From jce at seasip.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 2 17:50:22 2013 From: jce at seasip.demon.co.uk (John Elliott) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 01:50:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated Message-ID: I've updated the FreeGEM drivers (in GEM/3, GEM/4 and GEM/5 versions) because of a bug in SDUNI9.VGA. They can be found at the usual place: What brought this about was studying the Trident 8900 series drivers, of which there are five. I can't distribute them on my website because they don't have Digital Research copyright messages, but I've analysed their behaviour here: -- John Elliott From geneb at deltasoft.com Sun Mar 3 12:29:35 2013 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 12:29:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 3 Mar 2013, John Elliott wrote: > > I've updated the FreeGEM drivers (in GEM/3, GEM/4 and GEM/5 versions) > because of a bug in SDUNI9.VGA. They can be found at the usual place: > > > > > > What brought this about was studying the Trident 8900 series drivers, of > which there are five. I can't distribute them on my website because they > don't have Digital Research copyright messages, but I've analysed their > behaviour here: > > That's really cool John, thanks! g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! From me at xenu.tk Mon Mar 4 07:06:11 2013 From: me at xenu.tk (Tomasz Konojacki) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 16:06:11 +0100 Subject: [GEM Development] English draughts for GEM Message-ID: Hi everyone! This is my first post to this list :) I have writtten English draughts (also known as checkers) game implementation for Intel GEM, it is my first app for GEM. It can be downloaded from here: http://cdn.xenu.tk/pub/gemdraughts/DRGHTS10.ZIP Screenshot: http://cdn.xenu.tk/pub/gemdraughts/DRGHTS10.GIF You can only play against CPU. Game engine is very simple, it just choses random, valid move. Graphics are very simple, thanks to that game window is fully scalable. Source is available from Launchpad and Github: https://launchpad.net/gemdraughts https://github.com/xenu/gemdraughts Source is compatible with both Pacific C and Turbo C, large and small models. Hope you will enjoy this :) Regards, Tomasz From topcatdrc at yahoo.com Mon Mar 4 10:21:18 2013 From: topcatdrc at yahoo.com (Thomas Clayton) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 10:21:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated Message-ID: <1362421278.49820.YahooMailClassic@web181701.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> John, I notice (it jumps out to the trained eye) under GEM/3 there is a "VESA (1024x768x256 and 800x600x16)" driver but under GEM/4 and GEM/5 it is listed as "VESA (1024x768x16 and 800x600x16)" and "VESA (1024x768x16 and 800x600x16)". I seem to remember you working on a 1024x768 driver but, in discussion on this list, you told me the internal pallet in GEM didn't support 256 colors. Did something change (i.e. did YOU change something)? I'm, also, wondering why the GEM/3 _can_ support the higher colors but the later and, presumably, more modern GEM/4 and GEM/5 are not able to. Hmmm. When it says "VESA", that's like SciTech Software's VESA BIOS Extension (VBE) TSR or manufactuer's ROM based one? For recent joiners (or long-time members): my interest in 256 colors stems from the fact "the web" has set a common standard (above 16) colors that ALL browsers (and the systems which run them) can agree upon. There are 6x6x6 (6-cubed) or 216 "web-safe" colors that, if used in a webpage, will appear the same to all viewers. What about the other 40 (to make 256)? Doesn't matter. Define (use) them as you wish. YES. Almost everyone uses "millions" of colors as their setting so this (216 colors) is, now, passe (like GEM) BUT this would permit GEM to be "minimally" internet compatible. I've been 'hanging onto' a number of Trident cards JUST so that I can "install" the driver files from 360KB diskettes that I have. (Apparently (as I remember, 5 to 7 yr.s ago) they wouldn't "open up" with some other video card present.) (IF it wasn't the Trident, it was the West'n Dig'l PLA?. I've some of those cards too.) I'd send them to you IF needed. Sincerely, Thomas Clayton P.S.: Isn't there a Liam Proven on this list? I just realized that some Linux server articles I've been reading in "the Register" the last several weeks are authored by him. The name has been "rattling around" in my head as in "Where do I know this name from?". (I promise NOT to tell "the Register" you're a GEM 'developer'. ;-) ) --- On Sat, 3/2/13, John Elliott wrote: > From: John Elliott > Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated > To: gem-dev at simpits.org > Date: Saturday, March 2, 2013, 7:50 PM > > ? I've updated the FreeGEM drivers (in GEM/3, GEM/4 and > GEM/5 versions) > because of a bug in SDUNI9.VGA. They can be found at the > usual place: > > > > > > ? What brought this about was studying the Trident 8900 > series drivers, of > which there are five. I can't distribute them on my website > because they > don't have Digital Research copyright messages, but I've > analysed their > behaviour here: > > > > -- > John Elliott > > _______________________________________________ > gem-dev mailing list > gem-dev at simpits.org > http://www.simpits.org/mailman/listinfo/gem-dev > From topcatdrc at yahoo.com Mon Mar 4 10:28:40 2013 From: topcatdrc at yahoo.com (Thomas Clayton) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 10:28:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [GEM Development] English draughts for GEM In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1362421720.14907.YahooMailClassic@web181706.