Re: Advice requested

[Leszek Chmielewski]

You need a special Scart cable. The wiring is in the manual. Alternative is
the Composite Video and Audio signal from the Power socket.

On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 9:19 PM, Jason Thacker  wrote:

> All the electronics have arrived, but when I connect it all up, there is
> no video signal.
>
>
>
> My disk light flashes on power up and when I push the f9 key, but no video
> signal.
>
>
>
> Is it possible I need a special SCART cable (I have seen one on eBay)?
>
>
>
> I am running out of ideas as to what could be wrong.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> *From:* owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no [mailto:owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no] *On
> Behalf Of *Simone Voltolini
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 26, 2017 10:43 AM
> *To:* sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
> *Subject:* R: Advice requested
>
>
>
> That HDMI upscaler is PERFECT for Sam/Speccy/ZX81/QL 
>
>
>
> I use it for all 4 machines 
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Kora Sistemi Informatici
>
> Via Cavour 1, 46030 San Giorgio di Mantova MN
> Tel/Fax +39 0376 371059
> P. IVA: 02048930206
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Da:* owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no [mailto:owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no
> ] *Per conto di *Jason Thacker
> *Inviato:* martedì 26 dicembre 2017 16:34
> *A:* sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
> *Oggetto:* Advice requested
>
>
>
> Thanks to some generous relatives, I have had my Sam shipped over from the
> UK to the USA (where I now live).
>
>
>
> Voltage is not a concern, step up converters are cheap on Amazon. But I
> would like to be able to display the image from the Sam on my TV and
> unfortunately SCART sockets were never put on American TVs.
>
>
>
> What would be the best option for converting the SCART to an HDMI
> connector? Would something like this be OK?
>
>
>
> https://www.amazon.com/CiBest-Converter-Adapter-Support-Set-
> top/dp/B06Y43RVLH/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8=1514302351=8-3&
> keywords=scart+to+hdmi+converter
>
>
>
> Any help/advice gratefully accepted.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Jason
>

Re: Prototype of case for planed new computer SAM COUPE 2

[Leszek Chmielewski]

 regards,
  Aley
 
 
  -Původní zpráva- From: VELESOFT
  Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 11:10 PM
  To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
  Subject: Re: Prototype of case for planed new computer SAM COUPE 2
 
  New computer compatible with sam coupe and ZX128. Contain real CPU
  Zilog Z80,
  and CPLD chip instead old ASIC. Real SAA1099 and AY chip,... Don't
  contain any
  modern PIC,ARM. Price is unknown, all is in development.
 
  VELESOFT
 
  - Original Message - From: Thomas Harte
  tomh.retros...@gmail.com
  To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
  Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 11:01 PM
  Subject: Re: Prototype of case for planed new computer SAM COUPE 2
 
 
  It reflects poorly on me but Spanish isn't one of my languages. What
  sort of
  machine is it? A genuine hardware compatible or just a Pi-or-whatever
  in a
  suitable case? How much? When? In what form?
 
  Very exciting.
 
  On 22 Apr 2015, at 14:59, Andrew Park alp...@ntlworld.com wrote:
 
  Interested to see some more information on this, will it be a DIY
  sam or produced?
 
  Andy
 
 
  From: owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no
  [mailto:owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no] On Behalf Of Kurt K
  Sent: 22 April 2015 17:34
  To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
  Subject: Re: Prototype of case for planed new computer SAM COUPE 2
 
  Where do we find more information? I'd love to get one. I'll have
  to look closer on Velesoft's website.
 
  On Apr 22, 2015, at 10:50 AM, Leszek Chmielewski retr...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  How much will it cost?
 
