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Philsan

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16 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

@GravityWorm ah so are you planning on getting an A8 and a CRT then?

No. I just plan to maybe get a CRT TV hoked to my PC. I'm not planing to buy a real A8, they cost too much lately. Got interested in A8 5-10 years too late. I just support the A8 as an example of anti bloatware. Contemporary software is in a big part bloateware. AtariBlast!, Rastacoverter, Albert, Crownland, PoP, Yoomp! Final Assault and many other games and demos and YT videos show that even using an slow hardware from 1979 like A8 you can achieve much. And in the A8 scene there is still a progress with PoP, Final Assault and Albert being published in 2021... I think that A8 is the best example of retro hardware. Other example of similar new progress in using old hardware is the game Dread on Amiga 500, but I don't like the Amiga scene because most games are made rather for modern (Amiga 1200 is from 1992) and not as popular A1200 and only a few for the popular (in Europe) Amiga 500...
There is also some progress in ZX Spectrum for example games published by www.zosya.net, but I think that A8 has the biggest progress as is the best example especially that A8 oldest system.
I can not code and make games, so I can only support A8 scene in a small way by using RastaConverter.

Edited by GravityWorm
typo
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26 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

@Gunstar  Yup it was reading your posts back in the spring/summer which is where I initially probably got that number for at the time. :grin:  Hey, so you got any juicy images cooking for us? :) Always look forward to your image posts.:lust:

I've got a number of images I've been working on for the past month, but haven't been able to convert any of them to my standards yet. Well, I have this one that only has one green artifact line segment in it, so I'll go ahead and post it. I've no idea the color count in this one, as when I saved image below (not the .xex) it screwed up somehow and is telling me there are over 28,000 colors!

 

 

 

Steampunk Dirigible. 

 

 

SteamPunkDirigible.jpg

GS_SteampunkDirigible.xex

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29 minutes ago, GravityWorm said:

No. Just a I plan maybe to get a CRT TV hoked to my PC. I'm not planing to buy a real A8, they cost too much lately. Got interested in A8 5-10 years too late. I just support the A8 as an example of anti bloatware. Contemporary software is in a big part bloateware. AtariBlast!, Rastacoverter, Albert, Crownland, PoP, Yoomp! Final Assault and many other games and demos and YT videos show that even using an slow hardware from 1979 like A8 you can achieve much. And in the A8 scene there is still a progress with PoP, Final Assault and Albert being published in 2021... I think that A8 is the best example of retro hardware. Other example of similar new progress in using old hardware is the game Dread on Amiga 500, but I don't like the Amiga scene because most games are made rather for modern (Amiga 1200 is from 1992) and not as popular A1200 and only a few for the popular (in Europe) Amiga 500...
There is also some progress in ZX Spectrum for example games published by www.zosya.net, but I think that A8 has the biggest progress as is the best example especially that A8 oldest system.
I can not code and make games, so I can only support A8 scene in a small way by using RastaConverter.

@GravityWorm Nice. Yup we have had some amazing games over the years and especially in the last few. This year has been amazing. PoP, Flob and Final Assault have blown me away totally and the A8 has many more tricks up it sleeve I am sure! Can't wait for new revisions of Final Assault,  and am dyin to get my hands on new WIPs L'Abbaye des mortes and Giana sisters. I am also a massive Lemmings fan as well. (Started this topic thread a few days back)

 

Rastaconverter totally hooked me when I stumbled across it earlier this year. Was blown away by some of those posted by the likes of @Gunstar who has been converting and posting amazing images for years. Before then I had no idea you could get A8s to display such images. I know it is hit and miss and of course RC images are thrashing the CPU, using up PMGs, etc to display them. But damn it's worth it when you get images like this (some I converted and  posted here on 17/5 earlier this year):

 

84349205_Spideystatuescreen.thumb.jpg.f23aaa7474a7269f8447de5e27dd5307.jpg   123789357_Wizardryladyeditscreen.thumb.jpg.b8c48850336614a344abfea7bca991f9.jpg

