Altirra 3.20 released

[phaeron]

1 hour ago, scotty said:

Avery, Got a question....   I decided to convert a short and simple Microsoft Basic program to Atari Basic.  I copied the source code from plain text, and pasted it in to Atari Basic in Altirra ro make changes.   For some reason, all of my REM statements and all of my line were converted to upper case.  I can understand basic commands like 'print' being change to 'PRINT', but even the stuff I had in quotation marks became capitalized.  (IE: 10 print "Hello" became 10 PRINT "HELLO").   Is there a reason why it is doing that and a fix? 

There are two possibilities:

1. You need more beer.
2. You need to turn off Caps Lock in the emulation before pasting, since the emulator is just typing keys on the keyboard and the emulated OS is the one that is converting to uppercase.

 

[ldelsarte]

Based on what we know of the "new" Atari VCS (Indiegogo), is there any chance to have Altirra running on it? I also have various Raspberry Pie 2 & 3 (soon a 4) but running Altirra on the Atari VCS would be so cool and elegant

[danielcg]

5 hours ago, scotty said:

Avery, Got a question....   I decided to convert a short and simple Microsoft Basic program to Atari Basic.  I copied the source code from plain text, and pasted it in to Atari Basic in Altirra ro make changes.   For some reason, all of my REM statements and all of my line were converted to upper case.  I can understand basic commands like 'print' being change to 'PRINT', but even the stuff I had in quotation marks became capitalized.  (IE: 10 print "Hello" became 10 PRINT "HELLO").   Is there a reason why it is doing that and a fix?

 

Here is the source code after the conversion:

10 REM Atari Basic, XL/XE Version of 99 Bottles of beer.
20 REM Modified by SirScotty in July 2019 
30 REM Modified from Eric Carr's MS Basic Version, Found on this site.
40 REM Cleaned up for Atari Basic as well as BasicXL and BasicXE from OSS.
45 REM "WE NEED MORE BEER!!!" was added by me, for a laugh.
46 REM Type the number 160 at the READY prompt to delete it.
47 REM This was my first time using Atari Basic in over THIRTY FIVE YEARS!!
48 REM I think I did pretty good for being so rusty.
50 FOR X=99 TO 1 STEP -1
60 IF X>0 THEN PRINT X;" bottle";
70 IF X<>1 THEN PRINT "s";
80 PRINT " of beer on the wall, "
85 PRINT X;" bottle";
90 IF X<>1 THEN PRINT "s";
100 ? " of beer..."
110 PRINT "Take one down, pass it around,"
120 PRINT X-1;" bottle";
125 X=X-1
130 IF X<>1 THEN PRINT "s";
140 PRINT " of beer on the wall."
145 PRINT 
150 IF X>0 THEN GOTO 60
160 PRINT "WE NEED MORE BEER!!!"

You should change Line 150 to "150 NEXT X" as you defined FOR statement in Line 50.

[phaeron]

11 hours ago, ldelsarte said:

Based on what we know of the "new" Atari VCS (Indiegogo), is there any chance to have Altirra running on it? I also have various Raspberry Pie 2 & 3 (soon a 4) but running Altirra on the Atari VCS would be so cool and elegant

Sorry, no interest in porting to the new Atari VCS. It's a plain, modern Linux x64 PC in an ugly box, and it'd be flying a bit too close to the star destroyer.

 

[+Stephen]

4 hours ago, phaeron said:

Sorry, no interest in porting to the new Atari VCS. It's a plain, modern Linux x64 PC in an ugly box, and it'd be flying a bit too close to the star destroyer.

 

It's also unavailable vapourware.  Don't waste your time.

[NuY]

This might have got buried in the previous version thread as the new version was released soon after:

 

To expand a little here, the vision would be the ability to add a 1020 in the hardware section and have it write the plotter output to a seperate window (scrollable to emulate the paper roll) with an ability to use standard Windows printing to send it to a print driver (this would provide PDF print functionality via CutePDF or similar). Under the Altirra hood I assume it should work the same as the regular P: emulation as there's no difference in the SIO data flow that I'm aware of - the 1020 does all the work interpreting the specific codes to move the pens and roller around of course.

[rensoup]

More questions/requests regarding the disassembly window:

 

Any way of disabling OS variables lookups? I'm not using the OS at all so lots of my ZP variables get labelled wrong.

 

Is it possible to display labels with regular caps ?

 

Thanks.

[phaeron]

8 hours ago, rensoup said:

Any way of disabling OS variables lookups? I'm not using the OS at all so lots of my ZP variables get labelled wrong.

Execute debugger command ".unloadsym kerneldb" to unload standard Atari OS symbols.

8 hours ago, rensoup said:

Is it possible to display labels with regular caps ?