  On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 5:29 PM, VELESOFT veles...@seznam.cz wrote:
  It's first version of case for planed new computer SAM COUPE 2:
 
  http://velesoft.speccy.cz/other/SAMCASE_6E.JPG
  http://velesoft.speccy.cz/other/SAMCASE_6A.JPG
  http://velesoft.speccy.cz/other/SAMCASE_6D.JPG
  http://velesoft.speccy.cz/other/SAMCASE_6B.JPG
  http://velesoft.speccy.cz/other/SAMCASE_6C.JPG
  http://velesoft.speccy.cz/other/SAMCASE_6G.JPG
  http://velesoft.speccy.cz/other/SAMCASE_6H.JPG
 
  VELESOFT
 
  ---
  Tato zpráva byla zkontrolována na viry programem Avast Antiviru
 
 
  ---
  Tato zpráva byla zkontrolována na viry programem Avast Antivirus.
  http://www.avast.com
 
 
  -
  Mgr. Aleš Keprt, Ph.D.
  private: a...@keprt.cz, www.keprt.cz
  office: Moravian University College / Moravská vysoká škola Olomouc,
  ales.ke...@mvso.cz
 
 
  ---
  Tato zpráva byla zkontrolována na viry programem Avast Antivirus.
  http://www.avast.com
 
 
 
 


 ---
 Tato zpráva byla zkontrolována na viry programem Avast Antivirus.
 http://www.avast.com



 --
   [image: Avast logo] http://www.avast.com/

 Tato zpráva byla zkontrolována na viry programem Avast Antivirus.
 www.avast.com

 -
 Mgr. Aleš Keprt, Ph.D.
 private: a...@keprt.cz, www.keprt.cz
 office: Moravian University College / Moravská vysoká škola Olomouc,
 ales.ke...@mvso.cz

Re: Raising the price benchmark??

[Leszek Chmielewski]

I will take mine to Foreve demo party in Trencin. Shoul I fear street 
robbers? ;)


Am 11.03.2014 15:38, schrieb Chris Pile:

On 11/03/2014 14:23, Balor Price wrote:

Would you sell though?


Well if that eBay listing is a indication of future prices
then I don't think I'd sell mine!  Once it's gone I'd never
be able to afford another!!

I think I'll follow Adrian and get mine insured!!  ;)

.



attachment: Retrozx.vcf

Re: Windows Tools for Sam

[Leszek Chmielewski]

How about Retro-X? And no, I'm not Roger Jowett...

LCD Design: Support for old platforms.

Am 20.10.2013 um 11:35 schrieb Andrew Park alp...@ntlworld.com:


Hi



Does anyone know of any windows based tools to create graphics for  
the sam? What i mean is you can draw the graphics in a windows based  
environment then export the data to be used in assembly such as JAM  
etc?




Andy

Re: Game Hot Pursuit

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Hi, It was on a Review magazine and I displayed it on the last
Commodore meeting in Vienna last May. Its here on one of my SAM game
compilation discs, but download both Review magazines and you will
find it.
LCD

2013/5/26, Solaris104 solaris...@post.cz:
 Hi.
 I can't find the game Hot Pursuit by Ron Stirling anywhere. This game is
 on youtube.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrgUMNf8cs

 Solaris104

Re: Sam Coupe project..making a real SAM in hardware ??

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Sounds good. Yes! I would give two or three of the babies a new home.

2013/3/24, Leslie Anderson lezander...@gmail.com:
 Hi.

 I'm new to the SAM COUPE group and wondered would anyone be interested in
 making a homebrew SAM-COUPE ??

 It would have an improved spec. on the original:

 Z84C0020  20MHz Z80
 512K SRAM ( KM68400,K6T4008 etc)
 64K or so EEPROM W27C512
 CPLDs as glue logic for video, memory and I/O decoding, serial and parallel
 input,output RS232, LPT1  etc
 SAA1099 sound chip
 V9958 +128K RAM as second VDP for sprites etc
 possible using a micro-controller for PS/2 mouse / keyboard and joystick
 input.

 Should cost about £30 for ICs and stuff plus another £50 for a one-of
 prototype PCB.