1110334019_Disenchantmentscreen.thumb.jpg.8879934d5fe6c71ff9228d1a8cd827cf.jpg   670340592_Forestelfscreen.thumb.jpg.b79056dc28e03c3e2028934d15a630e9.jpg

 

TBH I am not sure if you would benefit from getting a CRT to hook up to your PC. To my mind Altirra can mimic a CRT output very well on modern PC monitors for free. It has loadsa of settings for it. Tweak away and you can pretty accurately fake a CRT output. Saves you money and desktop space.

 

Regarding sourcing an A8 I know what you mean about cost but depending on where you are you could probably pick up an 800XL or 65XE/130XE fairly cheaply. I'd go for an 800XL if you can. XLs have better stock images generally.

 

I've never really followed any other 8-Bit home computer system other than Atari. I've been mainly Atari 8-bit, Jaguar, and PC.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Beeblebrox
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7 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

I've got a number of images I've been working on for the past month, but haven't been able to convert any of them to my standards yet. Well, I have this one that only has one green artifact line segment in it, so I'll go ahead and post it. I've no idea the color count in this one, as when I saved image below (not the .xex) it screwed up somehow and is telling me there are over 28,000 colors!

 

 

 

Steampunk Dirigible. 

 

 

SteamPunkDirigible.jpg

GS_SteampunkDirigible.xex 22.05 kB · 1 download

@Gunstar  Cool, looking forward to future posts.  Wow, 28,000 colours would be quite an achievement heh heh.  Nice image BTW. :grin:

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

@Gunstar  Cool, looking forward to future posts.  Wow, 28,000 colours would be quite an achievement heh heh.  Nice image BTW. :grin:

 

 

Thanks, I was planning on posting  a whole slew of Steampunk and Dieselpunk images at once. Maybe this will just be a forerunner...

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Here is one image I converted that so intrigued me, I came up with a sort of "short story" for it, done in the first person and as if it was a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book I used to love and collect as a kid, or a graphic text adventure using Rastaconverter images. Unfortunately, I somehow lost or deleted the .xex for it!:x:_( It is a horizontally orient image, so it would have been side-ways on the Atari. It was to be entitled 'Agent of M.A.S.S.'

 

But here is the pic and story at least. Maybe I'll make another attempt on it, but it took me dozens of attempts to get it this good...

 

After years of surreptitious research and development, half a life's work, your hand-held proto-type mechanism is complete and passed all tests beyond even your expectation. But vast resources are needed to see your invention to full fruition. Resources you instinctively know are beyond the will of any company or government to grant or invest in, or to undertake such a goliath project far beyond their comprehension. Too massive for them to see the reality changing scope of it, which their closed minds full of political and commercial scheming for power, control, wealth and bottom lines don't allow. So through secret contacts from shady, but dependable sources, you meet somebody that knows somebody, and so on, and you finally are able to arranged a covert meeting with those who not only would believe, but could understand and fund your project. Those with limitless imagination and incredible knowledge beyond modern society's intellectual understanding and knowledge.

 

And now the logic of the plan and the path you had to take, that seemed so clear to you, while sitting at your office desk just mere hours before, seems fantastical now. And your current circumstance even more so, images whirling in your head of all the whispers between strangers, decisions and actions and new knowledge that led to this moment, soaked to the bone, as an eerily strange storm caught you unprepared and ill dressed.
 
Shivering, your vision blurred by water dripping into your eyes, you approach a lone figure in the rain holding an unusual looking umbrella. The man made sure there was no mistaking he was who you were looking for, and what he represented, with his unique attire from another age and his peculiar presence. If nothing else, the umbrella with a green glow of flickering light coming from the underside disintegrated any thoughts of normality. Full of animated displays of geometric shapes and what seem like numerical equations, graphs, maps, etc., vaguely familiar in pattern, though the form and figures completely alien to you, dance beneath the umbrella canopy, like half a dozen antique monochrome CRT monitor screens showing various graphic displays.

