18 Dec
2007
18 Dec
'07
11:41 p.m.
---------Original Message:
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:37:08 -0000
From: "Ensor" <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk>
Subject: Re: Yet another VT-100 emulator
Hi,
As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes
that give 132 columns.
Precisely, just what is so difficult about that statement for people on this
list to understand!!??
The bottom line is that the **ONLY** ***STANDARD*** text modes supported by
EGA and VGA adapters are 40 and 80 column. END OF ARGUMENT. PERIOD.
Whilst it is perfectly true that most/all "SuperVGA" cards support one or
more 132 column text modes, these modes - along with their mode numbers -
are unique to each manufacturer and indeed often differ between chipsets
Not likely - as far as I know there are no standard PC
text
video modes that give 132 columns.
Long ago I had a 132char driver for the Hercules/TTL mono video
card. I was based on the 720x348 mono graphics mode. from the same manufacturer!
Great if you want to tie your software to working with only a single brand
of chipset/graphics card (which I doubt is what the OP wants), but otherwise
utterly useless....
<snip>
The OP needs modes which work on ALL adapters, not non-standard modes which
work on a small number of Mickey Mouse cards which noone uses....
TTFN - Pete.
---------Reply:
VESA will be disappointed to hear that their VBE standard which does define four
132-column modes (109 - 10C) is not a "standard" at all (insofar as anything in
this
field can be considered "standard.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions
I'd say a Mickey Mouse card is one that does *not* implement the VESA extensions,
and I think there's more than just one brand that *does*...
But if you think we should all be restricted to EGA and VGA modes (who actually has
an EGA or VGA card and/or monitor?) then who am I to argue; I personally find 132
columns useful at times.
mike
19 Dec
19 Dec
9 a.m.
Finally back on the list!!! (yeah!)
Comments to multiple messages follow:
If you asked a question, please read through till you find it!
What I've done is to enable you to configure the 132 column mode under
"General Parameters" - Standard modes 01h-FFh should work, as well as
VESA SVGA modes 100h-1FFh. If a mode is configured, then I enable the
"132 column mode" under "General switches" as well as the DEC private
{ESC}[?3h/l mode set/reset.
I've also provided FIND132 which helps locate a 132 column video mode
for your adapter. I'm still researching VESA - as Jim said, perhaps I
can directly determine a suitable mode from the information returned
by the VESA BIOS.
VESA will be disappointed to hear that their VBE
standard which
does define four 132-column modes (109 - 10C) is not a "standard" at
all (insofar as anything in this field can be considered "standard.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions
I'd say a Mickey Mouse card is one that does *not* implement the
VESA extensions, and I think there's more than just one brand that *does*...
+ many other comments on VESA
I've got mainly ATI "Mach" and "3Drage" series cards in the older
machines
in my office, and while I can get some VESA modes to work, I haven't found
any in the VESA range (100h-1FFh right?) that actually do 132 columns...
I'm using INT 10h with AX=4F02h and BX containing the VESA SVGA mode
number 100h-1FFh - is this right?
I have found "vendor extensions" to the standard modes 00h-FFh which
work fine at 132 columns on the ATI cards.
I would highly recommend staying away from manual
rasterization; if a
card can do 1024x768, it can do 132x25 or 132x50.
Perhaps ... but one thing really appealing about going graphical is
that I could properly support double-wide/double-high characters...
I haven't figured out a way to do this in text mode ... I could do
double-wide with some font manipulation, but there would be a line
down the middle of the characters, and there isn't enough characters
available even with two active character sets to do double-height/
double-wide. I'd also lose my current ability to emulate the VT-100
attributes. The big problem with a graphical version would be the
"blinking" attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in
hardware? - There's also the matter of incompatibilities in modes
higher than 640x480 (which isn't enough for 132 columns).
Ah, so you are using VGA's capability to store
multiple fonts and
bank-switch between them? Or something more hideous, like changing the
font every 16 scanlines? ;-)
Nothing so disgusting. The problem is that you need to be able to do:
Bold, Underline, Blinking and Reverse video in any and all combinations,
and standard PC attributes can't do this - you can get close in mono VGA,
but you still can't do all the combinations. For example, Underline only
works in Mono, and not in combination with all other attributes.
