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Messages - gsteemso
1
« on: March 23, 2013, 04:56 PM »
Sounds to me like you just need a ZoomFloppy. It gets its name from the similar XUM-1541 cable, or so I am given to understand, and by all accounts is a much less finicky solution. I don't own one myself but I've never heard anything bad about them.
2
« on: January 24, 2013, 02:04 PM »
I'm glad I use the easier 1581 Toolkit program when I have to make partitions on a 1581 disk. [size=78%]Sounds great. Where can you find it? Will it run on a 128 in 128 mode? Given where this discussion is taking place I'd imagine so, but so much Commodore-related stuff is C64-specific that I am a bit leery of just assuming.[/size]
3
« on: November 15, 2012, 01:55 PM »
component / Svideo 80 column adapter made by MyTec (makers of Rear Admiral and ThunderDrive). … Colors are true, text is clear. He (Admiral Decker) sells them for $119 for anyone interested. It's the whole kit and kaboodle assembled with nothing else required. … He also makes them for VGA, though I'm not sure of the price on those. The reason I have not yet bought a solution of this type is that no one ever says how well they (don’t) work with nonstandard screen layouts. Basically, if I can’t watch Risen from Oblivion on it with no loss of video quality, I’m not going to waste my money. If that Mirkosoft guy’s ACETOS project ever gets a lot of traction, I think a lot of other people will also consider that important.
4
« on: October 13, 2012, 06:53 AM »
I have Q which is maybe too stupid... Not stupid exactly, but it is extremely obvious that you have no idea how a computer monitor works. I want to use interlaced mode for VIC horizontal - 640×200... is it possible? Of course not! A video display works by drawing a stripe of pixels horizontally across the screen, quickly whipping it back with the intensity turned way down so you don’t see extra stripes, and then repeating a little bit lower down with different data. Repeat 500-odd times and you get a standard-definition video picture. A TV cheats a bit by drawing every other line, then on the next pass down the screen drawing the lines it skipped last time. That lets it update the picture roughly 60 times a second with only 30 frames per second of actual image data. The VIC, VIC-II and VIC-IIe cheat at the cheat by drawing the same screen twice in a row, so you get half the vertical resolution but don't have to muck around with inconveniently organized bitmaps that hold every second line of your image data. The VIC-IIe interlace trick works by fooling the VIC-IIe about where its data is, 60 times a second, and some chicanery with suppressing part of the vertical synchronization pulses. Effectively, it shows one screen on odd lines and a second screen on even lines, which flickers like hell but gives you back that extra resolution. To achieve the same thing horizontally is not possible because there are no pre-existing doubled pixels to intercept. You would have to basically overclock the VIC-IIe by 100% and somehow trick its internal counters into counting twice as high per row. In a nutshell — not bloody likely!
5
« on: January 17, 2012, 09:20 AM »
I had an interesting thought which I’d value everyone's opinion of. We know that full-colour images (up to a couple of hundred possible hues) are possible with the VIC-II and by extension the VIC-IIe, through sprite trickery and the blurriness & colour artefacts of a CRT. (I believe the technique is called Super-HIFLI?) Logically, it should be possible to do that fast enough to get full-colour, full-motion video (25/30 fps, PAL/NTSC), provided the video window was very small rather than full-screen. Something similar was done in early versions of QuickTime for Mac OS and Windows — they couldn’t move the data fast enough for full-screen video, so they shrank the window size until the hardware could keep up. That’s why the maze puzzle in the original Myst (remember that?) had you looking out at the tracks through such a tiny porthole.
Hydrophilic has worked miracles getting several frames per second in full-screen video. How big of a _full-motion_ video can be achieved by using similar techniques, but in a smaller area on screen? It seems to me that once such a thing was achieved at all, it would just be a question of how big the window size could be pushed. For videos where having more colours than the current version can show is essential, a different codec that produces a smaller window would be used.
I’m very excited about this idea, and if I had the power supply problem sorted out for my 128 setup, I’d dive straight into trying the idea for myself. As matters stand, I will have to hope someone else gives it a go and gets back to us here.
