a problem I know what sio is, others don't. so add device might branch to Atari SIO Daisy chain, and Parallel expansion port... but does it really need to. How about- hook up a device and then the list of all devices? If the device relies on another device then make sure the dependency is connected automatically. She knows she wants a modem, or she knows she want lantronix internet. She click add device, she clicks hayes/usr modem, or a lantonix uds, Altirra then just adds the modem and asks with a pop up do you want an 850 interface, MIO, or Black Box to connect the modem to the computer tick a box... she does that and it's good to go. I would just do it the old way and set it up working my way out, but this would be me, using the standard flow following the tree as usual I would be hooking it up 850 then modem the configs, Altirra would not pop up anything since I built out from the Atari and didn't miss anything.

Edited by _The Doctor__
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