WOW! Very nice and I’m impressed. After seen the H-7 breadboard, it gave me the idea of building one out. I just tested the breadboard I ordered on a spare H8 board and it sizes nicely.
Thanks,
Norberto
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On Sep 11, 2021, at 1:20 AM, Norberto Collado <norberto...@koyado.com> wrote:
WOW! Very nice and I’m impressed. After seen the H-7 breadboard, it gave me the idea of building one out. I just tested the breadboard I ordered on a spare H8 board and it sizes nicely.
<image001.jpg>
Thanks,
Norberto
I assembled the RC2014 Z80 version of a TMS9918 video card (https://github.com/jblang/TMS9918A) and hung it on the H8 bus with a little help from the H8-7 breadboard card.
It passes the NOGDS HA-8-3 video diagnostics. This is a picture of the "KALEIDO" test/demo program running.
This establishes that the static VRAM method will work fine on a HA-8-3 clone card. So it's on to the AY-3-8910 section of the card.
Terry
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The video quality I’m getting out of my original HA-8-3 is rather disappointing. Probably in 1980 this was acceptable. On the clone board can we do anything to crispen up the image?
As for crispening up the HA-8-3 output:
At previous VCF shows I’ve seen some very nice quality output from old composite video devices. I think most of these used scan converters. They’re not cheap. pretty sure one I saw that did a great job was the OSSC:
https://videogameperfection.com/products/open-source-scan-converter/
although that specifically says it doesn’t take in composite.
this one’s a little cheaper:
the really cheap ones don’t produce any better resolution than what’s built into many modern TVs and monitors that accept composite.
Anyone have direct experience and recommendations?
As for PacMan… I’ve found disappointingly little software for the HA-8-3. Les’ games are some of the nicest ones I’ve come across..
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My objective is to display the TMS9918A output as crisply as possible. I guess I’d be putting modern Michelin radials on my old Chevy. I’m not looking to turn the H8 into a screaming CAD/CAM machine, just “de-fuzz” the lousy screen image I’m getting out of the card.
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Led: I see what you mean. Maybe I’m too close to the screen (or I should take off my glasses!). I’ve added some pix to my vcf album (scroll down…)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Bqqr9Cn1ohJaCPyC7
the flag and the globe look great. The kaleidoscope shows a lot of issues at the rectangle boundaries. Is this about what you’re seeing?
From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Les Bird
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2021 8:21 PM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] TMS9918 on the H8 bus .... alive and well
Glenn, I'm seeing the same thing here. When viewed live it's not that great but when taking video/photos the quality is fantastic.
I agree with Terry, practically no software for the HA-8-3 and probably not worth making a production board of it but nice that the option is there.
Norberto, the closest you'll get to Pacman is Munchkin on the H19 although at one time I was writing my own version of Pacman for the H19 that I called Heathman. I thought Munchkin was poorly done so was trying to make a better version. The game was never finished unfortunately but at one time I had a really good looking prototype. It's on one of my CPM Assembler disks (I think AssemblerB2.H8D) although this version crashes for some reason after it draws the maze. Here's a screenshot of the maze. I tried to mimic as closely as possible the original Pacman maze. Maybe one day I will finish it :)
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Les,
As you are the expert on gaming, If you can port most of your games to work on this board + my Pacman and my wife’s Galactica, then we have a strong motivation to make a copy of it as Terry S. has done the ground breaking work already and everything else should be easy to put together. We can make a copy of the original board with additional improvements.
Terry S. can work on the joystick design and implementation if you provide information on such requirements to control your games.
I think we have a team in place to make this work well and don’t want to see this opportunity unexploited as we are getting more elderly as time passes by.
Thanks,
Norby
From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Les Bird
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2021 5:21 PM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] TMS9918 on the H8 bus .... alive and well
Glenn, I'm seeing the same thing here. When viewed live it's not that great but when taking video/photos the quality is fantastic.
I agree with Terry, practically no software for the HA-8-3 and probably not worth making a production board of it but nice that the option is there.
