Gary from OPA Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 16 minutes ago, visrealm said: @RickyDean Just took a look and it turns out, with the default TMS9918A palette, those two blue lines always have the same value - they're either both high or both low. Blue in palette is always been 1 bit smaller, that trick is used in yjk mode for 9958 to be able to encode more data in smaller number of bits. In fact Japanese old school film for cameras getting processed chemical wise also have less blue compared to other colors. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 14 Author Share Posted August 14 I guess some context for others. Of the initial batch of seven v0.4 boards I hand-built, one was completely dead (no USB). @RickyDean was interested in taking a look at it view a view to possibly fix it, so I sent him the dead board along with a working v0.4 board (since I was sending him the package anyway). I've sent most of the original v0.4 batch out to a few forum members who should be receiving them soon. A couple have arrived already 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 I read that the pico9918 also has 80 columns possibility. I’m using the F18a with 80 columns mode a lot in my Stevie editor (in fact it’s 80x30 or 80x24 with overlayed sprite as cursor and Position based attrbiute color mode. Not sure if that is the correct naming, basically the color table is as large as the screen table so each character can have it’s individual FG/BG color. Is this something that’s possible with the pico9918 as well? When working on the firmware I do have an enhancement request. Really would like to have 80 columns mode with more rows, e.g. 80x48 or 80x60 Thoughts? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 3 minutes ago, retroclouds said: I read that the pico9918 also has 80 columns possibility. I’m using the F18a with 80 columns mode a lot in my Stevie editor (in fact it’s 80x30 or 80x24 with overlayed sprite as cursor and Position based attrbiute color mode. Not sure if that is the correct naming, basically the color table is as large as the screen table so each character can have it’s individual FG/BG color. Is this something that’s possible with the pico9918 as well? When working on the firmware I do have an enhancement request. Really would like to have 80 columns mode with more rows, e.g. 80x48 or 80x60 Thoughts? Not sure if the pico 80 col. Mode can do everything that f18a can do in 80 col. As for more rows I agree as well, if you go with the EGA/VGA standard of text mode, then the settings would be: 80 × 43 or 80 × 50, with an 8 × 8 font grid, with an effective resolution of 640 × 344 or 640 × 400 pixels. I find more than 50 lines do gets a little harder on the eyes to read. All tho.personally I would love to see also a 132 col. Mode that original VT420 terminals used. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 14 Author Share Posted August 14 1 hour ago, retroclouds said: I read that the pico9918 also has 80 columns possibility. I’m using the F18a with 80 columns mode a lot in my Stevie editor (in fact it’s 80x30 or 80x24 with overlayed sprite as cursor and Position based attrbiute color mode. Not sure if that is the correct naming, basically the color table is as large as the screen table so each character can have it’s individual FG/BG color. Is this something that’s possible with the pico9918 as well? When working on the firmware I do have an enhancement request. Really would like to have 80 columns mode with more rows, e.g. 80x48 or 80x60 Thoughts? Currently it can do an 80x24 text mode without sprites, etc. Adding 80x30 text mode and supporting sprites in text modes is certainly doable. Going to more than 30 rows means we can't double scanlines, effectively halving the time we have to render a scanline. Currently, there would be enough headroom to do this for a basic text mode, but possibly not much more than that. I'll get back to working on firmware improvements once I have the first batch of v1.0 boards ready for sale. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 16 Author Share Posted August 16 Typically, my assembled v1.0 boards have made it to ~30Km away from home as we head into the weekend here in Oz. So, in the meantime, since I have a bunch of spare TMS9918A card PCBs for my homebrew HBC-56 and a few spare v0.4 PICO9918's, I decided to build a dedicated PICO9918 board for it. Looks pretty sparse next to the OG TMS9918A card as the PICO9918 doesn't need the VRAM (I use an SRAM circuit for my HBC-56) and its supporting hardware, nor does it need the crystal and the component video output hardware. Note: The top silkscreen on the v0.4 PICO9918 PCBs is upside-down compared to what you might expect. That's been rectified for the v1.0 boards. My plan is to use the HBC-56 as an initial testbed for the V9938/V9958 development since I'm much more familiar with 6502 assembly and my HBC-56 toolchain than I am TMS9900. The HBC-56 currently has a 65C02 CPU card. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonACT Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 (edited) 55 minutes ago, visrealm said: Typically, my assembled v1.0 boards have made it to ~30Km away from home as we head into the weekend here in Oz. Yeah, everything I order online goes to Sydney first, always "CHULLORA NSW" doesn't matter how close it is (you would think, except if it's already in the ACT, but even some of those go to Sydney first). It's like Australia Post don't know that ACT actually stands for Australia's Capital City (Territory). Nope - that's Sydney to them, maybe Melbourne, but I've had some items go to Brisbane too. Idiots. Edited August 16 by JasonACT 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbmeeks Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 1 hour ago, JasonACT said: Yeah, everything I order online goes to Sydney first, always "CHULLORA NSW" doesn't matter how close it is (you would think, except if it's already in the ACT, but even some of those go to Sydney first). It's like Australia Post don't know that ACT actually stands for Australia's Capital City (Territory). Nope - that's Sydney to them, maybe Melbourne, but I've had some items go to Brisbane too. Idiots. Sorry to go OT, but on a side note, I saw a documentary on FedEx years ago. They were in a large office building in Chicago (or maybe NYC, some big city). They then took a small package on floor 20 (or whatever) and over-nighted it to floor 19. Literally one floor away. The package still went to Memphis and back to the same place it left only one floor away. While it would have saved gas for someone to walk it down, FedEx claimed that by not deviating from their system, it's more economical to go through the whole process. So yes, they lost money on that one delivery. But if they took their drivers and had them walk things around, they would loose even more money. Anyway, I found it interesting. 🙂 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonACT Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 I agree, it's interesting, unless you happen to live in the black spot. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artoj Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 Thank You Troy, my birthday was Monday and this was a fantastic gift!! I received the PICO9918 today, I pulled out one of my TI99/4A's that haven't been turned on for over 25 years, opened it up, pulled out the VDP and plugged in the PICO9918. I had received another VGA monitor 3 days previously and another VGA lead yesterday, I plugged it all together and BINGO!! it booted up first go and with hands shaking with excitement I grabbed the nearest cartridge plugged it in and BLASTO!!! it looks great, better than I ever remember!!! I am now cooking with gas, the next is to push the sound from the Video port into a amplifier board I will design. Regards Arto. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 16 Author Share Posted August 16 Nice one, @Artoj. Looks great! 😎 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 does look great. I going to be testing my soon in my /QI console, which is currently setup on the original 10" CRT TI monitor, I don't use it much because not sure how long that old 10" CRT will keep working, so it will be nice to switch it up to VGA monitor. I also need to find another VGA monitor, as I used all the ones I have currently for my other ti99 systems, one running on f18a and the other on v9938 system. Looking forward to seeing @visrealm do some v9938/58 coding for the pico, when you ready to do tests on the ti99, take a look at my thread were I released my v9938/58 graphics demo, it tests alot of the unique special 9938 commands for drawing objects, lines, scrolling, blinking, etc. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickyDean Posted August 16 Share Posted August 16 7 hours ago, Artoj said: Thank You Troy, my birthday was Monday and this was a fantastic gift!! I received the PICO9918 today, I pulled out one of my TI99/4A's that haven't been turned on for over 25 years, opened it up, pulled out the VDP and plugged in the PICO9918. I had received another VGA monitor 3 days previously and another VGA lead yesterday, I plugged it all together and BINGO!! it booted up first go and with hands shaking with excitement I grabbed the nearest cartridge plugged it in and BLASTO!!! it looks great, better than I ever remember!!! I am now cooking with gas, the next is to push the sound from the Video port into a amplifier board I will design. Regards Arto. Awesome, Happy Birthday!! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 17 Author Share Posted August 17 9 hours ago, Gary from OPA said: Looking forward to seeing @visrealm do some v9938/58 coding for the pico, when you ready to do tests on the ti99, take a look at my thread were I released my v9938/58 graphics demo, it tests alot of the unique special 9938 commands for drawing objects, lines, scrolling, blinking, etc. So, you had M1 connected to A13? Is that right? I'm curious how you wired this up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted August 17 Share Posted August 17 19 minutes ago, visrealm said: So, you had M1 connected to A13? Is that right? I'm curious how you wired this up. Currently, I using the dijit/avpc card in the PEB. But you are right with my original TIM that went inside the console replacing the tms9918 with a v9958 along 192k of dram and a 74f90 chip to produce the missing gromclk signal, the M1 line went to A13 on the motherboard the only external wire you need to add, as you can see in my original TIM manual. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 17 Author Share Posted August 17 17 hours ago, visrealm said: Note: The top silkscreen on the v0.4 PICO9918 PCBs is upside-down compared to what you might expect. That's been rectified for the v1.0 boards. Obviously, the v0.4 boards will be worth a fortune one day, since there are only 9 of them and they're printed upside down like those rare postage stamps. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 2 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 19 Author Share Posted August 19 (edited) They have arrived! The partially assembled PICO9918 v1.0 boards are here: Of course, I had to complete one to try them out: Success! The first v1.0 board works perfectly Now, it will take some time for me to complete the assembly of all 50 boards and their VGA dongles, but once I do (or more likely before all 50 are done), I'll put them up on my Tindie store. I'll also work something out with @arcadeshopper to make some available there. Edited August 19 by visrealm 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted August 19 Share Posted August 19 3 minutes ago, visrealm said: Looks amazing.... 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GDMike Posted August 19 Share Posted August 19 I'll need a couple 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted August 19 Share Posted August 19 The Pico9918 arrived today... Need to get another affordable used VGA Monitor, before I install it in my 3rd system, which will be my /QI console, which currently, is using an original TI99 10" CRT monitor, as my other two systems, are already upgraded, one with the F18A and the other with Dijit/AVPC v9938 PEB card. Looking forward to soon, installing it and trying it out. Wonderful packaging by the way, nice and professional with labels and color docs! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbmeeks Posted August 19 Share Posted August 19 I'm still working on building the v.3 but when they are local to the US, I would like to get a couple for sure. Any idea what they will cost partially assembled? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 20 Author Share Posted August 20 1 hour ago, cbmeeks said: Any idea what they will cost partially assembled? Not sure I'll sell them partially assembled. But, aiming for in the $30's fully assembled with VGA dongle. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbmeeks Posted August 20 Share Posted August 20 Very reasonable! I love my F18A but it's great having another option that is affordable. I assume you heard about the new Pico2? RP2350 I think. More of the same but twice the RAM and another PIO channel. Oh, and more GPIO!!! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary from OPA Posted August 20 Share Posted August 20 1 minute ago, cbmeeks said: Very reasonable! I love my F18A but it's great having another option that is affordable. I assume you heard about the new Pico2? RP2350 I think. More of the same but twice the RAM and another PIO channel. Oh, and more GPIO!!! Pico 2 is looking good for future projects, we can discuss it in the thread: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visrealm Posted August 20 Author Share Posted August 20 Yep. I've pre-ordered a couple of Pico 2's to play around with them. Shame they don't expose any extra GPIOs, but still... Check out this thread: 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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