small@ziggy.UUCP (Wilson Small) (01/11/89)
I'm looking for a screen saver for the ST. Something along
the lines of 'stars' or 'pyro' for the mac would be nice.
Is there anything like that available for the ST? I've
got the screen saver that just cuts the screen off but was
looking for something a bit more interesting to look at
while the ST was idle.
thanks
w. small
usenet: small@ziggy.UUCP
GEnie : WSMALLkloppen@gmdzi.UUCP (Jelske Kloppenburg) (04/29/89)
I just wrote a Screen Saver Program for a friend. I used the trick to
set the Vsync to external Signal. While testing I realized, that with
Screen off (= no sync signal) the VBL Queue routines are not executed.
Is that right?
Kloppenburg@kmx.gmd.dbp.de
UUCP: kloppen@gmdziapratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) (05/02/89)
In article <1040@gmdzi.UUCP> kloppen@gmdzi.UUCP (Jelske Kloppenburg) writes: > I just wrote a Screen Saver Program for a friend. I used the trick to > set the Vsync to external Signal. While testing I realized, that with > Screen off (= no sync signal) the VBL Queue routines are not executed. > Is that right? > > Kloppenburg@kmx.gmd.dbp.de > UUCP: kloppen@gmdzi I'm not sure I understand your description, but if you're programming the shifter to take Vsync from an external source, and there is no external source, you can actually case MORE damage to your monitor than leaving it on. Monochrome monitors in particular don't like being turned on without any synch information: they make a noise like they're in pain, if your ears can pick it up. Here's a good chance to say NEVER LEAVE YOUR ATARI MONOCHROME MONITOR ON (for long) AFTER TURNING OFF YOUR COMPUTER. A minute or two is fine, but over the course of hours something gets hot inside and eventually your monitor dies. ============================================ Opinions expressed above do not necessarily -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp. reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else. ...ames!atari!apratt
braner@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Moshe Braner) (05/03/89)
In article <1040@gmdzi.UUCP> kloppen@gmdzi.UUCP (Jelske Kloppenburg) writes: >I just wrote a Screen Saver Program for a friend. I used the trick to >set the Vsync to external Signal. While testing I realized, that with >Screen off (= no sync signal) the VBL Queue routines are not executed. >Is that right? Setting Vsync to external causes no end of problems. I have written a screen saver that is perfectly safe and have been using it for over a year. Here's a repost: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here is of IDLE, version 1.2. Reminder: IDLE 1.2 replaces NIGHT, NITE, and earlier versions of IDLE, all of which had serious bugs. IDLE blanks the screen after 6 minutes of no activity (up from 3 in 1.1) and unblanks upon keyboard/mouse input or BIOS text output. All IDLE does is zero the palette AND shift the video RAM pointer 32K below the normal location. Since that area is normally all zeros, zeroing the video palette will display it as all black. IDLE checks to see that that piece of RAM is all zeros, and if it is not, it leaves the video pointer as it was, but still zeros the palette. This has the effect of blanking the screen in color mode, but only reversing black and white in monochrome mode. The check for nonzeros is done slowly, so strange things _might_ show on the screen for up to 20 seconds. But not to worry: IDLE does _not_ write to the video RAM. To customize the delay before blanking, change the LONG integer that is located immediately after the branch instruction at the start of the program, at an offset of 32 bytes from the start of the .PRG file, and followed with the ASCII string "IDLE" in the next 4 bytes. The default value is 72000 decimal (00011940 hex) for 6 minutes (6*60*200). I have only tested IDLE with a monochrome monitor, but it is supposed to work with color too, as described. Here is the binary, source (GST assembler) available upon request. This can be put into the auto folder. - Moshe Braner ---------------------- cut here -------------------- begin 644 idle12.prg M8!H *@ & :8 1E 241,10 !(a MYX# 0.< ? < ,#H!6F960?H!5E.0:G!!^() 0_H!6G '(M!"F%'(__HS_ "a M !=DIY !?F9.,_P 0 79!^(( $"@ >%($"@ S/ !@# Z 1H1a M0 #X$@10 !8"(,0 !9AQ!^(( $"@ >%($"@ [!Z /9G"#/\ ( %Va M0?H XC 0:@I">0 7XP/'T 44 P@"!Z -1*L 9@9*L $9S P.@"V#$ a M 686,#H MA' @@/@2!' @@$S_ " !=C/\?0 %\,_P 0 7Y&WTS?a M P$O.O\63G5)1$Q% $CG@, P+P *#$ V8"82),WP,!+SK_YDYU241,a M10 !(YX# 80I,WP,!+SK_\$YU0.< ? < ,#H .F<J#$ 68.,#H .!' a M@@/@2!' @@%!^() 0_H +G '(-E1R/_\0GD %V(_K^F 7A&WTYU a M 1E a M !(>@ T/SP )DY.7(](>@"</SP "4Y!7(]R"G#_4<C__E')__A!^O_:D>\ a M!$)G+P@_/ Q3D%"@$'X@@ 0* !X4 0* #!$ @#/ !@N& (\ &$a M('@!& RH241,1?_X9QYP I*!0?H &B)P& D<!@,)G 8&"21(HM8@5'(_^Q.a M=0 +0 $8 !% /X $@ # 0( $D $ T*"4E$3$4Za M('1H92!#4E0@<')O=&5C=&]R#0H)(" @(&)Y($UO<VAE($)R86YE<@T*"79Ea M<G-I;VX@,2XR("T@:6YS=&%L;&5D#0H* #X&"A0R#C@("'P(A@@^! 0$a #! 0 a a end
leo@philmds.UUCP (Leo de Wit) (05/09/89)
In article <7871@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> braner@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Moshe Braner) writes: |Here is of IDLE, version 1.2. |Reminder: IDLE 1.2 replaces NIGHT, NITE, and earlier versions of IDLE, |all of which had serious bugs. IDLE blanks the screen after 6 minutes |of no activity (up from 3 in 1.1) and unblanks upon keyboard/mouse |input or BIOS text output. | |All IDLE does is zero the palette AND shift the video RAM pointer 32K |below the normal location. Since that area is normally all zeros, |zeroing the video palette will display it as all black. IDLE checks |to see that that piece of RAM is all zeros, and if it is not, it leaves |the video pointer as it was, but still zeros the palette. This has the |effect of blanking the screen in color mode, but only reversing black |and white in monochrome mode. The check for nonzeros is done slowly, |so strange things _might_ show on the screen for up to 20 seconds. |But not to worry: IDLE does _not_ write to the video RAM. But I'm still worried: if the 32K below the normal physical screen location (or part of it) belongs to a program (it often does) and contains all zero's, IDLE will make the video RAM pointer point into that (probably executing) program. Subsequent data changes in this part of the program will reflect on the screen, and, what is worse, writes to the screen will modify the data in the program (and note that not all screen output is directed via the BIOS calls). Leo.