6
« on: September 13, 2011, 09:44 AM »
Come one, come all, to the Seattle Retro-Computing Society's monthly meeting, on Saturday, September 17th, 2011! Do you do any of the following with old computers near Seattle? + Use, collect, and/or restore them + Play games on them + Write programs for them + Develop new hardware for them + Help other people do any of the above If your answer was "yes," as I expect it will be if you're reading this near Seattle, then the SRCS is for you! We exist so you can show off your awesome stuff, bounce ideas off of fellow enthusiasts, and be inspired by one another's achievements, plans and aspirations. No idea is too big or too small, and we're not picky about what flavor of vintage machine you prefer! Come on down and tell us about it! The meetings are graciously hosted by the Living Computer Museum, a relatively new organization which is building a computer museum in Seattle's SODO neighborhood. There will be refreshments, a Buy-Sell- Free-Trade table, and enough table space & power to set up anything you may want to show off! For further details, please see our newly improved web page at http://www.seattleretrocomputing.com/ and our mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/seattle-retrocomp . Hope to see you there! (Please note, we usually meet on the fourth Saturday of each month; we had to move it up a week this month because of schedule conflicts with retrocomputing events in other cities.) Gordon "gsteemso" Steemson SRCS agitator-in-chief
7
« on: June 24, 2011, 11:13 PM »
Only one day to go! People from all over the Northwest have said they’re coming, and it promises to be a great meeting. See you there!
We now have a mailing list! Feel free to join, even if you don't live locally — the more, the merrier!
Gordon Steemson
SRCS agitator-in-chief[/font]
8
« on: June 05, 2011, 03:50 PM »
I am pleased to announce... the Seattle Retro-Computing Society's inaugural meeting, on Saturday, June 25th, 2011! Do you do any of the following with old computers near Seattle? + Use them + Collect them + Play games on them + Write programs for them + Develop new hardware for them + Help other people do any of the above If your answer was "yes," as I expect it will be if you're reading this near Seattle, then the SRCS is for you! We exist so you can show off your awesome stuff, bounce ideas off of fellow enthusiasts, and be inspired by one another's achievements, plans and aspirations. No idea is too big or too small, and we're not picky about what flavor of vintage machine you prefer! Come on down and tell us about it! The meeting is graciously hosted by the Living Computer Museum, a relatively new organization which is building a computer museum in Seattle's SODO neighborhood. There will be refreshments, presentations on various vintage topics of interest, and enough table space & power to set up anything you may want to show off! For further details, please see our page at http://srcs.nfshost.com/.Hope to see you there!
9
« on: June 02, 2011, 09:33 AM »
The .piw thing has nothing to do with the actual images. That's just the name of the CGI program that generates the "display" crap they surround the actual image WITH, and the period at the front is some weird naming convention -- under Unix it'd make the file invisible. If you "view source" on that link you will find the actual image lives behind a second CGI program called .DImg -- here's the "embed" tag's relevant code:
src="/.DImg?Docid=04572506&PageNum=2&IDKey=91060C2B8343&ImgFormat=tif"
Notice there is no actual way to specify the image as an image; you have to use their gateway program.
Oddly, Safari now shows the image properly. Go figure -- it didn't yesterday. *shrug*
10
« on: May 31, 2011, 06:08 PM »
It's not a PIW, it's a TIFF. That's not used anywhere on the web AFAIK, but if you "view source" to extract the link (it's very near the bottom) you can save it and open in a graphics program.
11
« on: May 23, 2011, 02:26 PM »
My personal preference for assembly language in general is to delimit the fields with tab characters, which has the added benefit of making for nicely formatted code listings. I don’t see how applicable that would be to a C64, but it’d be entirely doable on a C128.
12
« on: April 27, 2011, 05:57 AM »
AFAIR the 6582 is exactly the same as an 8580. If there is a difference it is so slight as to be unimportant. Of far more significance to the sound quality is which revision it is.