 

Everything you had already learned about what this man was and what he represented flashed through your mind. You already knew the figure was your contact, the agent of M.A.S.S. (Ministry of Alchemy, Science and Supernatural). So clandestine a thing you had never heard of or imagined such, nor the rest of the world but a chosen few. None of which were the famous, wealthy or powerful elite of the world, too full of themselves thinking they were so enlightened and special, with their own secret societies with empty ritual and petty agendas in comparison. They meant absolutely nothing to The Firmament, mere rats scurrying to and fro. 

 

M.A.S.S. was first spoken to you by the first agent you met, in introduction, after hearing you speak the necessary dialogue to prove who you were. You did not know he was even an "agent" of any thing or any kind before he told you. But that agent was dressed in a three-piece suit claiming to be a wealthy philanthropist representing a large group of wealthy philanthropists, who through there own contacts had heard of you and your research, when that secret meeting was set up. You found it hard to believe they knew anything of you and your work since no one did, but you were desperate and wanted desperately to hear what they knew and what they had to say.

 

Though the initials nor full name of the Ministry are ever even spoken except at introductions and rarely between it's own ranks. No plaque or letterhead, no name in a data base, no identification credentials or badges (at least visible to the naked eye), no sign in front of a towering fortress of glass and steel, nothing of the name to be seen in any form, anywhere, ever, even within.

 

Referred to by the truly elite enlightened ranks as 'The Firmament.' A "foundation" of authority outside of and beyond any other known government, organization, military intelligence or secret society, and far, far older and magnitudes more powerful. But with little interest in any of these "earthly oriented" authorities, fleeting as they are compared to The Firmament, which has interests and focus far beyond the petty goals of control over the population of earth and desires of such "authorities." The Firmament's quest for power and knowledge was of a multi-universal scale and had been now for thousands of years. The Firmament was based on earth since the beginning and to this day. Firstly because the founders were human and, in the beginning, Earth-bound. Secondly, because it's all about location, location, location. Earth is an isolated, habitable planet at the outer end of an arm of the rim of the galaxy that is sparsely populated.

 

But once in a while, a very long while, a unique individual among all the mundane of earth's un-enlightened and primitive "civilization" and societies catches their attention. You did...and like no one before. Though at this moment you had no idea that was the case, despite the wonderous gadget you held in your hand. You were only made privy to The Firmament and all your knowledge of it flashing through your mind right now, because if this agent decided, you and your knowledge of them could end here and now, or anytime they wish, so why not tell you as a recruiting enticement?

 

Yet the face you looked at now was not what you expected of an agent from The Firmament, even though you didn't know what to expect, except judging by the first agent, who, if in a different black suit and tie with white shirt with hat and sunglasses, would have looked at home in the movie "Men in Black." but the face of the man before you bore an air of vast intelligence, wisdom and limitless curiosity, hidden behind unusual, round, thick rimmed and lensed eye glasses. Though his presence suggests a man not to be trifled with, as his out-stretched hand beckons to you in the rain to hand him the device. 

 

You have apprehensive second thoughts as you take in the peculiar magnitude of the man before you. You hesitate and think of retreat and escape, not from fear for yourself, but fear of the mechanism and that it will leave your possession, if even momentarily. This is not supposed to be an exchange, giving or relinquishing, but only a show of proof of invention and abilities, before you are escorted to The Firmament by your host agent for ritual acceptance among the ranks and orientation.

 

But they know of you and your device now, and you highly doubt you could ever escape The Firmament now if you wanted too. But what wonders and knowledge await for you? Your life and future is about to change forever, the future of mankind will never be the same with your mechanism and your knowledge behind it in the possession of The Firmament. After what suddenly seems like an eternity of racing thoughts through your head, you focus back on the agent, with his outstretched hand. There was no indication from him that you were keeping him waiting, and your hand suddenly releases the mechanism from your clutches into his gloved hand. You hold your breath.