Not currently, the internal symbol storage is not case preserving. It's on my list of things to change. However, you should also check whether you are actually generating case-sensitive symbols as well. MADS requires the -c switch to emit symbols in their original case and with that enabled you must use the correct case throughout your source as well.

 

[Keatah]

On 7/7/2019 at 4:01 AM, ldelsarte said:

Based on what we know of the "new" Atari VCS (Indiegogo), is there any chance to have Altirra running on it? I also have various Raspberry Pie 2 & 3 (soon a 4) but running Altirra on the Atari VCS would be so cool and elegant

 

I believe Altirra should remain Windows only for a multitude of reasons.

 

1- When emulators go cross-platform they tend to become slower. They become less versatile and less feature-rich as they have to cater to the lowest common denominator.

2- Development slows down as each platform has to be tested individually.

3- Going cross-platform would likely require a new toolset, again slowing development down.

4- There would be an increase in bloat.

5- Considering the heritage of the ataribox thing. It would be outright blasphemy to run Altirra on it.

 

..and more

 

 

[darwinmac]

6. Phaeron is only interested in Windows development (as is his right)

 

I'm starting to think he should add this to his sig:

 

Mac Altirra port: No

Linux Altirra port: No

Anything but Windows: No ?

 

I'm thrilled that he's willing to devote so much time to Altirra. Some projects (Hatari - ST emulator) are happy as multi-platform. As a one-person development team, Phaeron prefers Windows development. I don't think any other reason is needed.

 

Bob C

[Mclaneinc]

Totally agree with Keatah and Darwinmac....Obviously what and where Avery works on is his bag and I'd never begrudge anyone from having the ability to run Altirra but I'm glad its a single platform with the source code fully released so anyone who wants to follow the code guidelines and port as they like. At the moment I'm watching another emulator being coded across multiple platforms and its a solely coded item that's closed source and boy, is progress slow due to the constant flipping between dev platforms and the stream of niggles about issues that may or may not be true across all the platforms. Its also all handled in a very strange way, its like there's a big tombola box where the guy just randomly picks an item to work on but does a bit and them its back to the tombola box again.

 

OBVIOUSLY how a person codes their emulator is up to them and people should be happy that someone is bothering but for the end users that have a clue its weird to see stuff done in this way considering there a optional cost in the emulator which for me makes it a bit more important to focus a little more on the work at hand. Again its optional with only a single graphical loss to the non payer that isn't crippling.

 

But that's where Altirra shines, Avery chose the non paying side with no donations so its not a pair of hand cuffs on his devving yet he gives us end users a stunning item that's free and supported in a way that is gold standard.

 

The single (well minor other platform support from Avery) platform approach works well for us and him and of course it seems to help when the dev has what seems to be an encyclopedic knowledge of everything  and a very structured coding style.

 

As for it on that bastardised Atari in name only console thing, well its going to need all the help it can get but the notion is indeed disturbing...

 

Simply, thank you Avery...

[+Philsan]

I think LiteDOS by @mr-atari is a really nice DOS, small, fast and compatible.

 

I would like to use it but I miss Altirra File Explorer compatibility.

 

[_The Doctor__]

I concur, LiteDOS is finally ready for prime-time. Einstein gave it a wag and a paws up!

the only thing I do prevent accidental writing to the disk it creates with a wrong dos is to put a file on it called litedoso.nly

to remind me.

Edited July 10, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[rensoup]

On 7/9/2019 at 4:42 AM, phaeron said:

Execute debugger command ".unloadsym kerneldb" to unload standard Atari OS symbols.

That works, would it be possible to have it as a checkbox in the debug menu (to make it permanent) ?

 

Quote

Not currently, the internal symbol storage is not case preserving. It's on my list of things to change. However, you should also check whether you are actually generating case-sensitive symbols as well. MADS requires the -c switch to emit symbols in their original case and with that enabled you must use the correct case throughout your source as well.

Not sure what you're saying... I just tried the -c switch you suggested and it seems to work perfectly... so ? ?

 

Also Got a crash (3.90 test 3) when going to performance analyzer -> profile (straight after launch, tried with different xex/atrs)

 

Thanks

[toddtmw]

@phaeron,

 

I just discovered the larger editor option. It's aawesome!

 

However, I believe I may have discovered a minor bug. I program with warp speed turned on. So, attract mode comes on pretty quick.

 

When using the larger debugger, (enhanced video (SIO Intercept)) attract mode comes on even when typing and does not go off. The only way I found to turn it off is to poke 77,0, but that only lasts a minute or so.

 

I'd actually love to have the option to turn attract mode off completely at the emulator level. For most people, it's not really needed anymore.

 

Thank you!

 

-Todd

[Mclaneinc]

You could use the cheat system to freeze the location?

Edited July 13, 2019 by Mclaneinc
Because I'm a typing idiot..