Norberto, the closest you'll get to Pacman is Munchkin on the H19 although at one time I was writing my own version of Pacman for the H19 that I called Heathman. I thought Munchkin was poorly done so was trying to make a better version. The game was never finished unfortunately but at one time I had a really good looking prototype. It's on one of my CPM Assembler disks (I think AssemblerB2.H8D) although this version crashes for some reason after it draws the maze. Here's a screenshot of the maze. I tried to mimic as closely as possible the original Pacman maze. Maybe one day I will finish it :)
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Thanks Terry. I applied the patch
https://photos.app.goo.gl/x81KA4RSvrqGDQUZ7
not sure this makes much of a discernable difference. The main application that stresses the video is the MUSICK (kaleidoscope) program. As I watch the kaleidoscope change on the screen it will go from an image that looks quite good to one that shows a lot of ringing simply based on the change of only a few cells. Perhaps the pattern at the edges determines the “ringing” for the whole image?
My recollection is that this was always a challenging graphic. For my purposes I’m good with what we’ve got. Will focus on having a few games and demos to show.
back in the 80s I was interested in high level language bindings for the HA-8-3. I have a copy of Lucidata Pascal, which had full support. It produces pseudocode which must be run with a PRUN executive. I’ll take a look at that and see if they had any interesting demos on that disk.
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Getting some interesting graphics demos from the Lucidata pascal package
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HHpA6eqJguRfrtjB9
https://photos.app.goo.gl/FvdR3a5XqdV6eoAx9
pretty nice implementation. good resolution and quality.
I don’t think I used it much back then as all I had was a dual (100K) floppy system.
Compiling and running at 2Mhz sure seems slow though!...
Is there an HDOS version of SPDSBC out there somewhere that I can grab? This is for the Rev 3.1 CPU board. If not I suppose I can create one from Douglas’ CP/M version…
Also do we know how fast we can push the HA-8-3 in terms of CPU speed? I guess I’ll find out soon enough…
No but I can upload these at some point. Part of my own collection of disks. Pretty sure I don’t have anything else that’s not captured somewhere.
But Alex Bodnar recently scanned the disks from the Frazer (PA) HUG group. 40+ disks. Looks like it’s time for Volume 10 of the archive?
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When I try to increase the speed above 2Mhz the system just hangs. I presume this is because of the presence of the HA-8-3 but there’s a simple way to test that – I’ll pull it out at some point to see if that’s the issue. Too bad. These demos would look much nicer at higher speed. Then again we are trying to demonstrate what life was like back in the 80s!
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On Sep 14, 2021, at 11:54 PM, terry.smedley <terry....@gmail.com> wrote:
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Glenn,
Possibly, if you have a spare pin, bring in the 2 msec clock and let that feed the counter by direct connection.
Sent from Mail for Windows
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Great idea Ken!
On Z80 4.0, the 2MHz clock can be added to the H8 bus by placing jumper JP30 and then the clock is on the H8 bus on pin 9. Lift pin U12 pin 11 on HA-8-3 and then solder a wire from pin 9 on the HA-8-3 H8 bus to U12 pin 11. This will keep a constant 2MHz clock regardless of CPU frequency.
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Back to my graphics demo machine…:
So this version of SPDSBC (see email below) was originally designed for the H89 and includes code to force to 2ms clock on. that was what was hanging my system. I actually seem to have quite a few versions of “speed” utilities hanging around. I’ve actually written my own version which is similar to ken’s but avoids setting the bit. I’m happy to share it but worried about Yet Another Speed program propagating in our space!
I’m perpetually perplexed about the 2ms clock and the Rev 3 and Rev 4 CPU boards – no doubt my own fault for not sitting down and trying to fully understand.
Anyway as long as you don’t set the 2ms mask this is now working. Great (also works great on my new H8-2020 setup under HDOS 3!)
The GOOD NEWS is I am now able to run the HA-8-3 graphics card just fine at 4 mhz, at least with everything I’ve tried so far. This makes a very noticeable difference. I can also push the CPU all the way to 10Mhz to do compiles, which is a great savings. Lucidata is no Turbo Pascal!!
When I try to run the graphics demos at 8Mhz or 10Mhz I do get odd artifacts on the screen. I have not implemented the suggested change in Norberto’s email (but wouldn’t that keep the graphics card running “slow”?)
So I’m a happy camper. Thanks all!
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Well exactly as you predicted I am unable to get sound to work at 4mhz. I (so far) have had good luck with any of the graphics programs running at 4mhz….
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