 

He looks at the device, slowly turning his hand to see all sides of it better, for a mere few seconds, looks back up at you, expressionless, as he reaches his hand holding the device back out toward you, and you hold your hand out, half surprised, as he delicately places it back into your hand. The first words he speaks, his voice monotone, yet seeming unnaturally deep for the face it comes from, are "impressive, quite extraordinarily impressive, I never would have thought...Come, follow me."  He gestures for you to follow and starts walking away from you without looking back. Apparently in total certainty that you will naturally follow him. 

 

You suddenly realize, standing there, drenched and shivering as you slip the mechanism into a your backpack, that it was not through your search that you found them, your search was completely futile. They have known of you all along, or at least since your first successful experiment and what had occurred. They revealed themselves to you in their own time. 

 

If you follow the mysterious figure, turn to page 42. If you run away turn to page 135. If you activate the device turn to page 90. 

AgentOfMASSb2.jpg

Edited by Gunstar
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52 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

Saves you money and desktop space.

I live in a big city I can get an CRT TV easily here for free. Indeed CRT swallows a lot of space. :)
Example how wonderful image CRT gives:
 https://64.media.tumblr.com/8d2cf7adae94fde97d1a8c9cf78a46a2/tumblr_inline_phiwexvGTu1w169t0_500.jpg
Read more here:
https://jerz.setonhill.edu/blog/2018/11/13/todays-computer-displays-distort-pixel-art-designed-for-1980s-crts/

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47 minutes ago, GravityWorm said:

I live in a big city I can get an CRT TV easily here for free. Indeed CRT swallows a lot of space. :)
Example how wonderful image CRT gives:
 https://64.media.tumblr.com/8d2cf7adae94fde97d1a8c9cf78a46a2/tumblr_inline_phiwexvGTu1w169t0_500.jpg
Read more here:
https://jerz.setonhill.edu/blog/2018/11/13/todays-computer-displays-distort-pixel-art-designed-for-1980s-crts/

@GravityWorm Sure, totally agree. If you view some of my images on Altirra without any of the CRT mimicking settings enabled the images isn't nearly as nice, is a lot harsher/blockier. 

 

It's great you can potentially get your hands on an old CRT for your PC, although as you probably know not all CRTs were created equally and you may find you already can get a nice faked CRT image on your modern screen using Altirra. 

 

Case in point this is one of my earlier conversions and is taken from Altirra with various CRT mimicking settings enabled, fake scan lines, etc:

image.thumb.png.2dc740d7961ab704a9f9c730b3432526.png

 

And here is the same image also taken from Altirra with none of the CRT settings, just stock settings:

image.thumb.png.4b589a25fe2a29d23bd27e4067b35f7f.png

 

Another of my earlier conversions with mimicked CRT settings, scanlines, etc in Altirra:

 

image.thumb.png.b7e9e1e8b290ab9cc3a6616950ba8ff9.png

 

and altirra without:

image.thumb.png.7081d791d7f108c93437ac4b43d0f237.png

 

Even without scanlines (and I know not everyone likes them), Altirra's CRT mimicking settings are very effective.

 

TBH these smaller pics can't really convey how blocky it can look on say a 21" or 24" PC screen.

 

EDIT: Incidentally whilst we are on the subject of CRTs .....I've just bought myself one yesterday off Ebay UK. A B&O MX4000 21" CRT! Very excited to see what these images will look like running off my 800 and 800XL/600XL with stock video. My main driver 800XL has UAV rev D in it also so will be interesting to see what images look like on that too. :)

Edited by Beeblebrox
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1 hour ago, Gunstar said:

Here is one image I converted that so intrigued me, I came up with a sort of "short story" for it, done in the first person and as if it was a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book I used to love and collect as a kid, or a graphic text adventure using Rastaconverter images. Unfortunately, I somehow lost or deleted the .xex for it!:x:_( It is a horizontally orient image, so it would have been side-ways on the Atari. It was to be entitled 'Agent of M.A.S.S.'

