stardot.org.uk

I've happily shared my code with people who asked for it :D I gave up on this as, although it worked, it was slow. I eventually came to the conclusion that the CP2201 wasn't storing waiting packets and so dropped loads - only one of the 8? packet slots ever seemed to be used by the hardware. Someone...

Rob, what do you think about using sample playback for your Doom? You could probably get away with 8khz at 4 bits/sample, but it might be cheaper to send the whole volume control byte. The tricky bit will be interleaving the sound updates with the screen updates and as a further optimisation interl...

Orlando did a version on 3D Pool (along with various other demos). It's in the "final" version on the STH Lost & Found page.

BigEd wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:33 pm

Is the Basic the same as the one in the Master? Are all the VDU calls the same?

I don't think so - I believe the Compact has an improved version of BASIC 4 as I remember reading that Acorn speeded up some aspects.

Have you tried the disk linked at the bottom of this page Dave?:
http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org ... chIDE.html

I know it's not the right interface but it might work...

AJW wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 22, 2020 3:42 pm

I assume that Doom could be made on a 48k Spectrum because of greatly reduced graphics compared to this version?

Yes. I suspect the Spectrum's attribute graphics mode helps a bit too.

I think there was talk of doing something similar on the Beeb but I don't know where that got to.

Excellent - that looks really good.

I have a pair of those but don't really like them. They are okay for Elite (as you suggest) but I prefer the Voltmace ones.

For arcade games, I use the BBC version of the Competition Pro or Zipstick.

I think I have a disk with OK Logo on it but I'm not sure of its whereabouts or condition. I'll see if I can dig it out.

The Jessop turtle will work with Acornsoft Logo if you use the extensions disk.

I'll also take some pictures of the inside of the control box.

&E4 - &64 = &80.

&80 is 1000 0000 in binary which means bit 7 (the top bit) is set.

The negative flag is set when "the top bit of a result is set" so it's set if a result is between &80 and &FF inclusive.

EDIT: Have a look at chapters 4 and 6 of the Advanced User Guide if you want more info...

If you could send me the code for the hacked OSBYTE call I might be able to do something similar, if I could save cycles on the keyboard it would be worth it. I've literally taken the code from the Master 3.20 OS which starts around 0xF937. However, it's probably not directly applicable to what you...

Looking forward to trying this when I have some time at the weekend. Do you mind if I record a video of it and put it up on Youtube? I think I'm going to return to the previous keyboard reading code, it didn't seem to affect the mouse much, I don't know how frequently the mouse updates when moving i...

daveejhitchins wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 14, 2020 7:51 pm

I think there were a LOT of monitor plinth sold but not very many upgrades.

Yes - I have the plinth but have struggled to find the disk drive housing.

I'd be interested in this when it's ready Dave. (Assuming it's not already spoken for and you're not planning to put it up for auction.)

So, I've just checked one of my boards and they are turned pin SIL headers.

I'd be tempted to buy the short ones and build them up with turned pin DIL sockets as BeebMaster suggests.

I think they are turned pin SIL headers but I don't know of a supplier for ones with such long pins.

You can get shorter ones here:
https://hobbycomponents.com/connectors/ ... -pack-of-5

I went to an automotive spray shop to see if they could scan the paint and match it, but as the original paint is matt, it couldn’t be scanned. The we compared hundreds of paint chips and found RAL 1015 to be the closest match. Cool, 3 drives. I didn’t know the Master could use more than 2 drives. ...

robert_smallshire wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 14, 2020 3:22 pm

He says he has the code and documentation for the Beeb version of Halcien, and also a PC version that was until fairly recently used in controlling a telescope.

Brilliant news! I wonder if I could get it to drive my telescope?

The plinth received 2 coats of paint (Ral 1015). Nice job. Can I ask where you got the paint from? I've just got hold of one of those Master plinths and would like to respray it... I then proceeded to install 2 5.25" floppy drives but soon decided I was being silly as I primarily use the Gotek for ...

Looks like this might be the right person: https://twitter.com/halienaeon

I wonder if he still has a copy?

Got My VideoNula board on Thursday, fitted it into my issue 7 model B Friday. Games looked and worked brilliantly. I had some minor issues with running the spectrum and CPC emulators which was down to me, Rob helped me sort the issue. So I just wanted to say a big thank you to Rob for the board and...

Does the game support pwads? It would be easier to put the palette file in a pwad and then just load that and whichever wad file you want to use. I've only had it running with the included wad so far. I need to include support for other wads but haven't got round to it yet. Are you planning to impl...

Can't remember is it was that dark on the first level. Or is that because of the limited amount of colours? During the game I accidentally hitted a function key that made game crash. (or hang) I'll try to reproduce that again. And was there a dither mode and a videonula version? The darkness is pro...

In Sarah's talk about White Light, she used a similar technique, but payed a couple of extra cycles to store the sprites and background data in the same memory and then AND # to clear the sprites - really clever and on a beeb, a great compromise. http://abug.org.uk/index.php/2020/06/06/coding-white...

Here's my 512MB HD image: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9g8pb0vbzyo6u ... 1.zip?dl=0

Doom is in $.PiCoPro.Doom.

What sort of hard drive do you have? I think I still have a dump from my DC on Dropbox or there's an SD card version on here somewhere.

Great work Rob I'm going to get cracking with this! What's the easy way to get files out the .SSD images? I've normally only gone the other way :lol: I use DFSExplorer but you've got to pay for it. BeebEm will also do it I think as there's an export files from disk option. Pretty sure I've also edi...

Will need to look into the xor method as once I understood it but no longer do. In mode 2, you have 16 logical colours. If you partition these into 4 background colours and 3 foreground/sprite colours (+mask), you can define the palette in such a way that the EOR effects are largely mitigated. So, ...

And here's the advert from the July 89 Acorn User:

You can save the background behind each sprite and then restore it when the sprites move. Alternatively, if you're using mode 2, you can allocate 4 colours for the background and 3 (+invisible) for the sprites. You then setup the palette so that the XOR method causes the correct sprite or background...

Rob, I can't send messages yet. I live near Exmouth, on the river. I have left a message asking for a VideoNuLA when you have some available. Where do you live? I'm asking because I may chicken out desoldering the ULA chip. Thank you to everyone for the welcome greetings. Bill Hi Bill. I'm in Newpo...