gilsaluki Posted May 30, 2020 Share Posted May 30, 2020 Nice Saturday to draw. 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kogden Posted May 31, 2020 Share Posted May 31, 2020 I love lightpens. Wish it was easier to make them a bit more accurate. Light pens are the primary reason I keep using CRT monitors with my 8-bits. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickJock Posted May 31, 2020 Share Posted May 31, 2020 How accurate are the official Atari lightpens? I built a couple back in 1984, but they were never very accurate. I wrote a simple drawing program to draw in high res with a bright white screen & black dots. IIRC, it worked pretty well in the Y axis, but I would get quite a bit of scatter in the x axis. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted May 31, 2020 Author Share Posted May 31, 2020 Some of the accuracy comes from getting the CRT adjusted correctly (brightness). Atarigraphics is good to use because it has various widths of line drawing. I frequently use the most coarse mode for smear effect. I prefer it over the touch tablet, uses a matrix, and that cursor jumps all over the place. Atari Lightpens are not nearly as precise as commercial-grade ones, but they were cheap (even back in the day). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickJock Posted May 31, 2020 Share Posted May 31, 2020 I probably built mine based on some magazine article. IIRC, it was just a phototransistor and a resistor. The first one I built into a small AA or AAA penlight case. I think that this is what the article had done. For the second one, I actually built it into a pen. I think that I was figuring that the smaller diameter body and smaller aperture would give me better accuracy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted May 31, 2020 Author Share Posted May 31, 2020 Yeah, lightpens are technologically very simple devices. Having the actual Atari one is good because the program can be used without the Keyboard, has a switch built into its tip to start/stop drawing functions or to set a shape in place (square, trapezoid, circle). Keyboard is really only needed when you want the TABS to disappear/reappear on screen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tabar Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 had this in the 80's early 90's. ran over light pen with desk chair. recently replaced pen cant find cartridge. posted in wanted, wondering if anyone has a cart for sale/trade? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted June 19, 2020 Author Share Posted June 19, 2020 On 6/18/2020 at 12:44 AM, tabar said: had this in the 80's early 90's. ran over light pen with desk chair. recently replaced pen cant find cartridge. posted in wanted, wondering if anyone has a cart for sale/trade? I know Atarimania has the cart image. It works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tabar Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 I don't have a way of using a rom on real hardware, i do have sio2usb from Atarimax but i dont think it does roms. is there an ATR of it? autorun or DOS load? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kogden Posted June 20, 2020 Share Posted June 20, 2020 23 hours ago, tabar said: I don't have a way of using a rom on real hardware, i do have sio2usb from Atarimax but i dont think it does roms. is there an ATR of it? autorun or DOS load? I believe there are some other graphics apps with lightpen support that can be run from disk. Rambrandt or Blazing Paddles maybe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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