13
« on: April 26, 2011, 02:12 PM »
I know Vanessa Ezekowitz made one that apparently works. I don't know if she has any to sell but I'm pretty sure the plans are downloadable.
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« on: April 20, 2011, 05:05 AM »
Alas, the Museum of Communications — while an amazingly cool place to be shown around — is not well suited as a meeting place. In addition to noting numerous logistical problems with the idea, some of them quite intractable, they expressed strong reservations about having un-vouched-for strangers wandering around their facility, regardless of who else might be there at the time. Considering what they told me about problems they have experienced in the past, even during their regular hours when several volunteers were present, I can't really blame them. I do recommend anyone visiting Seattle on a Tuesday drop in on the museum for a visit (details are at http://www.museumofcommunications.org/), but unfortunately the new group will have to meet at one of the other venues that have been proposed. I check out a few of them every day, and some are quite suitable. Given the ongoing reluctance of the general public to express any interest in a new retrotech group while there still looks to be a chance of getting roped in to help organize stuff (there isn't any such danger, but it's not like I've made a point of saying so), I am giving serious thought to just setting a date and location and hoping/assuming that people will consider it workable. G.
15
« on: April 12, 2011, 01:12 AM »
NeilH was asking about the special PET card-edge cables. HSC only has the standard ones with stacking connectors at both ends, and they charge a fortune too. I suppose if somebody were to rig up a card-edge-to-GPIB adapter, you could then use a standard cable, but neither the card edge connector nor the GPIB socket are particularly easy to find either.
16
« on: April 07, 2011, 01:52 PM »
No, the new UPCHUG is farther to the east; I estimate about 1/3 of the way to Spokane. That's a very peculiar joke. Sumner's less than 10 miles from Tacoma. What map were you looking at? Have you talked to Stephen Jones about using the Telephone Museum (though that is more southern Seattle)? OT: Hey, I met you in the parking lot of that place. No, unfortunately, I have not. Over time I've been referred to two Commodore enthusiasts named Stephen or Steven in the Seattle area, neither of whom felt inclined to return my attempt at contacting them. Unless my records are scrambled Mr. Jones was one of them. The telephone museum would certainly be an _appropriate_ place to meet, but it has drawbacks -- their hours are sparse enough I have yet to successfully contact them, they are not very well located unless it turns out most attendees would be coming from south of town, and I saw no indication from the outside of the building that there was any kind of "bring your own system and set it up for the meeting"-able meeting room; the place looked pretty fully occupied. If they do have such a space, I'd still be concerned about hours of access. The two groups that meet in the Portland metro area both run fairly late at times, and it would suck having to cut the fun short because we had to be out of our meeting space. Happily, there are many other places to meet available.
17
« on: April 07, 2011, 03:12 AM »
Hello all, I am finally getting around to starting a vintage-computing user group in the Seattle area, focussed more towards the north end because people in the southerly areas already have the option of going to UPCHUG in Tacoma. I had originally planned to make it a specifically-focussed Commodore user group, but there are less than half a dozen people who have expressed even mild interest in meeting face-to-face for such a thing (most local Commodore types seem to prefer online discussions). Accordingly, I have decided to broaden the scope to retro- and vintage computing in general — probably old micros, mainly, but even “big iron” if anyone happens to have any to show off. I did figure that vintage tech in general (such as vacuum-tube radios, rotary telephones or Nixie-tube calculators, for example) would probably be _too_ broad a focus, though I am open to revisiting that if there is interest. The subject’s got the most blinkenlights this way, which can only be to the good. By “old” I mean any computer-related stuff from more than (very approximately) 15-20 years ago, though I hasten to point out that I have no intention of including Windows 95. At a minimum I can say discussion would cover the kind of stuff in my own collection (Commodores from PET through C128 and Apples from IIgs and Lisa through 68K Mac), plus whatever anyone else might have. (Amiga? Atari? Osborne? Sinclair? TRS-80? CP/M? DOS? MP/M? If you’re interested in it, chances are the rest of us will be too!) Discussion topics aside, I have not yet set in stone where we'll actually meet, though I have several potential places lined up; I figured it would make sense to see what part of town people are coming from before trying to lock that down. Lastly (and I blame you for this, Robert!), the club’s name: I’m torn between North End Retrocomputing Devotees’ Society (N.E.R.D.S.) and Retrocomputing Enthusiasts’ Society Of Northern Seattle (R.E.S.O.N.S., the particles reality is fictionally made of — dog Latin for “thingies”) Don’t worry if these annoy you, they and any other suggestions made will be put to a vote when we get a proper meeting together. Regards, Gordon Steemson ( gsteemso@commodore128.org ; gsteemso via AIM, YM and Skype)
18
« on: April 06, 2011, 12:39 PM »
UPCHUG - the Upper Peninsula Commodore Home Users Group I believe it was "University Place" last time I checked, rather than "Upper Peninsula," but yes. (I understand they used to meet in the University Place neighbourhood.)