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Oh, CHECKERS. WOW. Thank you! I didn't know how pints (quarts?) of ale are related to GEM which is why I cautiously opened your letter suspecting SPAM. (I _did_ know how they _could_be_ related to programming for GEM. ;-) ) Sincerely, Thomas Clayton --- On Mon, 3/4/13, Tomasz Konojacki wrote: > From: Tomasz Konojacki > Subject: [GEM Development] English draughts for GEM > To: "gem-dev at simpits.org" > Date: Monday, March 4, 2013, 9:06 AM > Hi everyone! > > This is my first post to this list :) > > I have writtten English draughts (also known as checkers) > game implementation for > Intel GEM, it is my first app for GEM. It can be downloaded > from here: > > http://cdn.xenu.tk/pub/gemdraughts/DRGHTS10.ZIP > > Screenshot: > http://cdn.xenu.tk/pub/gemdraughts/DRGHTS10.GIF > > You can only play against CPU. Game engine is very simple, > it just choses random, > valid move. > > Graphics are very simple, thanks to that game window is > fully scalable. > Source is available from Launchpad and Github: > > https://launchpad.net/gemdraughts > https://github.com/xenu/gemdraughts > > Source is compatible with both Pacific C and Turbo C, large > and small models. > > Hope you will enjoy this :) > > Regards, > Tomasz ??? > ???????? > ?????? ??? > ? > _______________________________________________ > gem-dev mailing list > gem-dev at simpits.org > http://www.simpits.org/mailman/listinfo/gem-dev > From jce at seasip.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 4 12:24:11 2013 From: jce at seasip.demon.co.uk (John Elliott) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 20:24:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: from "Thomas Clayton" at Mar 04, 2013 10:21:18 am GMT Message-ID: There are a number of reasons why GEM in 256 colours may not be optimal. Firstly, it tends to put pressure on memory for things like offscreen bitmaps. Secondly, a lot of applications flatly refuse to believe in there being more than 16 colours / 4 planes. And thirdly, I wrote the driver to present the 256-colour linear framebuffer as eight mono planes, and the transformation to and fro slows things down. (At the time, I had never seen a GEM driver where the number of colours wasn't 2^(number of planes). I have since seen two: the Trident 4-colour drivers require four planes for four colours, where you'd expect only two. It would be an interesting experiment to see how well GEM and its apps cope with a linear framebuffer; I know my DJGPP bindings wouldn't like it at all). > I'm, also, wondering why the GEM/3 _can_ support the higher colors but the = > later and, presumably, more modern GEM/4 and GEM/5 are not able to. Hmmm. You'll see that there is a 1024x768x256 driver for GEM/4 in pack 2. The reason it's there rather than in pack 1 is because Artline doesn't get on very well with more than 16 colours. The reason I didn't do it for GEM/5 is that all the GEM/5 drivers I've done have been for 16-colour VGA-style hardware, since I only had a 16-colour VGA driver to start from. > When it says "VESA", that's like SciTech Software's VESA BIOS Extension (VB= > E) TSR or manufactuer's ROM based one? Anything that implements those VESA BIOS calls the driver wants (INT 10/AX=4F02h to set the mode, INT 10/AX=4F01h to get information, and so on). -- John Elliott From lproven at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 15:53:36 2013 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 23:53:36 +0000 Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: <1362421278.49820.YahooMailClassic@web181701.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1362421278.49820.YahooMailClassic@web181701.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 4 March 2013 18:21, Thomas Clayton wrote: > > P.S.: Isn't there a Liam Proven on this list? I just realized that some Linux server articles I've been reading in "the Register" the last several weeks are authored by him. The name has been "rattling around" in my head as in "Where do I know this name from?". > > (I promise NOT to tell "the Register" you're a GEM 'developer'. ;-) ) Yes, that's me, on both counts. :?) -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From topcatdrc at yahoo.com Mon Mar 4 18:35:09 2013 From: topcatdrc at yahoo.com (Thomas Clayton) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 18:35:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1362450909.35276.YahooMailClassic@web181703.