Atari ST VT-52 animations

[drac030]

I am not sure if anyone was doing it before... on ST there are the so called VT-52 demos, which in fact are text mode animations, and the "executable file" is a text file containing a stream of the VT-52 terminal emulator commands. On the ST you just "view" such a file to replay the animation.

 

I have found four such animations on the net, and wrote a program for SpartaDOS X to replay them. Here is the archive containing the four animations and the player:

 

vt52play.arc

 

To run the player you will need SpartaDOS X 4.47 or newer, and an amount of memory in your Atari allowing to load the data files. The longest of them is ~180k so probably nothing less than 192k will allow to replay it.

 

The player (VT52.COM) is a crude VT52 emulator, which translates VT-52 Escape sequences into the commands of the Atari 8-bit system console (the E: and K: devices). Like everyone else I of course realize that this task can be made a better way, so that the animation goes faster, smoother etc. but the point was that the originals use the system's console only feeding it with control codes. So the VT52.COM player does not touch any hardware I/O or such things, it makes the system console calls (sending ASCII data and control codes) only to accomplish the task.

 

To run the player you basically type

 

VT52 filename

 

at the DOS prompt. There are some things to know about the particular animation files, though:

 

1) SCHNAH.TXT

 

This is a B/W animation for the ST low resolution (40x24 text resolution, 16 colors). It can be replayed on the standard 40-column GR.0 console, because, as said above, it is originally black-and-white only. Having QUICKED.SYS loaded speeds the animation up. It requires about 95k of free RAM to get replayed.

 

2) SYNERGY.TXT

 

This is a color animation for the ST low resolution. Therefore this one requires colors (6 colors, to be specific), but it still can be replayed on the standard 40-column GR.0 console, because the VT52.COM program, when it is running on the standard GR.0 display, maps different background colors onto different ASCII characters. As above, it is good to have QUICKED.SYS loaded. But if you have VBXE, better load S_VBXE and the CON driver attached here:

Since it is a 40-column animation, before running the VT52.COM program do SET VT52COL=40 at the DOS prompt to tell the VT52.COM program that it has to take only 40 columns of the screen into account (this step matters in the 80-column mode only). The animation requires about 180k of free RAM to run.

 

3) FUJIBOIN.TXT

 

This animation is done for the ST medium resolution (80x24, 4 colors), so no replay without VBXE and its drivers, sorry. Before running it, make sure that you have done SET VT52COL=80 (alternatively you can delete the variable). 60k free RAM required.

 

4) COMMANDO.TXT

 

As above, this is for the ST medium resolution, so VBXE+drivers+SET VT52COL=80. Out of all four, this is the only one where having an accelerated Atari does not help: quite contrary, the stock speed helps to follow the, uhm, storyline. 100k free RAM to go.

 

Have fun

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

on the A8 there were dozens of ATASCII animations, a lot of them were done for BBSes, but there were also programs and contests in some magazines (e.g. Antic or Analog). Some animations or movies can be found e.g. here:

 

 

or here:

 

 

At Fandal's webpage you can find e.g. demos and animations of "ASCII-Art", "ASCII collection", "ASCII girl" and "Atascii Movie showwer"...

 

[drac030]

@CharlieChaplin, for "I am not sure if anyone was doing it before", I meant that I am not sure if anyone was replaying the ST VT-52 animations on Atari 8-bit, and not, if anyone ever before was replaying any ASCII animations on any computer, or particularly if anyone ever before was replaying any ASCII animations on Atari 8-bit.

[+Nezgar]

Intriguing - We've seen ATASCII animations on the 8-bit before, but not VT52! I remember those from the ST. Maybe the 80 column ones will work without VBXE by using RC_GR8.SYS + CON /E ? (I haven't tried yet) - albeit in monochrome only...

 

Edit: Just tried - it appears to only use the left 40 columns, and leaves the right 40 columns blank/cut off.

Edit 2: Woops, I probably need to SET VT52COL=80 - will try again later

 

[_The Doctor__]

the only methods to do this previously were terminal programs for modem use, and not all of them did such a good job, however, did aladin allow vidtex mode or rle etc...  I like where this is going, and those would be logical extensions from here. This is very nice and quite interesting. I'd say keep it coming :)

[drac030]

@Nezgar SET VT52COL=80 may help (although here it is not required with RC_GR8+CON), unfortunately both COMMANDO and FUJIBOIN need not only 80 columns but also colors. Mapping the background colors onto various ASCII chars may of course help, I will see if it can be done...

