"7-planes" feature and more..

[coyote]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

- 1st Anniversary by Lazy Bones OCS/ECS "7-planes" trick emulated (missing black vertical lines)

Hi Toni,

I'm the author of the 1st Anniversary.

First I want to thank you for implementing the 7bpl trick. I hope you found some OCS Amiga to test this behaviour. I tested this only on ECS Amiga.

I don't know what you mean by "missing black vertical lines", but I want to tell you that I've checked the intro today and it seems that it works correctly. In other words each element is 3x3 pixels with a gap of 1 black pixel between elements, both horizontally and vertically.
By the way, sometimes the intro doesn't work as expected but today I glanced at the source and I believe there might be a bug in the intro itself.

However, there are problems with my other two demos - B2, and Move Any Mountain.

Move Any Mountain does not work at all in the v1.5.4 beta 3, and it worked in v1.5.0 beta 1. (you remember - using fake fast as the chip, but setting "a record" not working on a 1mb chip machines )

Also, Move Any Mountain does not show the graphics on the twisted rotating band at the beginning. It should have some logos on both sides. The band also didn't work correctly in v1.5.0.

As for B2, it still has corrupted right part of the zoom rotator, and also occasionally the chequered part of the flag is corrupted. Btw, thanks for implementing HAM5 so the globe works correctly.

Anyway, if it would help I suppose I could try to dig up the original sources.

[Toni Wilen]

Hello

Moved to separate thread because it isn't exactly beta related and it can get confusing when new betas get released.

I don't know what you mean by "missing black vertical lines", but I want to tell you that I've checked the intro today and it seems that it works correctly

I meant b3 fixes missing black vertical lines

Also, Move Any Mountain does not show the graphics on the twisted rotating band at the beginning. It should have some logos on both sides. The band also didn't work correctly in v1.5.0.

I guess i missed that when I tested it on my real A500.. (I also missed those vertical lines in 1st anniversary until I accidentally noticed it few days ago..)

Move Any Mountain does not work at all in the v1.5.4 beta 3,

Not suprising, I had to add multiple ugly hacks to support this "chip mirroring"

As for B2, it still has corrupted right part of the zoom rotator, and also occasionally the chequered part of the flag is corrupted

Known, this is something non-documented in copper if wait is in previous line and following moves cross horizontal lines without wait between (there is something in copper timing thread)

Second is usual line blitter draw mode timing that still isn't correct enough.

Anyway, if it would help I suppose I could try to dig up the original sources.

Thanks but usually they won't help, usually problem is very easy to see with using UAE debugger and comparing real Amiga display.

btw, do you have more weird demos?

[coyote]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I guess i missed that when I tested it on my real A500.. (I also missed those vertical lines in 1st anniversary until I accidentally noticed it few days ago..)

Ahhh, if you missed the black lines then you also missed the "resolution". I mean, black lines are because of BPL5DAT, but BPL5DAT is also responsible for getting into the higher 16 colors so if there weren't the black lines then the elements resolution is one 8x3 pix element instead of two 3x3 pix elements.

One more thing: both bpl5dat and bpl6dat are used when in "7bpl" mode, if I am not wrong. So the machine is actually in half-brite mode. Don't miss to use bpl6dat too! In the anniversary intro I filled bpl6dat with zeros, but I might make some new demo using half-brite in the future...

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Not suprising, I had to add multiple ugly hacks to support this "chip mirroring"

Sorry, not my fault... Commodore did it - I only used it...

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

btw, do you have more weird demos?

Actually yes. Well, it's not a demo but rather a small trick. But it's not likely that many people used it and I doubt it is worth emulating.

I made a small program which plays some one channel music using floppy drive motor. Don't tell me, I know what you are thinking ->
I mean, didn't we all tried to connect small motors instead of earphones to our cassette players when we were kids?!?

I didn't have the processor timing table at the moment so I wrote a simple loop to turn the motor on and off. It's not very precise, but could be made better and probably less processor intense. I also reproduced some digital sound. I planned to make a simple multichannel player for floppy but never did. (I had made some multichannel music players on ZX Spectrum beeper in the past so this was a natural progression... haha)

In those times I remember some people had Amigas with green monitors and without any speakers. Horrible combination I know, but those were the war years in Croatia and poverty was all around. I was glad to look the expressions on the faces of people who finally heard some sound out of their quiet Amigas.