 

But here is the pic and story at least. Maybe I'll make another attempt on it, but it took me dozens of attempts to get it this good...

 

...

AgentOfMASSb2.jpg

@Gunstar   wow - I can see why you were inspired. You definitely have to have another go at converting it to compliment the story - some great colours and tones in there. :thumbsup:

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30 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

 

image.thumb.png.b7e9e1e8b290ab9cc3a6616950ba8ff9.png

 

This does not look like a CRT to me at all. I don't get it why so many people use those lame scanlines filters. They are not even look near similar to an CRT image. Did people forget how CRT looks?

This is a software CRT emulation that I found, but it's to slow for real time processing:
https://int10h.org/blog/2021/01/simulating-crt-monitors-ffmpeg-pt-1-color/
Examples:

 

 

 

ex2.png

ex1.png

Edited by GravityWorm
pasted one exaple image twice...
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ok, another image gathering virtual dust in a folder until now. Do love a bit of Futurama. Result wasn't too bad - rich colours, some banding and line errors, unfinished areas and some of the browns in the upper part blurred into each other a bit with the bottle. Colours pretty accurate from the source image. Took a lot of tweaking the source image in Irfanview from what I recall.

 

Altirra pallete, Yuv colour dist, 8192 solutions, no dithering

371 million evaluations

73 unique colours

Filename: Beeblebrox_LeelaBender1smincomplete3.xex

Beeblebrox_LeelaBender1smincomplete3.thumb.jpg.f5d89d9d5e5e70487c6ebb0b8686885a.jpg

 

Beeblebrox_LeelaBender1smincomplete3.xex

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10 minutes ago, GravityWorm said:

 

This does not look like a CRT to me at all. I don't get it why so many people use those lame scanlines filters. They are not even look near similar to an CRT image. Did people forget how CRT looks?

This is a software CRT emulation that I found, but it's to slow for real time processing:
https://int10h.org/blog/2021/01/simulating-crt-monitors-ffmpeg-pt-1-color/
Examples:

 

 

 

ex2.png

ex1.png

@GravityWorm Fair do, each to their own.:) I'll take a look at the link you sent, thanks. Yup, Scanlines aren't to everyone's taste. But the Altirra settings available are definitely worth checking out. 

 

When you get your CRT for your PC definitely pop up some photos of images here on this thread - would love to see em.:thumbsup:

 

As mentioned the other day @Philsan kindly took some photos of my images running on his A8 CRT which looked great (link to post):

Beeblebrox_WizardryLady.thumb.jpg.15ed98313786d6ca079744b45387d758.jpg

 

Edited by Beeblebrox
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17 minutes ago, GravityWorm said:

Awesome!

@GravityWorm  thanks.:D

 

It's a really big thing to commit to but I highly recommend looking through past posts on this thread. It's massive being 10 years or so in the making - but I did it back in April starting from post #1 and you can see the journey from the release of Rastconverter, where you get to see 1000s of amazing images and the discussions around them. I learnt a lot doing this. :grin:

Edited by Beeblebrox
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16 hours ago, 55five66six said:

Seems like the average file size is around 22k. Does anyone know the breakdown as far as how much of the filesize is the viewing application vs the converted image? 

 

13 hours ago, Rybags said:

RC generates a kernal that does the colour changes - a fair bit of it is consecutive NOPs so it's not real big on efficiency re saving memory.

Possibly some saving could be had by changing some of them to instructions that use less memory but have the same delay effect.

 

The remainder aside from the screen data, I'd guess probably not much.  Unsure if the display list is hardcoded or programatically generated but that's a few hundred bytes at most.

The display list is hard coded and it's pretty big at around 750 bytes. Rest of the viewer is only about 100 bytes or so.