 

@_The Doctor__ I will see if it is difficult to do a player for ANSI animations (if one does not exist yet). Unfortunately, the VBXE text mode has some color limitations, so it would probably be necessary to switch to the pixel mode. So VBXE only, then.

[_The Doctor__]

ah, you know me! give a mouse a cookie and he soon will want a glass of milk! Quite interesting to see how far this can go for each case. base, 40, 80, standard / VBXE modes / mixed. Very cool project. Stand alone for each player type?... or a unified player for all? Both maybe....perhaps a front end to call the stand alones as replaceable modules?  I must be affected by staying in so much, I feel, well, very excited, a smile even... though you can see I am running way far ahead of things in my minds eye

Edited April 1, 2020 by _The Doctor__

[zzip]

I didn't even know there was a VT52 animation scene, because VT-52 on the ST was kinda weak.   VT100 or above would have been better.

 

I actually wrote a terminal emulator on ST that supported VT100/ANSI commands, but I lost the source code.

[_The Doctor__]

The ST series had several ANSI terminals I didn't find it weak at all.

[MrMartian]

11 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

The ST series had several ANSI terminals I didn't find it weak at all.

I have a soft spot for TAZ!, obviously..

[zzip]

19 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

The ST series had several ANSI terminals I didn't find it weak at all.

I'm talking about the built-in VT-52 being weak.   I wish they had gone with VT-100 as the default at the very least.  Both were 1970s technology.

[Faicuai]

Any reason why this may not work on ICE-T, set to VT52 emulation, via its "VT-Parse" function?

[_The Doctor__]

because a quick shot off of SpartaDOS is wonderful, rather than loading ICET. It might also be used as the display.

[+Stephen]

48 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Any reason why this may not work on ICE-T, set to VT52 emulation, via its "VT-Parse" function?

It should - I know I've viewd ANSI files with it before and am pretty sure I recall doing some watching some small animations with it.

[drac030]

1 hour ago, Faicuai said:

Any reason why this may not work on ICE-T, set to VT52 emulation, via its "VT-Parse" function?

A regular terminal should be perfectly able to do that, provided that it has the buffer great enough to store such large files. Also, it should do even better if it provides ST or ANSI character set and exact color support. I am 100% sure that using the VBXE in proper way, uploading the fonts and redefining the palettes, a truly killer VT-52 and VT-100 and VT-whatever-else-you-want could be written, or even someone already has done it.

 

Just for the ICE-T I do not now, because this program has never worked for me. It opens, then starts to print infinite garbage to the terminal window, and that's it. And yes, I do have an Atari 850, proper cabling, a PC with proper RS-232 at the other end and there is communication between them (I can send texts in BASIC, which appear on the PC's terminal). Just ICE-T does not work. Or it did not when I tried and it was ~15 years ago or so. It might have been fixed since, I just have never tried again.

 

The VT52.COM program I posted in the first post is certainly not a regular terminal, it is a quick hack with enough functionality to replay just these four VT-52 files I found. Initially I was going to replay just the one I remembered from the times I had a Falcon, which turns out to be called SYNERGY. Looking for it on the Net I encountered the other three and decided to try them out too. But that is it, the program certainly is not debugged, and certainly cannot (yet) serve as a text viewer - I just tried, when the word wrap is off, longer sections disappear behind the right margin, when the word wrap is on, the program hangs I have to find out, why.

 

BTW. Does anyone know/remember/is able to check, if the built-in ST terminal has the word wrap on by default, or off? I do not remember, cannot find anything in the documentation, and my Falcon is long gone.

 

 

[+Nezgar]

Got it working on real hardware (576K+UAV, no VBXE) , he he.

 

 

I had an SCRDEF set to right column=39... i removed that and all good.

 

It does seem to spend a lot of time drawing white lines on a dark background. Maybe it would be faster if it just changed the playfield colour to white, and drew dark characters, so as to use simpler E: whole line deletes and inserts?

 

I'm sure all of this is way faster on the preferred VBXE hardware.

[drac030]

This is done so to get the "local" colors on VBXE without redefining palettes. A proper terminal should of course do that and be a lot faster/smoother. Many screen details (or even entire objects) are drawn using the background colors, for example, the scene on the photo should look more like this:

 

 

There also are some formatting/positioning errors (e.g. on "Commando's" face) which I cleaned up later, as it can be seen on both images.

