dickow@ui3.UUCP (02/02/87)
I want to set up the split text/hires screen on my IIe such that more than just 4 lines of text are visible at the bottom. Is this possible, or does the video system limit things? I can't find anything about this option in my "Inside the Apple IIe", but maybe there are some nice little zero page system variables that somebody out there knows about and can kindly fill me in on them. Bob Dickow (...egg-id!ui3!dickow)
sdh@thumper.UUCP (02/05/87)
> I want to set up the split text/hires screen on my IIe such that > more than just 4 lines of text are visible at the bottom. Is this possible, > or does the video system limit things? I can't find anything about this > option in my "Inside the Apple IIe", but maybe there are some nice little > zero page system variables that somebody out there knows about and can > kindly fill me in on them. > Bob Dickow (...egg-id!ui3!dickow) Sorry, Bob. The four lines of text is a hardware limitation. There is no convenient way of getting more text in that space except by altering the hardware, or writing (or using) a hi-res character generator package to do this (at the cost of somewhat slower output). Steve "Retief of the CDT" Hawley bellcore!sdh
kamath@reed.UUCP (02/08/87)
In article <380@thumper.UUCP> sdh@thumper.UUCP (Retief of the CDT) writes: >> I want to set up the split text/hires screen on my IIe such that >> more than just 4 lines of text are visible at the bottom. Is this possible, >> or does the video system limit things? I can't find anything about this >> option in my "Inside the Apple IIe", but maybe there are some nice little >> zero page system variables that somebody out there knows about and can >> kindly fill me in on them. >> Bob Dickow (...egg-id!ui3!dickow) > >Sorry, Bob. The four lines of text is a hardware limitation. There is >no convenient way of getting more text in that space except by altering >the hardware, or writing (or using) a hi-res character generator >package to do this (at the cost of somewhat slower output). > >Steve "Retief of the CDT" Hawley >bellcore!sdh Well, that is true. But, if you don't need to do anything else (except maybe wait for a keypress are something else that takes only a couple of thousand cycles :-). It's in a book called "enhancing you apple II and IIe" by Don lancaster. it's called the "vaporlock" and he describes it like this in the contents page: A fast, exact, and jitter-free screen lock that uses software only to let you mix and match text, HIRES, and LORES anywhere on the screen in any combination. Included are a ver simple windowing module and a software-only color killer. The vaporlock works equally well on the II, II+, IIc and IIe. [but not clones] it's rather an interesting piece from a hardware point of view. It's about $18 from Howard W. Sams & Co., Inc. You can do some really neat things with it! Really! Sean Kamath kamath@reed.UUCP
sl109001@silver.UUCP (02/11/87)
Also, as far as Hi-Res text generators are concerned, I have
found the one on DOS Tool Kit to be quite useful, or perhaps the package
Apple Mechanic (which contains quite a few helpful utilities) by Beagle
Brothers would be more helpful. The latter allows you to define
characters much larger than what the standard video harware can display.
Just thought I'd toss that information in, for what it's worth.
_____________________
Sincerely,
"Phaedrus"
(aka Colin K.)
Indiana University
pyramid!amdahl!ptsfa!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!iucs!silver!sl109001jmdavis@ihlpm.UUCP (02/12/87)
Just so the old folklore of the Apple doesn't die I thought I would mention a program by ???? Bishop where a living room with TV is drawn and a man appears on the tiny TV screen and dances. This program used a special timing loop to flip back to the text page from the graphic page so that SINGLE CHARACTERS on the text page could be displayed on the graphic page. In the animation the O's for the TV controls and the HOME SWEET HOME on the wall picture were done this way. Some time back Softalk interviewed this Bishop fellow and he exposed all his secrets. However I doubt that this technique would be useful for the original poster's application. Mike Davis
schumann@puff.UUCP (02/13/87)
jmdavis@ihlpm.UUCP (Davis) writes: > Just so the old folklore of the Apple doesn't die I thought I would > mention a program by {{Bob}} Bishop where a living room with TV > is drawn and a man appears on the tiny TV screen and dances. This > program used a special timing loop to flip back to the text page > from the graphic page so that SINGLE CHARACTERS on the text page > could be displayed on the graphic page. > Mike Davis Wrogo, Mike! I have studied that program in depth, and (with a little help from Apple's book about this and other PD programs they used to give away), I have determined that he uses a Hi Res Character generator. I have even taken out the HRCG, and made it work with other programs. It does not scroll the screen, which limits it, but that is a very slow process in hi res. The program is in Integer BASIC, with parts in machine language (disguised in the program). If you look at the program after it runs, you will see a POKE 54, {something}:POKE 55,{something else}. This makes all characters printed go through his HRCG routine. It is not possible to access the page switches fast enough to display the width of a single character. The minimum width is 1/4 (maybe 1/6) of the screen. On the //c and maybe //e, you can get an interrupt every screen refresh. So you can wait a while then flip pages, therby making the border between graphic and text (or lores and hires) anywhere VERTICALLY on the screen you like. (But disk accesses disable interrupts). This may absorb quite a bit of cpu time... Interrupt, wait 1/200 second, flip switch, RTI. This could be as much as 3% of clock cycles if there is a lot of overhead, such as a //c with ProDOS (both have interrupt handlers). An HRCG would slow down throughput, but not computation time, and the screen flipper is tricky to write, anyway. I hope this starts some discussion...... --------------- "It... It's your hand Buckaroo." -- Akita Chris Schumann schumann@puff.wisc.edu
des@druhi.UUCP (02/13/87)
Back when I had a subscription to Softdisk Magazette, they had a
demo for a program called Screen Magic (I believe) which did just
what everyone has been talking about. The demo would write some
text on the 40-column screen, switch to HI-RES, draw a graph in
color, and Presto-Chango there was the screen with both text and
graphics.
One screen looked like this:
+----------------------------------------+
| SOME TEXT HERE | | /--\ |
| . | |/ \____ |
| . | |____________ |
| | ^ Graphic Image |
| -------------------|
| |
| Text here too. |
|----------------------------------------|
| |
| Some more graphics down here ... |
+----------------------------------------+
The explanation was that the program flipped the text/graphics
switches back and forth during the drawing of the screen. It
looked quite good, though I have only seen that one demo. The
initial drawing and page flip was slightly irritating, as it was
not as smooth as I would like, but it got the job done. I don't
know any of the limitations (minimum window width, or length) as
the 'Advertisment' didn't tell about them.
Does anyone else know if this program is still around in the
market?
Real Life: Dale Salyer
E-Mail Address: ...!ihnp4!druhi!des
Organization: AT&T Info. Systems Laboratories, Denver