Making RastaSlide I found compressing the kernel and picture tended to gave a smaller file size than changing to fewer instructions in the kernel and also compressing!

Edited by Sheddy
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14 hours ago, Rybags said:

RC generates a kernal that does the colour changes - a fair bit of it is consecutive NOPs so it's not real big on efficiency re saving memory.

Possibly some saving could be had by changing some of them to instructions that use less memory but have the same delay effect.

 

The remainder aside from the screen data, I'd guess probably not much.  Unsure if the display list is hardcoded or programatically generated but that's a few hundred bytes at most.

If the conversion is run for a good length of time, a good proportion of the screen kernel ends up as redundant instructions (that don't affect the image) rather than NOPs, as can be seen by comparing output.png.opt (in which these redundant instructions are replaced with NOPs) and output.png.rp (which is the current working iteration of the kernel, and the one incorporated in the .xex rather than output.png.opt, although they are functionally identical).

 

The screen bitmap takes up 40 x 240=9600 bytes (for a 'typical' 240 scanline image), player graphics 256 x 4 =1024 bytes, 256 bytes of unused zeroed padding data for missile data, 768 bytes of unused zeroed padding data before the missile graphics, 723 bytes hardcoded for the display list (240 x 3 bytes for LMS instructions, 3 bytes JVB instruction)= total of 12K for graphics data & padding, the rest (~10K) of the .xex is taken up by the screen kernel (average of ~40 bytes of 6502 instructions per scanline).

Edited by drpeter
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1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said:

@Gunstar   wow - I can see why you were inspired. You definitely have to have another go at converting it to compliment the story - some great colours and tones in there. :thumbsup:

I just figured out why the images are giving me false color numbers...a few weeks ago I got a new PC for my office/electronics lab (my old one is in my bedroom), and installed Rastaconverter on it, and apparently for some reason it's default picture save setting is on .jpg save instead of .png...I realized this because I looked at the pic information for the Agent of M.A.S.S. picture and it said thousands of colors too, and that's when I realized how it was saving my image pictures! I'll look into correcting that issue now.

 

I've been spending more time in my office/lab the last couple of months as it's new too. I purchased an old 16' x 8' portable office trailer like construction companies use on job sites and moved all my electronics lab "area" out of my bedroom and into the office/lab trailer I have out by my business shop (I'm a contractor so I have an equipment shop) now, on my property. I saw it for sale for a mere $1000 ( I believe these trailer sell for $10 grand or more new), far less than I'd have spent adding an office/lab onto my shop and far easier than constructing one in my limited free time. And this one though probably a few decades old, is in fantastic condition, with heat/air/electric already installed. I just had to run a new line from my meter/breaker box. So I've been running Rasta conversion out there the last month or so.

Edited by Gunstar
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1 hour ago, drpeter said:

723 bytes hardcoded for the display list (240 x 3 bytes for LMS instructions, 3 bytes JVB instruction)

I have always wondered about why it uses LMS for every line. Sure, it makes it "easier" if every line has exactly the same amount of cycle stealing going on, but it costs you two cycles every scanline that doesn't really need an LMS. You need only three of those lines for a full screen.

 

Part of the late hill climbing algorithm becomes tricky though, because around the mid-screen LMS bad lines, you have two cycles less, so you can't do kernel line swapping there.

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This is a conversion I started mid July and then hadn't run since early August. Around just under a fortnight ago I resumed the conversion from my last saved files. Been running it regularly ever since, (probably 6hrs a day, most days). Dread to think how many hours in total overall since the start.:grin:

It's one of those occasional image conversions that you get slightly obessive about perfecting. I wanted to run for as long as it took to work some of the early issues out and get as much detail as possible.

I am really pleased with it despite a few scattered line errors and imperfections still remaining, mainly in the hair. (I am never gonna work these ones out of the image now with this run). Love the starkness of the colours.

Wished the detail around the face with the slight banding had disappeared. I think it just about gets away with the darker shade to the left of the face too. 