So what I did was to use VGA's capability of having two fonts (512
possible characters on screen at once), and generate a second font
with underlines. Then the font select attribute bit becomes the
underline bit. This conflicts with the standard "bold" attributes,
however I reprogram the palette to provide increased intensity in
another "color". This lets me do ALL the VT-100 attribute combinations
without resorting to hardware dependancy (except that it needs a VGA
adapter).
For non-VGA cards, I just let you choose which attributes (or colors)
will display for each of the 16 possible VT-100 attribute combinations.
I also maintain two separate attribute tables for the TTY colors, one
for when attribute emulation via VGA features is enabled, and one for
not - so the attributes don't go completely wonky when you switch this
feature on or off.
I'm curious how it will on a Model 25. It's
MCGA, which means it has
the 9x16 VGA font and doesn't detect as CGA or EGA, yet the font is
fixed and can't be changed. What will your program do on such an
uncommon video board?
It should work as long as your video supports standard 80 column color
or mono video modes (Mode 3 or 7).
If your video does not detect as VGA, you will be limited to the PC
character set and attributes which are available. You can program the
PC attributes that are displayed for each possible combination of
VT-100 Bold, Underline, Blink and Reverse.
If it does detect as VGA, but is incompatible with the features I
used - you can disable the use of VGA fonts and attribute emulation
in my configuration screens.
You won't get my VT-100 character font, however I map the VT-100
characters which line up with PC characters into the appropriate
character on the PC font. You will lose some of the VT-100 graphic
character set. I map most of these into corresponding characters
on the PC, however some don't have any PC equivalent, and I map
these into PC characters 80-89 (which I replace in my VT-100 font).
At the moment, my mapping of VT-100 characters (standard and graphical)
to the PC character set is fixed (you can change the charcters displayed
by loading a different character-set under VGA) - but if there is a
requirement, I could make the mapping tables configurable - This would
let you pick any PC character to display for any particular VT-100
character.
The OP needs
modes which work on ALL adapters, not non-standard modes
which work on a small number of Mickey Mouse cards which noone
uses....
He does? I'm sure that someone using Dave's VT100 emulator couldn't
decide that because they want 132 column mode, they'll spend some time
to figure out what works with their hardware, and specify it in a
config file somewhere. :( With all due respect, I think the observations on the
part of the
other posters including myself were valid. What the OP probably
meant to say was:
"Does anyone know of a video text mode supported by a standard IBM
VGA/PGC/XGA/EGA card real-mode 16-bit BIOS that supports 132 colums?"
That "BIOS" keyword is very important, given that few operating
systems actually use it to do anything useful nowadays.
In my case, I do want it to work with BIOS calls - I tend to use it
on DOS machines in my workshop, and I don't want to make it dependant
on anyone's particular hardware. If you are using windows, I'm sure
there are better VT-100 emulators since you should be able to do the
double-sized modes easily in a graphical environment. But so far it
still works fine on my Win2K machine (Haven't tried it on XP lately,
but I will).
If there are any more suggestions or feedback, please keep it coming.
Probably this weekend, I'm going to rename the package (*) and get
it moved into a permanent home under "Simulators and Emulators" on
my site (with an extra link in the terminals/VT-100 section).
(*) LAPTALK made sense when it was a tiny telecom program for my
floppy based laptop, but it's much more a VT-100 emulator now).
I'm thinking something simple like "PC100", but suggestions are
welcome.
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
11:27 a.m.
The big problem with a graphical version would be the
"blinking"
attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware?
Do they need to? Don't peecee video cards have the ability to flip
between two blocks of video RAM with the flip of a bit? All you need
to do is render twice, once with and once without the blinking stuff,
and keep toggling between the two VRAM areas every however often.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
2:20 p.m.
The big problem with a graphical version would be the
"blinking"
attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware?
Don't EVER use the "blink" attribute!
I used it, and as soon as the software publisher saw it,
he demanded a change in the rate at which it blinked!
When I was doing some screen printing (Sybex used XenoFont in producing a
lot of their textmode DOS books (WordPervert, etc.)), I could handle
attrib 7/70h v attrib 0Fh/F0h easily with regular v bold fonts.