 Anyone interested ??

 Best Regards

Re: Assistance required

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 28.02.2013 18:09, schrieb da...@properbastard.co.uk:

So I guess this is a no then?


Quoting da...@properbastard.co.uk:

I was wondering if anyone with PAWS (Professional Adventure Writing 
System) knowledge could help me try and transfer a game from SimCoupe 
DSK format to one that would work on the Spectrum?


I've a game which was originally written for the Spectrum around 1988 
(if I remember right) which I had managed to convert for the 
unreleased Blitz 9 - but I'm not sure how to go about getting it to 
work on the Spectrum again.


It's something I'm thinking could be worth adding to the WOS 
archives... or perhaps at least dusting off for the crap game compo :)






I'm not familar with PAWS, but I just want to suggest to change the 
subject because many of us got mails from Doctor Ugandunga with same 
subject assistance required, asking us to help him to bring the sum of 
55 Million US$ out of the national bank of Uganda, and offering us 40% 
of this sum for our Assistance.
Nobody reads mails with the subject Assistance 
required/needed/requestet...


LCD

Re: Convert an Atari Neochrome to SAM with KEdisk

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 25.12.2012 18:27, schrieb Marcos Cruz:

En/Je/On 2012-12-25 15:57, Colin Piggot escribió / skribis / wrote :


If you are after an easy way to convert images to the SAM,

Yes, I'm seeking and trying different alternatives in order to make the
conversion as automate as possible.


(http://members.inode.at/838331/index.html)

Thank you Colin. I already knew LCD's website, but didn't remember
BMP2SCR.  It seems it converts only to ZX Spectrum screen, SAM mode 1.
It could be useful in some cases, but I need to convert also to mode 4.
Anyway, I would need to convert the code from those BASIC dialects (they
are commercial or non-Linux or Linux x86) to X11-Basic or other free
dialect that can run on Linux ARM. I'll think about it. It would not be
difficult.

Marcos

Maybe you have a old version... BMP2SCR can do mode 4 and Retro-X can do 
it too, even better!


LCD

Re: Accessing Sam formatted disks through a USB floppy drive

[Leszek Chmielewski]

No, but, read here:
http://www.softpres.org/news:2010-02-18
Looks like it supports SAM Coupé.
I only do not know if it saves in MGT format.

Am 23.07.2012 18:04, schrieb Thomas Harte:
Being back in the UK for maybe three weeks and having uncovered some 
old floppies, and having no access to a PC with a floppy drive 
controller, did anyone try the Kyroflux route?


On Thursday, 28 July 2011, Leszek Chmielewski wrote:



 You're welcome, glad to hear you got your data back. Most of
my Sam disks
 are unreadable; whether my original Sam was close to the
edge of spec or
 whether the disks have just degraded over time I'm unsure.

 And congrats on the new arrival! Sell the Sam and invest in
some heavy-duty
 earplugs :)

 Geoff


It depends much on the disc drive. I had here some SAM discs which
were unreadable on PC or SAM, but a very good Drive I have for my
+D was still able to copy it to new formated disc, and I was able
to copy almost all files on my PC. The fail rate is very low. If
the files are valuable for you, I can try to recover them.

Leszek

Re: Cross-development tools

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 14.06.2012 10:23, schrieb Chris Cowley:

What I really could do with is a utility (preferably with a palette
editor) for drawing graphics (tiles, sprites) that runs on Windows and
spits out either DEFBs or binary files that I can INCBIN. Does such a
thing exist? Failing that, something that has a reasonable stab at
converting PNGs or GIFs into a form I can use in asm would be useful.
Retro-X and BMP2SCR EXP can both convert to SAM and spits out a ss* file 
which then can be loaded directly as screen. DEFB export is at moment 
only available for Spectrum screens. Palette editor is build in in the 
included Painter, where you can paint from scratch.

Re: Good resources for learning about the ASIC?