Enough about me.

There is one other thing perhaps worth emulating. Back in 90s a friend of mine (Rasputin / Semtex) figured out that by using the composite line out more than 16 shades of grey can be shown. As you know the monochromatic picture is mixed out of rgb (definitely better way than lame pc which just pushed the green channel for monochromatic monitors).

Anyway, he made a color table for various shades of grey. I think that he finally found more than a hundred distinct greys. This was not lame at all! He at the time worked on some local television so he used a professional equipment to measure the intensity of greys as Amiga mixed it. And from it he created a table and a program which converted the colored pictures in the appropriate rgb colors which at the end gave more grey tones when seen through composite line. (pictures looked interesting in rgb too!)

I think he would convert the pictures in 32 shades of grey from a palete of hundred and something greys. Now it comes to my mind that he could try to use half-brite to get even more greys simultanously on the screen. Maybe he even did, I don't remember.

Anyway, it was nice to see, and easy too. Just an additional cable connected to a 1084 monitor and by pushing a single switch on the monitor you could toggle the composite/rgb and watch pictures in this "new" mode.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by coyote

One more thing: both bpl5dat and bpl6dat are used when in "7bpl" mode, if I am not wrong. So the machine is actually in half-brite mode. Don't miss to use bpl6dat too! In the anniversary intro I filled bpl6dat with zeros, but I might make some new demo using half-brite in the future...

It does (tested on my real A500, also HAM and DPF works as expected, http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=482689&postcount=24) but b3 does not enable EHB properly.

Btw, I think it looks better with 0x5555 or 0xAAAA in BPL6DAT

(use real A500 or wait for b4)

(answers to other topics later..)

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by coyote

Also, Move Any Mountain does not show the graphics on the twisted rotating band at the beginning. It should have some logos on both sides. The band also didn't work correctly in v1.5.0.

Is this sprite or bitplane graphics? My AR3 is borken (I can see the "missing" graphics on my real A500) and quick emulation copper list check didn't show anything interesting.

[Photon]

Thread moved from where? Didn't find any post by him in the beta thread. Guess it was re-moved from there without linking.

May I ask where these demos you speak of are available? I'd like to check them out

[andreas]

Originally Posted by coyote

I made a small program which plays some one channel music using floppy drive motor. Don't tell me, I know what you are thinking ->

Ehm, were YOU the guy who programmed the "El Condor Pasa" played by your floppy drive hardware hack? Or was that someone else?

[coyote]

To Andreas:

No.
I made some piece by Strauss I think.
And also, I did it by turning on and off the motor which spins the floppy, while it seems to me that El condor pasa is done by moving the head with the step motor. Therefore I got much cleaner sound, although quieter, and there was no fear that floppy would break or something...
I was thinking of using the step motor for rhythm. Never did it though...

To Photon:

Here you can download Move Any Mountain, B2, and the Anniversary intro:

http://free-bj.t-com.hr/coyote/mam.zip
http://free-bj.t-com.hr/coyote/b2.zip
http://free-bj.t-com.hr/coyote/anniversary.exe

[coyote]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Is this sprite or bitplane graphics? My AR3 is borken (I can see the "missing" graphics on my real A500) and quick emulation copper list check didn't show anything interesting.

I don't remember. I'll check the sources and let you know.

[coyote]

Hi Toni,

I think I got it.
Some graphics is prepared with blitter, but those blits are from fake fast to fake fast so they probably don't work in WinUAE.

Search for:
...
lea $96000,a1
moveq #30,d7
and then follow the bsr

A little further should be some blitter code.
Search for:
...
lea (a0,d3.w),a2
lea (a1,d4.w),a6
...
Those are addresses that blitter is filled with, and they are both in upper 512 kb of chip, in other words in fake fast.

$80000 for blitter (and other chips) is $c00000 for processor.

[coyote]

For anyone interested:

You can check my version of amiga floppy music here:
[ Show youtube player ]

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by coyote

Some graphics is prepared with blitter, but those blits are from fake fast to fake fast so they probably don't work in WinUAE.

It was blitter writes that went nowhere. Reads worked.