I could handle reverse video by simply creating fonts with all pixels on
EXCEPT the character content. BTW, HP tech support told me that that was
impossible with HP Laserjets. I'm glad that I was done before I found
out! ("Wile E. Coyote software development rule")
BUT, how would you SHOW a blinking attribute with a printer font??
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
2:42 p.m.
BUT, how would you SHOW a blinking attribute with a
printer font??
Flip books.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Wherever I go, there's I AM. -----------------------------------------------
20 Dec
20 Dec
5:11 a.m.
der Mouse wrote:
I've read that several times and am still trying to figure out if that
is an elegant solution or an ugly solution... :-)
(elegant due to instant hardware flip, but ugly due to burning up double
the video ram just to blink a character... decisions, decisions...)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
The big
problem with a graphical version would be the "blinking"
attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware?
Do they need to? Don't peecee video cards have the ability to flip
between two blocks of video RAM with the flip of a bit? All you need
to do is render twice, once with and once without the blinking stuff,
and keep toggling between the two VRAM areas every however often.
6:51 a.m.
So what I did
was to use VGA's capability of having two fonts (512
possible characters on screen at once), and generate a second font
with underlines.
It warms my heart to see that feature of VGA used properly. I think I
can count the number of programs that use both VGA font banks on less
then ten fingers. I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass way
to use spare old
hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin
serial port than any modern machine). I love this project.
Thanks. I just like to minimize the number of boxes that I need to have
out in my workshop area. I've been using LAPTALK for years as my main
"terminal", but with the recent acquisition of some VAXen, I decided it
was time to make it as close to a VT-100 as possible.
The big problem with a graphical version would be the
"blinking"
attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware?
Do they need to? Don't peecee video cards have the ability to flip
between two blocks of video RAM with the flip of a bit? All you need
to do is render twice, once with and once without the blinking stuff,
and keep toggling between the two VRAM areas every however often.
5:09 a.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
The big problem with a graphical version would be the
"blinking" attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in
hardware?
No. But I definitely see your point about double-wide characters being
a problem in text mode, and agree that the only elegant solution would
be rasterizing in graphics mode.
So what I did was to use VGA's capability of
having two fonts (512
possible characters on screen at once), and generate a second font
with underlines.
It warms my heart to see that feature of VGA used properly. I think I
can count the number of programs that use both VGA font banks on less
then ten fingers.
I've also provided FIND132 which helps locate a
132 column video mode
for your adapter. I'm still researching VESA - as Jim said, perhaps I
can directly determine a suitable mode from the information returned
by the VESA BIOS.
Feel free to contact me off-list for some sample code. The basic idea I
use is to use Int 10/AX=4F01h to loop through all 256(*) available modes
and check the results for the resolution or attributes (ie. text or
graphics) that I'm specifically looking for. There might be a more
elegant way than calling Int 10/AX=4F01h times, but it works well and is
fast enough that I never looked for a more "elegant" way.
(*)there are a total of 512 modes you can query, but the 0xxh are
non-VESA and so you don't need to check them, only the 1xxh modes).
If there are any more suggestions or feedback, please
keep it coming.
I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass way to use spare old
hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin
serial port than any modern machine). I love this project.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
10:26 a.m.
I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass way
to use spare old
hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin
serial port than any modern machine). I love this project.
Although there are cheap CF cards today, it would be a hit if it could
be ROMable and put in place of BIOS chip :o)
23 Dec
23 Dec
8:20 p.m.
Hi,
VESA will be disappointed to hear that their VBE
standard
which does define four 132-column modes (109 - 10C) is not a
"standard" at all....
The problem with the VESA "standard" was that, back then, it had come along
*FAR* too late in the day for it to have actually been worth a damn!
I was dealing with graphics cards in PCs extensively in the course of my
work between about 1990 and 1995, and, quite frankly, VESA was the bane of
my life - all it achieved was to make things significantly MORE complicated.
And those TSRs which allegedly turned non-VESA compliant cards into VESA
compliant cards were, in most cases, enough to drive you to the point of
slashing your wrists.... :-(
Nowadays, VESA would certainly be worth investigating since all this stuff
is obsolete and available at little or no cost.