agostino@sherlock.cs.concordia.ca (DELIGIA agostino) (02/27/90)
I looked at Maccel2 (mouse accelerator) and it has a screensaver. Actually,
what it does is to altenately (every 15 sec) display the screen in normal and
reverse video. Does this actually protect the screen over long periods of
time?
Agostino
email: agostino@sunkisd.cs.concordia.ca
agostino@concour.cs.concordia.carehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) (02/27/90)
In article <1874@clyde.concordia.ca> agostino@sherlock.CS.Concordia.CA (DELIGIA agostino) writes: >I looked at Maccel2 (mouse accelerator) and it has a screensaver. Actually, >what it does is to altenately (every 15 sec) display the screen in normal and >reverse video. Does this actually protect the screen over long periods of >time? The old Atari 8-bitters color-cycled after a few minutes of inactivity, as a standard feature. (Programs could disable it, sort of, by knowing where and what value to poke into memory.) Looked like they rotated colors every 5-10 seconds. Never noticed any problems with burn-in on my old model 800. (It did scare my 7 year old son, who now uses it, the first time it happened to him, though. He forgot to shut off the monitor, went away for a few hours, and came back to find it color-cycling. He thought he'd fried the machine by leaving it unattended. 7-year-olds in the house are a good reason to have a screen-saver... ;-) So, how about it, KenB or AllanP? Doesn't seem like it'd take much more effort for you folks to add a "screen-saver vector" to TOS 1.8 than it did to do a "rainbow Fuji" to TOS 1.4. Sure would be more useful, too. Have the vector point to a simple color-cycler routine by default; give a few guidelines as to the "dooz 'n' donts" of installing custom savers; make it something one can disable from the DESK menu (ala the Blitter -- actually, perhaps just allow selectable delay time to trigger, and let 0 mean "disable"?). Relatively cheap way to earn more good will, seems to me... -- >>"Aaiiyeeee! Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, rehrauer@apollo.hp.com "Flee, lest we be trod upon!" | The Apollo System Division of H.P.
psurge@cs.utexas.edu (Troy Carpenter) (02/28/90)
In article <1874@clyde.concordia.ca>, agostino@sherlock.cs.concordia.ca (DELIGIA agostino) writes: > > I looked at Maccel2 (mouse accelerator) and it has a screensaver. Actually, > what it does is to altenately (every 15 sec) display the screen in normal and > reverse video. Does this actually protect the screen over long periods of > time? > I use Maccel2 and my screen blanks, instead of shifting colors. Does this fall into the dangerous catagory of screen savers? I have never seen any problems from my monitor. Troy Carpenter Department of Computer Sciences THE University of Texas, Austin psurge@cs.utexas.edu
bwhite@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Bill White) (03/01/90)
In article <1874@clyde.concordia.ca>, agostino@sherlock.cs.concordia.ca (DELIGIA agostino) writes: > > I looked at Maccel2 (mouse accelerator) and it has a screensaver. Actually, > what it does is to altenately (every 15 sec) display the screen in normal and > reverse video. Does this actually protect the screen over long periods of > time? > Well, yes and no. It would keep a PATTERN from burning in, but not keep the monitor from losing overall brightness. I've seen some old terminals which were set up to reverse the screen every n seconds as a screen saver, and in spite of this, they still got dim. Besides, if you use your computer for a wide variety of applications, then pattern burnin is hardly going to be the problem that overall burnin would be. Of course, if you just kept it sitting in the desktop, sure the icons would burn in. But how many of us do that? Bill White bwhite@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu
dave@dms3b1.UUCP (Dave Hanna) (03/07/90)
In article <8023@cs.utexas.edu> psurge@cs.utexas.edu (Troy Carpenter) writes: >I use Maccel2 and my screen blanks, instead of shifting colors. If I'm not mistaken, Maccel2 will blank a color monitor, and periodically reverse a monochrome monitor. I have been told that the reason for this is that the monochrome monitor design will fry itself if it goes for long periods without a sync signal. I installed the recently posted "pyro" program on top of Maccel2 - It goes to an almost blank screen after a blanking delay, and produces a random display of single-pixel "fireworks". It's cute, but you almost have to turn the room lights off to see the fireworks. Anyway, since it is being sent a signal, it maintains sync to the monitor, but the screen is essentially black. > Troy Carpenter > Department of Computer Sciences Dave Hanna -- Dave Hanna, Infotouch Systems, Inc. | "Do or do not -- There is no try" P.O. Box 584, Bedford, TX 76095 | - Yoda (214) 358-4534 (817) 540-1524 | UUCP: ...!texbell!letni!dms3b1!dave |