Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[grond]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Whether it is possible I do not know, but it is at least not advisable. The trouble is that some software uses hard-coded offsets/addresses to distinguish between chip mem and expansion RAM, and then takes action according to the outcome of this comparison. One particular piece of software that comes to my mind is the old P96 release you find in Aminet. It uses such a comparison to understand whether it can offload a blit to the native blitter, or needs to emulate it with the CPU.

But then P96 will decide it won't use the blitter for anything above 2MB and use the CPU which in the case of a Vampire seems to be the better option anyway. Or am I missing anything?

[gimbal]

3000 replies, a milestone

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by gimbal

3000 replies, a milestone

And a lot of them are mine.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by grond

But then P96 will decide it won't use the blitter for anything above 2MB and use the CPU which in the case of a Vampire seems to be the better option anyway. Or am I missing anything?

Whether that's the better option I do not know, but at least the decision is made based on false information, or rather, it is the wrong decision taken on correct information. Again, it's all fixed on my end, but I doubt that P96 is the only piece of software that (albeit incorrectly) operated like this. In a vivit alive market, one wouldn't really care as buggy software would be replaced by less buggy versions, but we don't have that luxury in Amiga land.

[grond]

Actually we still have new WHDload bugfixes made and I would assume we would know about software breaking from more than 2MB chipmem present by now. UAE has offered this option for a long time now.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by turrican3

winuae can emulate an amiga with 8 meg chip why the vampire can't or didn't do it ? Is it possible in theory ?

Quite sure it is limited because of the number of physical address lines(traces) from the mobo to the Fatter Agnus/Alice chip and the Amiga memory map.

FPGAs and emulators can easily get around the problem but for a real Amiga would need a new motherboard with additional address lines and a new Agnus/Alice chip(I.e. not going to happen unfortunately)
The vampire does allow 8 Meg chip but only where the chips are "simulated" in the FPGA, I.e. when not using the physical chips set.

Generally from a chip perspective its quite expensive to increase the address lines on a mobo and to design a chip with more pins(just more complex) hence why chipram increased gradually over the Amiga's lifespan.

If only the Ranger was released and there was true VRAM support

[NLS]

Originally Posted by Nightshft

@Firestone:
Yes it was already extremely common on the C64. Some crunchers did let you choose the effect register.
Background color (IIRC $D020), foreground color ($D021), horizontal screen offset ($D016) or even the sound volume register (I think it was $D418). Choosing the latter and and there would be no color bars but some scratching noise during unpack.
I also remember that you also could choose "none" and then there was absolutely no effect, while waiting.

Like paraj I think it was both. Nice and also to let you know the pgm doesn't hang. Like those moving circles you now see everywhere on many different platforms when you wait. Hey, they could replace them with color bars

My childhood is full of this effect. :P

[Team_Hoi]

Originally Posted by s2325

Is it true that "Hoi" is "Hello" in German?

Hahaha, no, it is "Hi" in the Dutch language. I used to say it to my cat when he entered the room, leaving away the cat's name. His name just became "Hoi". Around that time, when I created the Hoi character, it was the first silly name that came up.

It happened to sound Asian as well, and we were big fans of Japanese games.

[zx80]

Hoi means Hi in german speaking parts of Switzerland. Often combined with Hoi zäme for hello together

[Team_Hoi]

Originally Posted by zx80

hoi means hi in german speaking parts of switzerland. Often combined with hoi zäme for hello together

Haha, so the game title must sound weird to Swiss people as well, like over here in the Netherlands.

[zx80]

Originally Posted by Team_Hoi

Haha, so the game title must sound weird to Swiss people as well, like over here in the Netherlands.

For me it was "Team Hello" from the beginning. Doesn‘t sound strange, but open/polite/welcoming to others.

[nogginthenog]

I have an X-Surf 100 in my A4000. Great bit of kit.
RapidRoad (USB) supports either the X-Surf 100 or a clockport.

Does my X-Surf 100 have a clockport?

[Team_Hoi]

Originally Posted by zx80

For me it was "Team Hello" from the beginning. Doesn‘t sound strange, but open/polite/welcoming to others.

Good to read that.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by nogginthenog

I have an X-Surf 100 in my A4000. Great bit of kit.
RapidRoad (USB) supports either the X-Surf 100 or a clockport.

Does my X-Surf 100 have a clockport?

The X-Surf 100 doesn't have a clock port. The RapidRoad is plugged into the wide pin header with the legend High speed USB module written above it.

A clock port version of the RapidRoad can work with the X-Surf 100, but the lower cost X-Surf 100 version of the RapidRoad will have its clock port disabled and can only be used with the X-Surf 100.

Individual Computers has a rather comprehensive wiki where you can read more about their hardware at http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/Main_Page

[zx80]

Originally Posted by Team_Hoi

Good to read that.

You are welcome.

[nogginthenog]

Originally Posted by Jope

The X-Surf 100 doesn't have a clock port. The RapidRoad is plugged into the wide pin header with the legend High speed USB module written above it.

Thanks.

[OmaOhneBH]

Watzatthread?

[paul1981]

Amiga guide icons sometimes have this tooltype below:

FILETYPE=TEXT|ASCII|AMIGAGUIDE

Does MultiView actually read these? I think not. If not, what does, and where did these tooltypes come from originally?

Same goes for some text files:

TYPE=TEXT|ASCII

I got these examples from the Amigadev cd, but I know I've seen them elsewhere and on stuff downloaded from Aminet.

FILETYPE=ILBM

Deluxe Paint saves the above tooltype in picture icons. What the heck uses them? Is it some Commodore-era file search tool or something? Or it it just supposed to be informative to the user?

[rabidgerry]

Do all LCD type monitors suffer from motion blur when using an Amiga with it?

Was playing BC Kid the other week and when you hop on the tree in some levels I noticed the motion blur more than I have ever noticed it before.

[paul1981]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

Do all LCD type monitors suffer from motion blur when using an Amiga with it?

Was playing BC Kid the other week and when you hop on the tree in some levels I noticed the motion blur more than I have ever noticed it before.

LCD's suffer from motion-blur full stop! Always amazes me when I fire up the superior CRT to actually see motion correctly in all it's in-focus fluid glory! All that I will say is 50Hz games obviously show it up more than 25Hz games, so maybe BC Kid is a 50Hz game?

Modern VDU's suck backside to me. Nor do I go to the cinema any more for much the same reasons...Crap contrast, image is blurry unless nothing moves, and the sound is about 50 times louder than it should be (maybe 500). It's really quite something isn't it when you can watch a film at home with better definition and sound than at the cinema (just when you thought I couldn't insult the cinema any more...I just did).