Joey Z Posted May 4, 2014 Share Posted May 4, 2014 Sometime last year, I realized what great potential the VBXE has for BBS'ers. Having a full 256 character font, 80 columns, and the potential to support 8 background and 16 foreground colors means it could be used for a full ANSI/ECMA-48 terminal emulator. Right now, I have a demo program which does 80 column 16 color text on VBXE, with an IBMPC font (lots of ANSI BBS'es assumed this font for the extended graphics characters), interprets ASCII control codes (otherwise known as the C0 control character set as defined by the ECMA) and I just got scrolling done yesterday. It reads from a file right now, rather than an R: device. So I have zipped up the files with the source (don't copy without crediting me please) and put them here for people to see. ANSIVBXETERM.zip 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted May 4, 2014 Share Posted May 4, 2014 NOW I Suddenly want the XBXE and somehow make it work with my incogneto. Can you supply pictures of this in action? Show some screen shots of the Prison Board if you don't mind at telnet://rdfig.net Truly great news! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
venom4728a Posted May 5, 2014 Share Posted May 5, 2014 This is going to be awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted September 14, 2014 Author Share Posted September 14, 2014 I've done some more work. The terminal now reads from R1: at 9600 baud. It also accepts keyboard input. The extent of the testing I've done with it is to run it in altirra and log in to irc.atarinet.com (port 400) which is a pure ASCII text gateway to the ##Atari IRC channel on the Freenode IRC network. Attached is an ATR, the program to run is ANSIVBXE.XEX VBXETERM.atr 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 So, anyone get a VBXE to work in a beige 800 yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 So, anyone get a VBXE to work in a beige 800 yet? Clu - I just got a plasma cutter. I bet I get to be first 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted September 14, 2014 Author Share Posted September 14, 2014 (edited) Since I don't yet have ANSI support, there aren't too many pages that look right, but here are a couple screenshots from the prison board BBS for doctorclu. EDIT: forgot VBXE screen shot scaling was weird, but you get the idea (640x192 is a pretty odd ratio) Edited September 14, 2014 by Joey Z 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 (edited) Joey: enable interlace in Altirra and the screengrabs will come out right. EDIT: took the liberty. Looks great. Edited September 14, 2014 by flashjazzcat 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 Changes: improved keyboard input (no more dropped keypresses as far as I can tell) improved reception of characters: Before, I was calling CIO twice for each character, first to check if there were any characters ready to be read, and the next to get just one character. This was only ever intended to be temporary. Now, I check if there are characters, and read a whole buffer (up to 255) and thus reduce the time used in CIO calls. It's MUCH faster now. Running in altirra, I get over 70kbaud (took 4.88 seconds for 35K to scroll by). That was just purely normal characters though, I can't say what would happen if some of those were control characters, and what it'll be like when I finally add support for ANSI escape sequences. VBXETERM.atr 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 So, anyone get a VBXE to work in a beige 800 yet? That's what I want, as a companion for my Incognito. A VBXE/Rapidus combo CPU card would be AWESOME:) But, I don't expect miracles. Just an easy way, probably using a ribbon cable, and put the VBXE somewhere in the empty space inside the 800's case. Run the cable out the back where the RF cable was, to avoid cutting holes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 I'm just glad this is still being played with. Looks good overall! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted March 24, 2015 Author Share Posted March 24, 2015 (edited) New features: FULL COLOR SUPPORT!! yep, finally got that implemented... It's not only the first ANSI/ECMA 48 control sequence I've implemented, it's also the only one. VBXETERM.atr Edited March 24, 2015 by Joey Z 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 This looks awesome and the 8bit BBS crowd has deserved it for a very long time. Huzzah! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 That video shows almost flawless ANSI terminal emulation. Now I have two dilemas: 1) Get the Incogneto where I can use serial connections for an extended period of time without flaking out. (Part of the reason I don't use the Incogneto for BBSing) 2) Get the VBXE to work with the Incogneto. But it is nice to see that the 8 bit Atari has good color ANSI option now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted March 25, 2015 Author Share Posted March 25, 2015 so I just found a major bug thanks to gozar. There was a line in the source: lda 0. It was supposed to be lda #0. This prevented the program from working on most OS'es, this has probably been a problem for quite some time. Anyway, it's fixed now, so here's the latest ATR. VBXETERM.atr 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Another interesting idea ... PETASCII emulation, for calling those old Commodore 64 BBSes ... always wanted my Atari to be able to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 PETASCII!!! That would rock! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 update: rearranged the memory map a bit and got everything to run in 16K only. Probably better this way anyway. VBXETERM.atr 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoSch Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Would it be possible to separate the ANSI character stuff as a library? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 update: rearranged the memory map a bit and got everything to run in 16K only. Probably better this way anyway. I got a chuckle from this. I wondered who might take the time to install a VBXE yet leave the machine at 16K. However, congrats and thanks for all your successes with VBXETERM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 (edited) Thanks to a8isa1 for continually complaining and finding a bug But seriously though, thanks for pushing me about the differences you saw between linux telnet and my terminal on DarkForce BBS. I did uncover a bug in the code for the color interpretation routines. I had a slightly misplaced label one line down from where it should have been, causing 1 digit parameters in a Set Graphics Rendition control sequence to partially combine with any previous parameters and fail miserably. For example, a control sequence like (esc)[33;1;44m (set foreground color to yellow, bold/high intensity foreground, background to blue) was being interpreted as if it were 33;31;44, set foreground to yellow, set foreground to red, set background to blue. So here's the latest revision. And if anyone else finds anything amiss in any way, let me know, it's probably a bug or a feature that hasn't been added yet (or even a feature I didn't think to add, but might consider). I'll take constructive criticism (I'll probably need it for the software to be successful). VBXETERM.atr Edited March 27, 2015 by Joey Z Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 Would it be possible to separate the ANSI character stuff as a library? In what way? You mean to use in a different program? Possibly, but don't count on my doing it for you. Eventually I'll put up all the source, once I figure out how I want to do licensing. Keep in mind, it's all assembly code, so it could turn out to be more implementation specific than you thought and not be very useful as a separate module. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+S.D.W. Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Does this support smooth scrolling? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoSch Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 In what way? You mean to use in a different program? Possibly, but don't count on my doing it for you. Eventually I'll put up all the source, once I figure out how I want to do licensing. Keep in mind, it's all assembly code, so it could turn out to be more implementation specific than you thought and not be very useful as a separate module. Yes, that's what I meant. And your answer is what I feared So, I have to look at it, when you release the code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Z Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 Does this support smooth scrolling? not yet, I'm more concerned with getting it to work properly than making it look nice right now. I've taken another break from work on it (except fixing any bugs that are found) since I'm back at University now and I have other work to do. But I'll consider adding it later for sure, if it doesn't prove to be a speed detriment (and if it does, then I'll probably just have a way to turn it off). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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