But like everyone else, you've missed the point. The OP was originally
asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard" cards which are a
different kettly of fish....
TTFN - Pete.
10:42 p.m.
Ensor wrote:
VESA was the bane
of my life - all it achieved was to make things significantly MORE
complicated. And those TSRs which allegedly turned non-VESA compliant
cards into VESA compliant cards were, in most cases, enough to drive you
to the point of slashing your wrists.... :-(
I had no issues at all working with VESA. It made my life easier
because I didn't have to support 30+ different chipset variants. If you
queried the BIOS for the card's capabilities and stayed within them, it
didn't give you problems.
I'm quite surprised you claim to have jad trouble with VESA. I found
stock VGA 640x480 at 16 more troublesome because of the bitplane nature of
the mode. VESA 1.x let me plot a pixel with one byte write... doesn't
get much easier than that.
Nowadays, VESA would certainly be worth investigating
since all this
stuff is obsolete and available at little or no cost.
Actually, thanks to the popularity of Linux, VESA is put into every ATI
and nVidia card still being made. Run VESAINFO on your modern card if
you don't believe me -- it will work and the extensive list of modes
available may surprise you.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
24 Dec
24 Dec
12:10 a.m.
Hi Jim,
I had no issues at all working with VESA. It made my
life easier
because I didn't have to support 30+ different chipset variants....
I'm quite surprised you claim to have jad trouble
with VESA....
After some 12+ years or so I really don't remember the exact details of the
problems I had back then. What I do remember ****VIVIDLY**** though, is that
VESA, for me at least, was a MAJOR pain in the arse (or more likely, buggy
implementations of it).... :-(
I might be able to remember more were I not: a) suffering from the worst
bout of flu I've ever had {3 weeks and counting}, b) recovering from carbon
monoxide poisoning, and c) suffering from nicotine withdrawal (I gave up
smoking recently because of "a" and "b", LOL).
So, if I sound grumpy at the moment, it's because I am...!
Still, when was life ever easy? ;-)
>....since all this stuff is obsolete and available
at little or
>no cost.
Actually, thanks to the popularity of Linux, VESA is
put into every
ATI and nVidia card still being made....
Actually, I was thinking in terms of ISA bus SVGA cards. Should've been a
bit clearer on that point, sorry.
....Run VESAINFO on your modern card if you don't
believe me....
I'll take your word for it. :-)
For me, a modern PC clone is merely a tool for getting a job done and
_nothing_ more. I have absolutely no interest **WHATSOEVER** in what lies
buried "under the hood" as it were (outside of specifying the bits which I
build it from), or tinkering with it, or whatever....
That's why I collect "classic" machines!
TTFN - Pete.
12:49 a.m.
New subject: Serial board schematics...
I've got a serial I/O board in my H-89 that transmits data, but doesn't
receive it. I've replaced the 1489 on the off chance it was blown, but
no change was noticed. The serial cable is ok.
Can someone point me to a set of schematics for this board? It's the
"multi i/o" board with 2 serial (apparently) and one parallel port.
Thanks all!
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
1:22 a.m.
New subject: Serial board schematics...
From: geneb at deltasoft.com
I've got a serial I/O board in my H-89 that transmits data, but doesn't
receive it. I've replaced the 1489 on the off chance it was blown, but
no change was noticed. The serial cable is ok.
Can someone point me to a set of schematics for this board? It's the
"multi i/o" board with 2 serial (apparently) and one parallel port.
Hi Gene
I'm not aware of the serial board with a parallel port. The only
one I know has 3 serial ports. They ususally only had 2 populated.
How are you determining that it isn't working? Is it possible that
there is an interrupt connected to it that is stealing your data?
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console.
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1:37 a.m.
New subject: Serial board schematics...
Hi Gene
I'm not aware of the serial board with a parallel port. The only
one I know has 3 serial ports. They ususally only had 2 populated.
How are you determining that it isn't working? Is it possible that
there is an interrupt connected to it that is stealing your data?