FYI the original image had red eyes and I edited them in the source to have green to have a bit more colour. (Seemed a good idea at the time).:)

 

Jean Grey from X-men

 

Altirra pallette, ceide colour sistance, 10000 solutions, no dithering

1.57 billion evaluations

59 unique colours

Filename: Beeblebrox_JeanGreyMarvel2smincomplete30.xex

Beeblebrox_JeanGreyMarvel2smincomplete30.thumb.jpg.046f4cb58c7537ab3b52f78059cd25e3.jpg

 

Beeblebrox_JeanGreyMarvel2smincomplete30.xex

 

Here is the conversion processing where you can see the source image hair colour was a more intense red, (damn Atari red's strike again):

 

549251014_Jeangrayconversion.thumb.JPG.4072b10c6c295a48d03ace7fd9453996.JPG

 

BTW with all the talk earlier of LCD and CRT displays this is how it looks on my LG Flatron M227WD LCD 21" widescreen monitor running off my trusty ol A800 with an S-video cable - it would definitely look better on a CRT and I'd be interested to see a photo of what it looks like on one. :D

 

Note: This image was a previous progress save, (save number 29), around 2 hours before my final post, (save 30), this eve. (Essentially I couldn't be bothered to take the CF card out of the Incognito board again to pop the final image file as they are virtually identical aside from the line error on the left of the picture in this one, which thankfully almost totally worked itself out in the final).

 

You really notice the hair imperfections on an LCD display. I could also do with tweaking various contrast and saturation setting on this monitor anyway. (Obviously taking a photo on my phone camera this time of night with artificial light doesn't help either).:

 

image.thumb.png.ce1fa275faedc8d5ee34eb58f43dea41.png

 

 

 

Edited by Beeblebrox
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This another image conversion I got slightly obessed with, starting mid July. I ran it till early August. Then I've resumed it from saved files 2 weeks ago and been running off and on ever since.

 

This is as far as I can push this particular conversion - very frustrating as I really wanted certain details to eventually come through, (pig's eyes and snout, beak on the white bird).

Some clear imperfections with some background banding and line errors in the smaller birds and the pig. However the colours - (when viewed on real hardware at least) - are very vibrant.

The red of the main bird is way better on real hardware than Altirra. (Prob to do with the pallette I used in the conversion). I love seeing many vibrant colours on screen at one time.

 

A picture inspired by the Angry Birds game I grabbed off the net. (Now there is a game I'd love to see on the A8  - unfortunately too many real physics computations there for our lil machine's CPU).

 

Atari800winplus pallette, ciede colour dist, 10000 solutions, no dithering

1.18 billion evaluations

78 unique colours

Filename: Beeblebrox_Angrybirdssmincomplete20.xex

Beeblebrox_Angrybirdssmincomplete20.thumb.jpg.bccd098410b3783c10be405da0751691.jpg

 

Beeblebrox_Angrybirdssmincomplete20.xex

 

Here is the live conversion:

 

image.thumb.png.9fa406a23022418ed9b0fb4963211313.png

 

Here it is running on my LG Flatron M227WD LCD 21" widescreen monitor, again running off my A800 with an S-video cable. Again I welcome any CRT shots of this image on your setups. You can definitely see the red is far more accurate than the Altirra image above - and the colours are generally far more vibrant. (And it's not just my phone camera - the colours look way better to the naked eye on real hardware in this instance).

628419980_AngryBirds800.thumb.jpg.5482aeb8c763118b76ff1f8c0ac26df2.jpg

 

Edited by Beeblebrox
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@Beeblebrox, from the palette you used apparently, the bird looks hot pink instead of red. Great colors, if your not trying to match the original. I know that's not possible for most as the stock A8 color palette seems to have terrible reds which are more brown or orange tinged, but it's actually not the palette that is poor, or the GTIA color ability, but the actual video output that does not produce the proper reds it should. I know because I did a video upgrade on my 1200xl which has a chroma saturation burst circuit in it, but of course Atari broke the video output by screwing up that circuit with the rest of the video circuit and then in the end they just completely cut off the chroma out and went with only a composite out, which skips the saturation circuit and just outputs video like all other Atari 8-bits, and of course they just dropped the saturation circuit in future machines. I did the Supervideo 2.1 upgrade which has a unique version that includes the original saturation boost circuit and properly utilizes it by fixing the rest of the video output.

