rietveld Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 I am using Thom's NETCAT to read today's news in a perfect 80 col display mode on my Coleco Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 Was Netcat80 updated to specifically take advantage of the F18a 9938 VDP? As far as I have seen, it hasn't been and Netcat80 uses a smaller font to achieve 80 column output all by itself and the F18a's VGA output makes the text crisp and clear whereas one would normally be using the ADAM's composite video output which I have found to be hard on the eyes unless a larger display is used... at least 26". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_gw454 Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 On 10/19/2022 at 6:50 PM, NIAD said: Was Netcat80 updated to specifically take advantage of the F18a 9938 VDP? As far as I have seen, it hasn't been and Netcat80 uses a smaller font to achieve 80 column output all by itself and the F18a's VGA output makes the text crisp and clear whereas one would normally be using the ADAM's composite video output which I have found to be hard on the eyes unless a larger display is used... at least 26". I don't believe this program was updated to take advantage of the F18a. As you mentioned, it's just taking advantage of the very clear picture to be able to read the 80 column font used in netcat80. It would be nice to see some programs like this (or even CP/M) take advantage of the F18a's native 80 column capability. I am looking into a few things myself. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jltursan Posted October 25, 2022 Share Posted October 25, 2022 This is not even 80 columns, it's the standard 4 pixels wide font that allows to squeeze 64 columns from the standard TMS resolution 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted October 25, 2022 Share Posted October 25, 2022 5 hours ago, jltursan said: This is not even 80 columns, it's the standard 4 pixels wide font that allows to squeeze 64 columns from the standard TMS resolution 🙂 Indeed, it looks like Netcat64. Thom created 3 versions of it… 40, 64 and 80. However, none of them access/use the 80 column mode of the F18a’s 9938 VDP. One of the main reasons that I did not install the F18a in my ADAM is that I figured there would never be any software written specifically to take advantage of the 9938’s abilities. Having VGA video output and 32 sprite per row without flicker just wasn’t enough of an incentive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jltursan Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 Is the F18A properly emulated in any of the Coleco emus out there?, not having a good emulation is always an obstacle to easier developing... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted October 26, 2022 Share Posted October 26, 2022 (edited) 6 hours ago, jltursan said: Is the F18A properly emulated in any of the Coleco emus out there?, not having a good emulation is always an obstacle to easier developing... I don’t recall if any of the available emulators do, but personal dev versions of emus that some programmers use emulate the F18a. The CollectorVision Phoenix supports it. Edited October 26, 2022 by NIAD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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