 

[ggn]

Thanks - it's always nice to see Beat Nick 2

[Faicuai]

21 hours ago, drac030 said:

A regular terminal should be perfectly able to do that, provided that it has the buffer great enough to store such large files. Also, it should do even better if it provides ST or ANSI character set and exact color support. I am 100% sure that using the VBXE in proper way, uploading the fonts and redefining the palettes, a truly killer VT-52 and VT-100 and VT-whatever-else-you-want could be written, or even someone already has done it.

 

Just for the ICE-T I do not now, because this program has never worked for me. It opens, then starts to print infinite garbage to the terminal window, and that's it. And yes, I do have an Atari 850, proper cabling, a PC with proper RS-232 at the other end and there is communication between them (I can send texts in BASIC, which appear on the PC's terminal). Just ICE-T does not work. Or it did not when I tried and it was ~15 years ago or so. It might have been fixed since, I just have never tried again.

 

The VT52.COM program I posted in the first post is certainly not a regular terminal, it is a quick hack with enough functionality to replay just these four VT-52 files I found. Initially I was going to replay just the one I remembered from the times I had a Falcon, which turns out to be called SYNERGY. Looking for it on the Net I encountered the other three and decided to try them out too. But that is it, the program certainly is not debugged, and certainly cannot (yet) serve as a text viewer - I just tried, when the word wrap is off, longer sections disappear behind the right margin, when the word wrap is on, the program hangs I have to find out, why.

 

BTW. Does anyone know/remember/is able to check, if the built-in ST terminal has the word wrap on by default, or off? I do not remember, cannot find anything in the documentation, and my Falcon is long gone.

 

 

 

Well, I actually tried it and you (may) be surprised to know how much FASTER it runs on ICE-T (2.80) and XEP80 with Avery's FAST driver (!!!)

 

I do believe ICE-T is definitely filtering meta-data on file, but runs relatively fast, even compared to accelerated E: on Gr.0. Also, when running VT52 through XEP80 output, I am seeng characters that seem invisible on plain Gr.0 output. or emulated 80-col. on SDX.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Faicuai

[drac030]

I am not surprised, E: is rather slow. Just using the S_VBXE driver functions would make the thing lightspeed in comparison. But - no replay in GR.0, then.

 

Extra characters are probably bugs in my VT-52 commands implementation. I am fixing them, but the required crawling through tens of kilobytes of the Esc sequences makes this process rather slow.

Edited April 2, 2020 by drac030

[drac030]

Ok, judging from the COMMANDO animation, all the drawing errors have been eliminated. Also the speed has a bit been improved and to my taste it should not work faster, because it is difficult to follow the "story" then. By current principles (no full terminal, just translation to the E: control codes) it probably cannot be better.

 

The program can be also used as a simple text viewer for PC text files, although its functionality is like MORE (or like the ST built-in text viewer) rather than like LESS.COM. The details are in the VT52.MAN file.

 

Animations included:

 

vt52play.arc

 

Standalone:

 

vt52.arc

Edited April 3, 2020 by drac030
typo

[Faicuai]

5 hours ago, drac030 said:

Ok, judging from the COMMANDO animation, all the drawing errors have been eliminated. Also the speed has a bit been improved and to my taste it should not work faster, because it is difficult to follow the "story" then. By current principles (no full terminal, just translation to the E: control codes) it probably cannot be better.

 

The program can be also used as a simple text viewer for PC text files, although its functionality is like MORE (or like the ST built-in text viewer) rather than like LESS.COM. The details are in the VT52.MAN file.

 

Animations included:

 

vt52play.arc 131.71 kB · 2 downloads

 

Standalone:

 

vt52.arc 3.61 kB · 2 downloads

 

Looks pretty good, indeed.

 

Going into SDX's next-revision ToolKit?

Edited April 3, 2020 by Faicuai

[_The Doctor__]

That toolkit is long overdue, and needs the correct fatfs etc and several others in it...

[drac030]

Will see. I planned to put it simply on my webpage, but since it is also a text viewer and there is currently no equivalent (the old LESS.COM only uses base RAM, XLESS.COM does not display non-Atari files), then maybe. But maybe XLESS can be expanded with this functionality instead (i.e. viewing PC files, not replaying VT-52 animations).

 

As about the Toolkit, do not expect revolution: there is some new (and good) stuff there, but most of the changes are bugfixes.

[_The Doctor__]

heavens above thankfulness for all the latest and the bugfixes rounded up into one place!