19
« on: March 25, 2011, 02:30 AM »
You can always order new IEEE to IEEE from china (€12,87, no delivery costs): click Or if you want a supplier in English, there’s always this: http://suntekstore.com/Grey-1M-IEEE__488-GPIB-Cable.htmlUSD 15.66 each with free shipping (one-metre cables only), but you are responsible for paying any import taxes and fees when the package reaches your door.
20
« on: March 24, 2011, 07:12 AM »
I also found it interesting there are 1500+ 'likes' from facebook. Are there really that many people that think the 'New C64' is a good idea? Is that number somehow faked? Or perhaps I can throw anything up on the www and get hunderds / thounsands of 'likes' no matter how bad the condept? The evidence would suggest that, yes, yes you can get that many Likes for stupid or nonsensical ideas.
21
« on: February 24, 2011, 03:08 PM »
Unfortunately, 2MHz mode — while it would aid enormously in unpacking the frames and sorting out the data — would not help in transferring that data to the VDC RAM, which AFAIUI operates at circa 1MHz regardless. That's why that one register has a status flag in it to say when the VDC has finished its operations and is ready to have its registers twiddled some more, and why ignoring that bit causes data to go missing.
22
« on: January 20, 2011, 10:32 AM »
Considering we had light pens from at least the early 80s, it seems odd we had to wait for Palmpilots etc for pen-based computer interfaces to take off. :¬)
Now there’s a project… implementing a Palm-like interface on a Commodore… :¬D
PS: Ruthven, I’m pretty sure light pens will only work in port 1 regardless of other considerations, because port 2 doesn't have the connection to that detection circuit. Anyone know if I’m remembering that correctly?
23
« on: October 09, 2010, 01:51 AM »
Better copyediting? No offence intended, but the bizarre way commas are used on the current front page is a huge distraction from the otherwise interesting content. I kept wanting to correct it.
24
« on: October 08, 2010, 07:16 AM »
I personally think that adding fast-serial support to the µIEC/SD2IEC project would be the most widely useful move. I’d do it myself if I thought I could get it working in less time than “a few years,” but as some of you may recall I am already way late with a variety of other projects, including a mostly unrelated µIEC enhancement. Adding more to my backlog queue would not be productive.
Does anyone think there would be much public support behind putting a bounty on adding the fast-serial feature? I am conflicted on the point; I’m in favour but have no money to put where my mouth is.
G.
25
« on: August 14, 2010, 05:00 AM »
Ah, somehow I missed that. I have never seen 12 hour time use a zero. Interesting.
I fully agree that 24 hour time is much more logical and less ambiguous, but the 12-hour format is what people grow up with Over Here — and unless you join the military or get a job involving shift work, there is little incentive to switch over, not when compared with the mental gear-clashing caused by having to convert between the 24 hour time on your watch and the 12 hour time every person, sign and television around you is using. A lot of people around here are so innumerate they can’t even multiply by 10 without a calculator — adding and subtracting 12 all the time is well beyond most of them.
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