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Altirra 2.60 released


phaeron

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Yes if I load a non modified Atari XL rom then the PMGs are normal and no lines on screen, but this is just with the border color being the same as the background color. And even with a normal rom if I change the border color with a poke then the PMG lines come back.

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Yes if I load a non modified Atari XL rom then the PMGs are normal and no lines on screen, but this is just with the border color being the same as the background color. And even with a normal rom if I change the border color with a poke then the PMG lines come back.

I can duplicate the issue, but only when extending Altirra's overscan to "full" (or "extended", as per your screenshots), which exposes the area normally not visible on a real display. I guess you have wide borders on your real hardware display.

 

AltBASIC writes $22 to the PMG position registers when clearing them; the accumulator is presumably meant to contain 0, but $22 is left over from setting SDMCTL.

Edited by flashjazzcat
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Well,

 

 

Altirra Basic 1.43 now offers some P/M commands... thanks to its speed and enhancements, for me it is the best Basic to use now. I am currently replacing most Atari Basic games with Altirra Basic, many games are therefore initializing and executing much faster which make them much more playable and enjoyable (I even have to slow down some games). There is really no need for a Tiny Basic, when you have Altirra Basic available... ;-)

 

Besides, there was a (german) Basic that included lots of P/M commands and enhancements - Hypra Basic. But it was slow, occupied 16k RAM ($8000-BFFF) and everyone just prefered TB XL (which arrived in 1985, whereas Hypra-Basic arrived in late 1989)... take a look here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/239241-hypra-basic/

Edited by CharlieChaplin
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Well,

 

 

Altirra Basic 1.43 now offers some P/M commands... thanks to its speed and enhancements, for me it is the best Basic to use now. I am currently replacing most Atari Basic games with Altirra Basic, many games are therefore initializing and executing much faster which make them much more playable and enjoyable (I even have to slow down some games). There is really no need for a Tiny Basic, when you have Altirra Basic available... ;-)

 

Besides, there was a (german) Basic that included lots of P/M commands and enhancements - Hypra Basic. But it was slow, occupied 16k RAM ($8000-BFFF) and everyone just prefered TB XL (which arrived in 1985, whereas Hypra-Basic arrived in late 1989)... take a look here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/239241-hypra-basic/

 

Yeah, its incredibly cool how far Phaeron is taking his implementation of BASIC. I really like the new P/MG commands and may do as you have yourself - rewrite some existing listings to run with them. I intend to do the same with ASM once I get around to it. One day...!!!

 

Turbo BASIC always fascinated me and was very popular in the 'Page 6' magazine. They had a dedicated section for quite a while, with demo and tutorials written in it. When I had the magazines at first though I did not have easy access to the disks.

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I can duplicate the issue, but only when extending Altirra's overscan to "full" (or "extended", as per your screenshots), which exposes the area normally not visible on a real display. I guess you have wide borders on your real hardware display.

 

AltBASIC writes $22 to the PMG position registers when clearing them; the accumulator is presumably meant to contain 0, but $22 is left over from setting SDMCTL.

Yes if I uncheck view extended to normal I don't get the lines on the screen anymore..

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.

If anyone's bored and has a 65C816-based system (not just a Veronica cartridge), I'd appreciate a test on real hardware. In emulation, MultiBASIC 0.35 is not evaluating some expressions properly involving the OR operator. I discovered this when testing ENEMY.BAS, but it breaks some pretty simple cases:

Ready
S=1

Ready
PRINT S
1

Ready
PRINT S=3
0

Ready
PRINT S=3 OR S=3
1

Originally I thought this was an emulation issue, but it looks like this is happening due to an error in MultiBASIC's precedence tables. Unfortunately, I don't have a real system that can run MultiBASIC to double-check.

 

 

I indeed found a typo in the operator precedence table. I believe it is fixed now. The fixed version (0.36) is now available at my website, http://drac030.krap.pl

 

There is also a new version of the 65C816 OS available at the same place, if anyone uses it, I would recommend upgrade.

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  • Altirra BASIC updated to 1.43. Added several P/M graphics commands from OSS Basic XL: PMGRAPHICS, PMMOVE, PMCLR, PMADR(), MISSILE, and BUMP(). My estimate of 300 bytes for P/M graphics turned out to be way too low -- it took ~420 to get to this point, and I still don't have room for PMCOLOR or PMWIDTH.

 

Thank you very much Avery!