Dwight
The board has three connectors along the top that go to DB25 connectors on
the back. The connectors are marked DCE, DTE and PARALLEL. The board has
"HEATH COPR" on the back, so I'm assuming it's a "standard"
card.
The tests are being done with a Hayes Smartmodem. I can talk to the modem
and watch it respond to commands but I get no data at the terminal. I'm
using MODEM as the terminal program.
tnx!
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
2:07 a.m.
New subject: Serial board schematics...
From: geneb at deltasoft.com
Hi
U should also post to SEBHC. Also, it may be missing a control
bit from the RS232. This can lock up the recieve. Check that all the
needed signals make it to the serial chips.
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect
Hi Gene
I'm not aware of the serial board with a parallel port. The only
one I know has 3 serial ports. They ususally only had 2 populated.
How are you determining that it isn't working? Is it possible that
there is an interrupt connected to it that is stealing your data?
Dwight
The board has three connectors along the top that go to DB25 connectors on
the back. The connectors are marked DCE, DTE and PARALLEL. The board has
"HEATH COPR" on the back, so I'm assuming it's a "standard"
card.
The tests are being done with a Hayes Smartmodem. I can talk to the modem
and watch it respond to commands but I get no data at the terminal. I'm
using MODEM as the terminal program.
tnx!
11:48 a.m.
On Sunday 23 December 2007 20:20, Ensor wrote:
But like everyone else, you've missed the point.
The OP was
originally asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard"
cards which are a different kettly of fish....
That must be why didn't add VESA 132-column mode to his VT100 emuatlor.
Oh wait...
On Tuesday 18 December 2007 09:42, Dave Dunfield wrote:
I've just posted a new version of LAPTALK, which
supports 132 column
mode. In order to enable it, you must configure the 132 column video
mode under "General Parameters". 0-255 are standard BIOS modes, and
256-511 are VESA modes (sorry, but you have to set the mode in
decimal). It also supports set/reset "column" (132 column) mode now
(if the mode is configured).
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
5:35 p.m.
On Sunday 23 December 2007 20:20, Ensor wrote:
Guys ... get a life!
FWIW, I really don't care for or against VESA - I just wanted to provide
the capability to do 132 columns because someone had asked for it that
had a good chance of working on more than one type of card. You seem to
have snipped the bit about FIND132, the program I wrote to seek out 132
column modes from ALL available video modes.
FWIW-2 - So far, of about 1/2 dozen systems I've found 132 column modes
on, only one of them has been a VESA mode (and iirc it had a vendor
proprietary standard mode that was equivalent).
I've got a couple more pending updates to the program (now called PC100),
including a fix for a bug where configured attributes/colors got misplaced
when switching column modes, and semi-support for DEC private mode '?4' -
although the PC can't do smooth scrolling in text modes, I've implemented
"slow scroll" which limits scrolling speed to about 6 lines/second (same
as a VT-100 when smooth scrolling), and a couple of other minor goodies.
Of anyone is actually interested in the program because they want to
emulate a VT-100 (.vs. arguing about what I intended, or if VESA is a good
thing), let me know and I'll get it updated - otherwise I'll wait until
later in the week, as I'll probably work on it a bit over the holiday...
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
But like everyone else, you've missed the
point. The OP was
originally asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard"
cards which are a different kettly of fish....
That must be why didn't add VESA 132-column mode to his VT100 emuatlor.
Oh wait...
On Tuesday 18 December 2007 09:42, Dave Dunfield wrote:
> I've just posted a new version of LAPTALK, which supports 132 column
> mode. In order to enable it, you must configure the 132 column video
> mode under "General Parameters". 0-255 are standard BIOS modes, and
> 256-511 are VESA modes (sorry, but you have to set the mode in
> decimal). It also supports set/reset "column" (132 column) mode now
> (if the mode is configured). 
4:50 p.m.
I have the values for Trident and Orchid cards if needed (pre vesa)
can dig them out of my Wyse 50 emulator I had way back.
Dave Caroline
6056
days inactive
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19 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
alexandre-listas＠e-secure.com.br -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk -
dave.thearchivist＠gmail.com -
dave06a＠dunfield.com -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
dm561＠torfree.net -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
pat＠computer-refuge.org -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org