[toddtmw]

1 hour ago, Mclaneinc said:

You could use the cheat system to freeze the location?

YAY! That works!  Thank you!

[toddtmw]

Hi. I just found a bug that crashes Altirra 3.20.

 

When I am in enhanced video (SIO Intercept) mode and hit ctrl-V Altirra crashes.

[Mclaneinc]

A pleasure good sir...Have fun

 

Paul..

 

Can't recreate the crash you have BUT I'm not sure of what you have open and if or what part of the debugger you are using as I'm not technical enough around the debugger

Edited July 13, 2019 by Mclaneinc

[toddtmw]

Pretty much just boot Dos 2.0s on a 320k XL/XE NTSC machine to BASIC.

 

Turn on enchanced video (sio intercept)

 

hit ctrl-v

 

Boom.

 

[Mclaneinc]

Have to say I followed what you did to the letter and no crash...Tried both enhanced video modes, were no other settings to do with SIO?

 

As I only saw a CIO enhanced mode that's why I asked about SIO patches etc.

Edited July 13, 2019 by Mclaneinc
to make it readable in some form of English :)

[toddtmw]

4 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said:

Have to say I followed what you did to the letter and no crash...Tried both enhanced video modes, were no other settings to do with SIO?

 

As I only saw a CIO enhanced mode that's why I asked about SIO patches etc.

Thank you for looking into it. 

 

This is is a relatively new install. I have most accelerations turned on. I originally experienced it on a real win 10 box. I usually use a Mac and had been wanting to get wine running so I installed wine, downloaded 3.20 and set it up and had the same crash there. I’ll post more information with screenshots when I get home. 

[toddtmw]

@phaeron, I really love the expanded video mode, and while being able to use arrow keys to bring up recent commands is great, it means I cannot arrow up to edit a line in basic.

 

is there an option somewhere I am missing?

 

thank you. 

[flashjazzcat]

Can duplicate here.

[phaeron]

On 7/12/2019 at 2:54 PM, toddtmw said:

I just discovered the larger editor option. It's aawesome!

 

However, I believe I may have discovered a minor bug. I program with warp speed turned on. So, attract mode comes on pretty quick.

 

When using the larger debugger, (enhanced video (SIO Intercept)) attract mode comes on even when typing and does not go off. The only way I found to turn it off is to poke 77,0, but that only lasts a minute or so.

 

I'd actually love to have the option to turn attract mode off completely at the emulator level. For most people, it's not really needed anymore.

I'm glad you find it useful, but please don't @ me multiple times in quick succession, especially for the same thing in two different threads. You already tagged me for this in the Disable 800XL Screen Saver thread.

 

Not resetting the attract counter and the Ctrl+V crash in enhanced text mode are fixed for the next test build, but current tree isn't in publishable state right now.

 

Altirra doesn't have a setting to disable attract mode because there isn't a safe way to do it -- forcing location 77 is only safe as long as the OS is still active, as soon as the program takes over the VBI this can crash the emulated program. The option for this in Atari800WinPLus works similarly to the cheat that was suggested in the other thread with the exception of an additional clock check, but that doesn't remove the possibility of a crash, it just makes it less likely. That's not ideal for such a function that you'd want to keep on all of the time.

 

The enhanced text mode is a terminal instead of a screen editor, so there isn't a mode that allows moving up to and editing previous lines as with the E: device.

 

On 7/10/2019 at 1:05 PM, _The Doctor__ said:

I concur, LiteDOS is finally ready for prime-time. Einstein gave it a wag and a paws up!

the only thing I do prevent accidental writing to the disk it creates with a wrong dos is to put a file on it called litedoso.nly

to remind me.

This is one of the main reasons I haven't implemented support for LiteDOS disks. Not only is there potential for conflict between the DOS 2 / MyDOS formats, LiteDOS relies on other DOSes doing lax checking of the VTOC for read-only interoperability at the cost of allowing write corruption. I can't implement support for it until the format is stable and I've confirmed that it won't interfere with existing DOS disks.

 

On 7/10/2019 at 2:58 PM, rensoup said:

That works, would it be possible to have it as a checkbox in the debug menu (to make it permanent) ?

 

Not sure what you're saying... I just tried the -c switch you suggested and it seems to work perfectly... so ? ?

 

Also Got a crash (3.90 test 3) when going to performance analyzer -> profile (straight after launch, tried with different xex/atrs)

Guess I did fix the symbol case handling at one point. Of course, this also means that the current symbol lookup algorithm is abhorrent and needs to be fixed....

 

Option to disable the default symbols? Think that should be OK.

 

I can't reproduce the Performance Analyzer crash. It's strange, because the Profile button just opens the profile pane in the analyzer, and that won't do anything if you haven't recorded a trace yet.