I made some tests and great results can be achieved!

Sprites movement is fast, both horizontally and vertically.

The only limitation is with multicolor sprites; the sprites are drawn in different moments so perfect overlap during movement is not possible.

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Look for S_VBXE.SYS on the SDX Toolkit disk (available from the SDX download site: http://sdx.atari8.info/index.php). In conjunction with the CON.SYS driver, this will give you a hardware 80 column display in DOS and any other programs which support the driver API (such as APT FDISK).

 

Ahhh... Many thanks as ever FJC!!!

 

Is there a version of 'ED' that supports 80-comlumn display? After installing the 'DEVICE D3:\DRIVERS\S_VBXE' driver and following it with 'DEVICE d3:\DRIVERS\CON /E' the new size display starts up, but then entering 'ED' does not bring up the editor and I imagine it is because it does not work with 80 columns.

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Ahhh... Many thanks as ever FJC!!!

 

Is there a version of 'ED' that supports 80-comlumn display? After installing the 'DEVICE D3:\DRIVERS\S_VBXE' driver and following it with 'DEVICE d3:\DRIVERS\CON /E' the new size display starts up, but then entering 'ED' does not bring up the editor and I imagine it is because it does not work with 80 columns.

 

Unfortunately, Ed does not work in 80 column mode, only 40. Eddy, the disk editor and FDISK do use it though. Furthermore, the highly useful SC (Sparta Commander) is an 80 column (only) program, and looks best with VBXE (vs. software GR8 80 column).

 

Don't despair about ED though, FJC's Last Word word processor (latest version) works great in VBXE 80-col.

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Unfortunately, Ed does not work in 80 column mode, only 40. Eddy, the disk editor and FDISK do use it though. Furthermore, the highly useful SC (Sparta Commander) is an 80 column (only) program, and looks best with VBXE (vs. software GR8 80 column).

 

Don't despair about ED though, FJC's Last Word word processor (latest version) works great in VBXE 80-col.

 

Excellent! I thought it might be a bit over-specified for just doing text-editing, but I will give it a spin and see.

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I thought it might be a bit over-specified for just doing text-editing...

That seems heavy with irony, given that this is an 8-bit computer. :) But of course there are smaller editors around: unfortunately not one of them yet works in VBXE 80 column mode.

 

Note that TLW doesn't actually require the S_VBXE driver to be installed. It carries its own (optional) VBXE driver.

Edited by flashjazzcat
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That seems heavy with irony, given that this is an 8-bit computer. :) But of course there are smaller editors around: unfortunately not one of them yet works in VBXE 80 column mode.

 

Well... When you put it that way...!!! ;)

 

Update: And it is a very nice editor indeed. As you say, within the capabilities of the system this provides an excellent unformatted text display. It is certainly for Atari what EditPad Pro is for Windows.

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As with the 'Memory Config' menu item, when "Ultimate1MB" hardware is chosen both the "FIrmware->Operating System" and "Firmware->BASIC" options should be greyed out.

 

Also - potential bug? I enable the VBXE, load "S_VBXE.SYS" and "CON.SYS". SDX starts properly. I then type 'BASIC' to drop down in to a BASIC session. If I then press 'System Reset' the simulation ceases to respond the Altirra error dialogue opens. If I choose 'Warm Reset' the error dialogue again appears after a short pause. If I use 'Reset' the system reboots and enters SDX again properly.

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My current menu solution can't gray out submenus. Need to work on that.

 

The S_VBXE.SYS + CON.SYS reset issue might be a software problem -- looks like CON.SYS is trying to make a system call or something from the extended bank and is getting itself banked out.

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My current menu solution can't gray out submenus. Need to work on that.

 

The S_VBXE.SYS + CON.SYS reset issue might be a software problem -- looks like CON.SYS is trying to make a system call or something from the extended bank and is getting itself banked out.

 

No worries Phaeron! I just thought I would mention it as I am not sure what would happen if you changed one of these values in the Altirra menus and then altered the corresponding setting in the "Ultimate1MB" setup menu.

 

This should have been fixed as of 23 May (Toolkit rev. B contains the fixed s_vbxe driver).

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/234933-sparta-dos-447/?p=3242936

 

Ahh... I think I got the driver from the toolkit I downloaded back in march when the v4.47 version came out - or at least when I noticed a new version was out! I will grab the newest one and see if that sorts out the problem.

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