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by coyote

For anyone interested:

You can check my version of amiga floppy music here:
[ Show youtube player ]

Quite nice indeed

[coyote]

Thanks xpect.
I tried to play a sample too. I'll upload it to youtube later.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, thank you Toni for all the extra trouble with my demos!

[TCD]

Originally Posted by coyote

Thanks xpect.
I tried to play a sample too. I'll upload it to youtube later.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, thank you Toni for all the extra trouble with my demos!

Looking forward to the youtube vid Will be nice too watch your demos with WinUAE soon coyote

[Photon]

Thx coyote

btw, yours was better than [ Show youtube player ]
(unless you have a good floppy that goes djn-djn-djn at a read/write error instead of the infamous (sKROWWWNJ sKROWWWNJ sKRAPE-OWNJ))

Won't using $80000-$100000 as slowmem pretty much guarantee a solid fail on ECS+ chipsets? Unless you detect the chipset and set a global base pointer, ofc?

Anniversary had 3x8 resolution in my WinUAE, as mentioned.

Move Any Mountain was pretty nice actually I especially liked the flag, except the checker in the middle bugged. ECS/OCS copper difference? Also, the map zoomrot failed, probably something like anniversary?

B2 could not be started with any config I can figure out in WinUAE, at all. Just loads the boot block, gives a random bg color, and resets.

Let me know if I have your permission to add MAM to BitWorld - you're welcome to #amigaexotic on ircnet. If I'm not there, talk to zeg and say hi from me

[andreas]

WOW! Good I asked coyote!

Johann Strauss on the Amiga - this is really funny!

And it really sounds nice! I'd like to test this on WinUAE, so if you are willing to share your binary, please do!

[chiark]

That floppy music is fantastic- never saw that!

[coyote]

Originally Posted by Photon

Thx coyote

btw, yours was better than [ Show youtube player ]
(unless you have a good floppy that goes djn-djn-djn at a read/write error instead of the infamous (sKROWWWNJ sKROWWWNJ sKRAPE-OWNJ))

It's better because I do not move the head. I turn the spinning motor on and off instead. That's why the disk must be in.

Won't using $80000-$100000 as slowmem pretty much guarantee a solid fail on ECS+ chipsets? Unless you detect the chipset and set a global base pointer, ofc?

Well, I didn't care much about compatibility in those days.

The story is that I thought I would need 1 mb of chip, but the deadline came fast so I didn't put everything I wanted in that demo. It could have easily been done in 512k.

Anniversary had 3x8 resolution in my WinUAE, as mentioned.

Try to start it several times. Sometimes it starts ok, sometimes it does not. And you must have v1.5.4 beta 3.

Move Any Mountain was pretty nice actually I especially liked the flag, except the checker in the middle bugged. ECS/OCS copper difference? Also, the map zoomrot failed, probably something like anniversary?

I don't know. Toni is definitely more into this stuff than I am.

By the way, you mixed the names of the demos. Here you are talking about B2. It has flag, rotator etc.
Move Any Mountain is the one with the copper screen voxel routine. It cannot be started on v1.5.4 beta 3, but I remember it working on v1.5.0 beta 1, except one tiny thing which Toni and I nailed.

Let me know if I have your permission to add MAM to BitWorld - you're welcome to #amigaexotic on ircnet. If I'm not there, talk to zeg and say hi from me

No problem. But again - B2 is the one that works. Hopefully MAM will work again in future WinUAE releases.
I don't use irc, but I'll remember your invitation just in case. Thanks Photon!

[coyote]

Well, for all of you waiting here it is - a sample from Barbarian played on the floppy drive. (sorry for the awfully dark video...)
[ Show youtube player ]

I should have chosen a better sample with more higher frequency sounds which seem to be better suited for Amiga floppy spinning motor, but what the heck, this was made back in 1991 or 92. I haven't shown it to many people. Just to a few friends actually.

And Andreas, I will release the binaries. But I believe that you will need an actual Amiga to try them, unless Toni decide to implement all those weird sounds Amiga can produce (original keyboard sounds, putting the disk in and taking it out, squeaks produced by bending the case etc...) For example, my 1084 monitor would sometimes produce some awful high pitch sound (probably some capacitor) and I would then usually bang it with my hand to shut it up. Sometimes it needed a little more "persuasion" to stop screeching.