XEP80 working! Now what?

[gozar]

I finally got a monitor that works well with my XEP80:

 

Now what? I have Atariwriter80, but I'm looking for software that will run under SDX. I found vt850b1 for a terminal editor, but can't quite get it to work. I would love to be able to telnet to my Linux box and find a decent text editor that works with it.

 

[Caterpiggle]

Congregation. It does not do much with software. It has about 5 software that works for XEP80. I do have it here. I am afraid you will need to ask someone with your specific issue such network support on XEP80.

[Fox-1 / mnx]

 

Now what? I have Atariwriter80, but I'm looking for software that will run under SDX. I found vt850b1 for a terminal editor, but can't quite get it to work. I would love to be able to telnet to my Linux box and find a decent text editor that works with it.

 

http://mixinc.net/atari/download_a8/datacom.htm

 

Bobterm v1.23 is what you want.

[Stormtrooper of Death]

I also had a XEP-80 in the 80s. Did you know that the XEP-80 also can display graphics (640x200) resolution ? An old friend of me John Beerens (from Eindhoven) spend some time experimenting with the XEP-80 and he discovered some nice tricks. I also tried some. It was not very easy to get the most of this card.

[Mathy]

Hello Richard

 

The chip inside the XEP80 will do 640 x 480 IIRC, plus as many colors as you want, in 16 bit. Unfortunately, Atari screwed up when they designed the XEP80, so getting the XEP80 to show what its main chip is capable of, will not be easy, maybe even impossible (without a major hardware upgrade). You can find the data sheet of this chip, the NS405 on my special stuff page.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[+Larry]

"I finally got a monitor that works well with my XEP80:"

 

I was so underwhelmed when I got one. Can you get 80 full columns and (at least) 24 lines? There really should be space for a 25th line for "special use," IIRC. (I see your text says "doesn't cut off lines.)

 

Most monitors cannot display more than about 77 or 78 columns and 23 lines. Makes AW80 difficult to use. There was also Silent Butler 80, and Turbo Word or Turbo Base that supported it. And it can't be changed without at least re-writing the rom (I've been told).

 

So there you go. Now put it in the garage or basement where it belongs...

 

-Larry

[Goochman]

I got the XEP80 when it came out hoping for more..........eventually though I got AW+ and my future wife used it in College to write alot of her papers.

[gozar]

"I finally got a monitor that works well with my XEP80:"

 

I was so underwhelmed when I got one. Can you get 80 full columns and (at least) 24 lines? There really should be space for a 25th line for "special use," IIRC. (I see your text says "doesn't cut off lines.)

 

Most monitors cannot display more than about 77 or 78 columns and 23 lines. Makes AW80 difficult to use. There was also Silent Butler 80, and Turbo Word or Turbo Base that supported it. And it can't be changed without at least re-writing the rom (I've been told).

 

So there you go. Now put it in the garage or basement where it belongs...

 

-Larry

 

The green monochrome monitor shows all the columns and all the lines. The monitor may look ancient but it does the job. It was the first one I've found that shows everything.

[doctorclu]

 

The chip inside the XEP80 will do 640 x 480 IIRC, plus as many colors as you want, in 16 bit. Unfortunately, Atari screwed up when they designed the XEP80, so getting the XEP80 to show what its main chip is capable of, will not be easy, maybe even impossible (without a major hardware upgrade). You can find the data sheet of this chip, the NS405 on my special stuff page.

 

This should be interesting, I'll check that out.

 

So has anyone tried to write software for this? I was curious how this communicates through the joystick port? What I really want to do is see if I can write machine on another non-Atari system and use this for display. So would be curious to see examples of code that people know of, and tips on how to program for the XEP80.

[_The Doctor__]

I remember there was a driver for Bobterm, it allowed dual output Menu on one screen terminal on the other, there were some graphics demos, and drivers for spartados, nice to pull up a screen and read it, while still doing other things in Dos, following a read.me instructing you what to do in sparta as you do it. read.me on xep and sparta cp on standard atari monitor...My first hydra... the XEP also worked as a printer port. It was super slow but someone made a faster driver for it.. surprisingly it was very fast with the new driver.. now for the silly part faster driver was for pal land you had to adjust the crap out of vertical height on the xep's monitor to fit the full screen.... really want the driver fixed for ntsc but it never happened... The color information mathy posted was the beginnings of the color mod... sadly never finished. With some of the wizards on AtariAge these days, It probably would be childs play for them to fix it up. I sent the signal via super vhs luma chroma cord at that time way back when to a NEC monitor... I could never handle the moir pattern the dot pitch of commode door monitor everyone was using back then....

 

Double fumble-flag on the play!

Driver and the circuit are both correctable. The driver was mostly fixed. Have at it you wizards of the AtariAge electronic alchemy!

Edited November 7, 2014 by _The Doctor__

[_The Doctor__]

Deleted split double post...

Edited November 7, 2014 by _The Doctor__

[doctorclu]

That is all cool. So what I'm curious is what does the Atari joystick port have that allows it to communicate with the XEP80 and other serial devices, albiet, slowly? And how does that transaction work? Would be curious to see a part of the code where that exchange takes place.

[ricortes]

The joystick ports are implemented with a 6520 PIA chip. They actually aren't slow naturally, Atari had to hang some stuff on them to prevent RFI which reduces their bandwidth. The outputs actually respond to R/W as fast as the system DRAM.

 

I once wrote a transfer via the J/S program for the 8 bit. I only amped it up to 19 k Baud as that was all the IBM and ST of the day could handle in their capture buffer in capture mode. At least for the early Corvus HD, the J/S ports were used to interface to the drive.

 

IIRC: The code for the XEP80 handler was either released or disassembled and fixed. Should be around the net somewhere along with other examples of bit banging.

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

 

You really should read up on the XEP80 stuff on my special stuff page. Look at the three files on the top (when you use the link <--. It will get you straight to the relevant stuff) and the stuff in the "Some XEP80 stuff" section right below that paragraph.

 

The NS405 supports the features I mentioned above. That does neither mean the XEP80 does nor that the XEP80 can support those features. You'd have to do a major redesign on the XEP80's motherboard to get to do all the stuff the NS405 could do.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

Edit: Which does not mean, BTW, that the XEP80 is a slow device. It's not. What makes it slow is the software/the drivers. But as I said, read the files by Erhard and you'll know.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Mathy

[+David_P]

Somewhere I have an XEP driver that supports graphics with PLOT, DRAWTO etc, instead of the stock Atari driver that only supports sending bitmapped images to the screen.

[doctorclu]

Now that would be some interesting code to see. What language was that driver written in?

[_The Doctor__]

Mathy has some good info posted... let the hackings begin!

[Joey Z]

The joystick ports are implemented with a 6520 PIA chip. They actually aren't slow naturally, Atari had to hang some stuff on them to prevent RFI which reduces their bandwidth. The outputs actually respond to R/W as fast as the system DRAM.

I'm not so sure it's for RFI, I think it's more likely that the low pass RC filtering is a form of hardware debounce, considering they were made for mechanical switch inputs.

[_The Doctor__]

with the consideration of the 9 pin ports having the filtration, mabybe it could be fine tooned and fused and put to real use, I did not realise how useful the ports could be, should be, and in reality... really are!