nep.pgelhausen@AMES-VMSB.ARPA (11/12/85)
There *were* some 80-col boards for the OLD Atari 800 (non-XL/XE). The most infamous was BIT-3 80-col board. There was another reviewed in Analog at one time that produced a COLOR 80-col display (RGB even....). I forget what company put it out..... Why the "oops... I was thinking about Commodore" afther the "I thought Atari already had an 80-col board"??? -Richard Hartman max.hartman@ames-vmsb ------
DYOUNG@USC-ISID.ARPA (C. David Young) (11/13/85)
This message is to clarify Richard Hartman's message and to fill in a couple of holes. First of all, it was Kevin Meis who did a review of OMNIVIEW a few days ago. Thank you, Kevin. Just let me point out that there is an OMNIVIEW made for every ATARI 8 bitter except the 1200. In addition to 80 column output, they all have other features including resident ramdisk handlers. The other 80 column board with RGB output was the Austin-Franklin. The people who have this board seem to really like it but it wasn't around for very long. Both ATARI and Batteries Included had both announced plans to come out with 80 column boards but have since dropped them. I am proud to be the only survivor in the 80 column world! In all fairness I must mention another 80 column output that I have heard of but not seen. Called the ACE 80, it resides in the cartridge address space and works with Letter Perfect and Basic. I don't see how this can be very useful since it takes up so much memory space (OMNIVIEW resides out of the way in the $C000 page). Besides this, I would not be surprised if it is not a ripoff of OMNIVIEW. If I am wrong, somebody please correct me. David Young -------
wrd@tekigm2.UUCP (Bill Dippert) (11/14/85)
> This message is to clarify Richard Hartman's message and to fill in a > couple of holes. First of all, it was Kevin Meis who did a review of > OMNIVIEW a few days ago. Thank you, Kevin. Just let me point out that > there is an OMNIVIEW made for every ATARI 8 bitter except the 1200. In > addition to 80 column output, they all have other features including > resident ramdisk handlers. >.....etc.... > David Young How come my local computer store seems to think that they can install OMNIVIEW on my 1200XL (as well as my 800XL and 130XE)? Since you developed it, you should know. Do you personally produce it or does some company produce and market it? If so, have they developed it for the 1200XL independent of what you did? Also, besides giving 80 column capability, what are the other features? What else does it do for you? How legible is Omniview using composite video? Separated video? I have seen an Atari 130XE using separated video on a C*******e 1702 monitor and it looked great, but it was not using 80 columns. Finally, is there anyway of using an RGB monitor with an 130XE? And if so, would this work with Omniview? Obviously, at this point in time, I am shopping around for: a) a good monitor and b) 80 column capability. I had the impression that you could use a RGB monitor with the 130XE (but not with the 800XL or 1200XL) but I am getting the impression from some of the magazine articles that you can indeed use RGB with the 130XE. However, I am not about to put out the bucks for RGB if the 130XE cannot use it or is just as good with separated video. Thanks in advance, Bill Dippert tektronix!tekigm2!wrd
dye@sx1100.UUCP (Kenneth Dye) (11/20/85)
_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_ I have seen software driven 80-column packages for the ATARI, but they do this by drawing the characters on a graphics 8 screen, which uses up mucho memory. Is this a problem with the commercial hardware products (omniview, bit-3)? How do they work? Ken R. Dye SX-1100 Development ihnp4!umn-cs!ncs-med!sx1100!dye Sperry Information Systems
DYOUNG@USC-ISID.ARPA (C. David Young) (11/26/85)
Ken, Because OMNIVIEW is in gr.8 it does use up about 6K more memory than a 40 column gr.0 screen. With Letter Perfect this means a 21K buffer instead of 28K. The bit-3 board on the other hand has its own screen memory and does not require any of the 6502's. In fact, some developers have put this feature to good use by using the bit-3 output for debugger output while simultaneously displaying graphics on the ATARI output. David Young -------
DYOUNG@USC-ISID.ARPA (C. David Young) (11/26/85)
Bill, I developed and market OMNIVIEW. It will not work with the 1200 because the 1200 has a different chip set for the OS, which the last time I took the time to investigate would make the price of that version prohibitively expensive. OMNIVIEW does look great on a monitor with separated video, which includes the Commodore 1702 and even better the Technika (sp?). I know of no way to get RGB out of the 8 bitters and if anyone knows a way I would appreciate hearing from them. David Young -------