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Ahh. _Very_interesting_ (as in "informative"). :-) I look forward to when I can dig my old "stuff" out of storage and try running some of these. (directly on DOS). Tom Clayton BTW: "WOW!", for that 'find' thru Google, too. --- On Mon, 3/4/13, John Elliott wrote: > From: John Elliott > Subject: Re: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated > To: gem-dev at simpits.org > Date: Monday, March 4, 2013, 2:24 PM > > ? There are a number of reasons why GEM in 256 colours > may not be optimal. > Firstly, it tends to put pressure on memory for things like > offscreen > bitmaps. Secondly, a lot of applications flatly refuse to > believe in there > being more than 16 colours / 4 planes. And thirdly, I wrote > the driver to > present the 256-colour linear framebuffer as eight mono > planes, and the > transformation to and fro slows things down. > > ? (At the time, I had never seen a GEM driver where the > number of colours > wasn't 2^(number of planes). I have since seen two: the > Trident 4-colour > drivers require four planes for four colours, where you'd > expect only two. It > would be an interesting experiment to see how well GEM and > its apps cope > with a linear framebuffer; I know my DJGPP bindings wouldn't > like it at > all). > > > I'm, also, wondering why the GEM/3 _can_ support the > higher colors but the = > > later and, presumably, more modern GEM/4 and GEM/5 are > not able to. Hmmm. > > ? You'll see that there is a 1024x768x256 driver for > GEM/4 in pack 2. The > reason it's there rather than in pack 1 is because Artline > doesn't get on > very well with more than 16 colours. > > ? The reason I didn't do it for GEM/5 is that all the > GEM/5 drivers I've > done have been for 16-colour VGA-style hardware, since I > only had a > 16-colour VGA driver to start from. > > > When it says "VESA", that's like SciTech Software's > VESA BIOS Extension (VB= > > E) TSR or manufactuer's ROM based one? > > ? Anything that implements those VESA BIOS calls the > driver wants > (INT 10/AX=4F02h to set the mode, INT 10/AX=4F01h to get > information, and > so on). > > -- > John Elliott > _______________________________________________ > gem-dev mailing list > gem-dev at simpits.org > http://www.simpits.org/mailman/listinfo/gem-dev > From topcatdrc at yahoo.com Mon Mar 4 18:42:13 2013 From: topcatdrc at yahoo.com (Thomas Clayton) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 18:42:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1362451333.3672.YahooMailClassic@web181706.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Liam, I'll 'catch you up' on what I've been doing that brought me to find and read those articles, off-list direct e-mail in the near future. Should I use "lproven at gmail.com" or "lproven at cix.co.uk"? For now, I need to finish _attempting_ to setup Superb-mini-server (for trialing) and get homeward BEFORE the Winter blast hits Chicago area. :-( Sincerely, Thomas Clayton --- On Mon, 3/4/13, Liam Proven wrote: > From: Liam Proven > Subject: Re: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated > To: "GEM Development" > Date: Monday, March 4, 2013, 5:53 PM > On 4 March 2013 18:21, Thomas Clayton > > wrote: > > > > P.S.: Isn't there a Liam Proven on this list? I just > realized that some Linux server articles I've been reading > in "the Register" the last several weeks are authored by > him. The name has been "rattling around" in my head as in > "Where do I know this name from?". > > > > (I promise NOT to tell "the Register" you're a GEM > 'developer'. ;-)? ) > > Yes, that's me, on both counts. :?) > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk > ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven > MSN: lproven at hotmail.com > ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven > Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 > _______________________________________________ > gem-dev mailing list > gem-dev at simpits.org > http://www.simpits.org/mailman/listinfo/gem-dev > From lproven at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 18:49:13 2013 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2013 02:49:13 +0000 Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: <1362451333.3672.YahooMailClassic@web181706.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1362451333.3672.YahooMailClassic@web181706.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 5 March 2013 02:42, Thomas Clayton wrote: > Liam, > > I'll 'catch you up' on what I've been doing that brought me to find and read those articles, off-list direct e-mail in the near future. Should I use "lproven at gmail.com" or "lproven at cix.co.uk"? > > For now, I need to finish _attempting_ to setup Superb-mini-server (for trialing) and get homeward BEFORE the Winter blast hits Chicago area. :-( > Both work fine. The latter ends up in the inbox of the former. I keep it for 2 reasons. [1] it's best to have an address you pay for. Don't rely entirely on freebies. And [2] I've had and used that address for 22 years now, since long before most people knew what "the Internet" was. I am rather proud of that, along with my 11y old blog. (I came to them late.) CIX was my 2nd email address - I was online 6y earlier than that, via university, but I never mastered the art of bang paths [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang_path#Bang_path] so I didn't use it much. Nor CIX -> Internet mail until about 1993, and then rarely. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From ben at jemmett.me.uk Tue Mar 5 06:40:03 2013 From: ben at jemmett.me.uk (Ben A L Jemmett) Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2013 14:40:03 -0000 Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: References: from "Thomas Clayton" at Mar 04, 2013 10:21:18 am GMT Message-ID: <009801ce19af$52b1d380$f8157a80$@jemmett.me.uk> John wrote: > (At the time, I had never seen a GEM driver where the number of colours > wasn't 2^(number of planes). I have since seen two: the Trident 4-colour > drivers require four planes for four colours, where you'd expect only two. Now that sounds rather peculiar, indeed; how do they/does the hardware cope if you have bits set in several planes? Presumably it's not actually a 16-colour mode in disguise; I guess the card assigns priorities to the planes or something? Regards, Ben A L Jemmett http://flatpack.microwavepizza.co.uk/ From jce at seasip.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 5 12:49:33 2013 From: jce at seasip.demon.co.uk (John Elliott) Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2013 20:49:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: <009801ce19af$52b1d380$f8157a80$@jemmett.me.uk> from "Ben A L Jemmett" at Mar 05, 2013 2:40:03 pm GMT Message-ID: > Now that sounds rather peculiar, indeed; how do they/does the hardware cope > if you have bits set in several planes? Presumably it's not actually a > 16-colour mode in disguise; I guess the card assigns priorities to the > planes or something? A 1024x768x4 (or 768x1024x4) mode needs 192k of video RAM. The 4-colour drivers map it as 4 x 48k planes: - Red even columns - Red odd columns - Green even columns - Green odd columns So there are only two planes 'under' any given pixel. It also means, I think, that half the bytes in any 4-plane MFDB will be unused. -- John Elliott From owen at owenrudge.net Sat Mar 9 12:47:24 2013 From: owen at owenrudge.net (Owen Rudge) Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2013 20:47:24 +0000 Subject: [GEM Development] English draughts for GEM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <513B9FDC.2020606@owenrudge.net> Hi Tomasz, > I have writtten English draughts (also known as checkers) game implementation for > Intel GEM, it is my first app for GEM. It can be downloaded from here: Possibly the first new piece of GEM software this decade? Very nice, I may have to dig out a copy of GEM and try it out. ;) Cheers, -- Owen Rudge http://www.owenrudge.net/ From jce at seasip.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 11 17:22:43 2013 From: jce at seasip.demon.co.uk (John Elliott) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:22:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GEM Development] FreeGEM drivers updated In-Reply-To: from "John Elliott" at Mar 04, 2013 8:24:11 pm GMT Message-ID: A little while agao, I wrote: > And thirdly, I wrote the driver to > present the 256-colour linear framebuffer as eight mono planes, and the > transformation to and fro slows things down. I've now worked out a way round that, and updated the driver packs at and with the result. It's been done as a new variant of the 1024x768x256 driver called SDVX89.VGA (or SDVX810.VGA in the GEM/4 version). I've only tested it unscientifically on DOSBox, but it feels a lot faster. The way it works is that the screen is still presented as eight planes (GEM insists on there being planes) but instead of a 'plane' being defined as a specific bit from every byte, it's defined as a specific byte from every group of eight bytes. That cuts out an awful lot of logic operations. As an example: At A000:0003 and A000:A004 are two bytes, abcdefgh and ijklmnop. In the old and new mappings, these are stored as: old new plane 0 ---ai--- -------- plane 1 ---bj--- -------- plane 2 ---ck--- -------- plane 3 ---dl--- abcdefgh plane 4 ---em--- ijklmnop plane 5 ---fn--- -------- plane 6 ---go--- -------- plane 7 ---hp--- -------- Unless I hear bad reports of the new blitting engine / data format, at some point I'll migrate all the other 256-colour drivers to use it. (Also: A bug has been fixed that could cause the 256-colour drivers to crash when outputting text). -- John Elliott From jce at seasip.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 14 18:07:15 2013 From: jce at seasip.demon.co.uk (John Elliott) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:07:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [GEM Development] New VESA drivers Message-ID: I've updated the GEM/3 and GEM/4 video drivers again. Firstly, all the 256-colour drivers have been migrated to the new faster bit-blit system. Secondly, I've modified the 256-colour driver source so it no longer requires the memory window size to be a multiple of the line length. This means that I can now support other modes than 1024x768x256. Consequently, the driver packs have now been updated and include drivers for VESA modes: SDW649.VGA: 640x400 / 640x480 SDW869.VGA: 800x600 SDW109.VGA: 1024x768 SDW129.VGA: 1280x1024 -- all in 256 colours. The old SD2569.VGA driver has been superseded by SDW109.VGA, and the old SDV649.VGA has been renamed to SDW6X9.VGA (so that all 256-colour VESA drivers have names beginning SDW). -- John Elliott