 

The creator, either Bob Wooley or Bob Puff, or maybe I'm thinking of Clearpic and is was a totally different person? It's been years now and I don't recall, I'd have to go back to the upgrade instructions. I always get the Bob's confused, but even that person suggested that others might add this additional circuit to Atari's without it. I am in the middle of a 7800 video upgrade and I am doing just that. But with this circuit working properly on my 1200XL I get true, vibrant reds and the saturation doesn't bleed and blur like just turning up the saturation on the monitor or TV does, but produces much richer color, like you get with RGB or VGA on other computers. There is slight color shadowing with some colors, but it's not over saturation or bleeding and not very noticeable unless you are looking for it.

 

I wish I had my 1200XL working right now, but I don't. I plan to get it working when I have more time this winter. My 800 is also going through upgrades and a transformation that I will share and blog about when I'm done, it has the Sophia 2 in it which I have yet to see, so I don't know yet if it corrects the colors and gives true reds out of the Atari like my 1200XL does, and I haven't tried UAV or other upgrades to see if they produce truer reds either. But if they don't, I think anyone producing future video board upgrades should include the saturation burst circuit from the 1200XL too, it is a world of difference and a simple circuit with 3 transistors at the heart that can easily be added to any machine, even non-Atari machines.

 

It is pure design genius for rich color through composite and S-video, approaching that of RGB and VGA. I've been preaching about it for years now, including in this thread and other video upgrade threads, but few other seem to take notice or agree, and it may be just because most with 1200XL's just chose to go with a different video upgrade like Clearpic from advice unfortunately from non-1200XL owners, as it is better, from what I have seen, than SV 2.1 without the saturation boost. A great improvement in clarity and sharpness, but does not improve the color as it it could, or they chose ready-made video boards. But this saturation circuit should be embraced and used by all; it makes Atari colors that much better, not just the reds.

 

I have 2 1200XL's an 800 and an 800XL. My 800XL and other 1200XL have not yet had their video's upgraded and I think I will do the clearpic upgrade in 800XL, and get a UAV for the other 1200XL (not including the saturation circuit at least at first, don't know if it could even be added properly) and do a video comparing all my machines side-by-side with the 1200XL SV 2.1, Clearpic, UAV and Sophia 2 to show the difference in all four in their color output. The I will add the saturation boost circuit to the Clearpic video and UAV, if it can be compatible, and see how good they look with the circuit compared to the SV 2.1 upgrade side-by-side as well.

Edited by Gunstar
typos and misspellings
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@Gunstar  Thanks for the last post. Hot pink it definitely an accurate description of that colour, least the one displayed on real hardware:

628419980_AngryBirds800.thumb.jpg.5482aeb8c763118b76ff1f8c0ac26df2.jpg

 

 

The one Altirra is displaying which is much duller I'd call a sort of plum type colour :grin:

 

image.png.30b66acac8965ca11821df48217b66c8.png  Beeblebrox_Angrybirdssmincomplete20.thumb.jpg.bccd098410b3783c10be405da0751691.jpg

 

Those are plumbs - honest! 

:rolling:

 

Hope you get your 1200XL up and running. Also look forward to seeing he 800 blog post.

 

I've done various mods on A8s this year, mainly to restore Chroma for S-video on XLs, or attempts to minimise jail bars, jaggies, sharpen the image - mainly for XEs.  Generally been happy with the results. I've been generally impressed with the stock outputs for the 800, 800XL and in particular the 600XL. I agree Atari screwed up big time.

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