[Leszek Chmielewski]

I have a faulty ASIC, which displays no BRIGHT signal, so only 64 
colours available. But I need a working ASIC first, before I can donate 
mine.


LCD

Am 10.06.2012 22:52, schrieb Thomas Harte:

Maybe we should get some samples sent into the guys at visual6502.org
who, despite the name, are attempting to image large swathes of old 8
bit ICs. See http://visual6502.org/donate_hw.html — they seem fine
with broken hardware so does anybody have any faulty ASICs? Or spares?
Possibly even just for sale rather than donation?

On 10 June 2012 08:02, Adrian Brownadr...@apbcomputerservices.co.uk  wrote:

A nice pdf of the logic gate layout would be nice ... ;)

-Original Message-
From: owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no [mailto:owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no]
On Behalf Of Tommo H
Sent: 10 June 2012 04:31
To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
Subject: Good resources for learning about the ASIC?

I'm currently partway through The ZX Spectrum ULA: How To Design a
Microcomputer, which is the book partly researched by photographing and
reconstructing the exact IC layout of the Spectrum's ULA. So it goes
into a lot of detail about how ICs were produced in general, the nature
of ULAs, the Spectrum's design constraints, how they therefore ended up
laying things out and all that sort of stuff. As someone who has
previously looked no lower than product data sheets it's fascinating.

Does anyone know of any similar sort of details about the Sam's ASIC?
Presumably it's a similar process - application-specific interconnects
added to a generic, previously manufactured base - but benefitting from
seven years of advances in density? Though the Sam's design process
seems to have been quite extended, so maybe they used some other
process?

I guess nobody has the resources to have photographed one but what
documentation do we have? Google's not turning much up.

Re: Sam Hardware

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 09.06.2012 22:11, schrieb nev young:

Hi every one,

I had a phone call this evening from a friend who has a shed (actually 
I think it's a shipping container) containing a large amount of Sam 
spares.


This all has to go.

Rather than take it down to the tip or re-cycling centre he would 
rather give it to someone who can make use of it.


I know he has NO keyboards and NO power supplies but various small 
parts resistors, caps, coils, chips, connectors, bare boards etc.


Most of it he will give away for the cost of postage. There are some 
high value parts (sound chips, disk controllers and the like) that 
you can haggle over.


If any one here has a wish list let us know and I'll put you in touch.

Nev Young.



I need urgently a ASIC and maybe a few MC1377P video chips. Any complete 
internal disc drives too? So 2-3 pieces or one citizen w/o housing would 
be fine.


LCD

Re: Junk mail

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 12.04.2012 12:04, schrieb Geoff Winkless:

On 12 April 2012 10:55, Wayne Weedonwa...@fdos-design.com  wrote:

On 12/04/2012 10:23, Geoff Winkless wrote:

On 12 April 2012 10:08, Wayne Weedonwa...@fdos-design.comwrote:
[snip valid points]

Please, can we just drop this?


Not while he's deliberately and probably maliciously targeting members of
this list I wont.

I didn't ask you to stop doing whatever you might plan on doing to
him, I asked (politely, I might add) if we can please stop posting to
the list about it.

Whatever... your attitude has tipped the balance. The noise:signal
ratio has got too high for me, and I guess I haven't contributed
anything useful to the scene for a decade or so, so I won't be missed.
When it gets to the point that people are this aggressive I'm just
happier walking away. The sense of community and humour just isn't the
same as it was; I suppose people grow up, get lives, jobs etc.

Good luck with your fight against the evil spamtator, I guess just
hitting delete is too hard for some people.

Geoff

My Jowettish is not good enough to recognise what does Roger mean with 
this personal mail to me:

the day i spam you you'll r a dint the bak u yar id!
Can anyone translate it for me to english? I live in Austria, so I do 
not have the abilitys of a native english speaker.


LCD

Re: Junk mail

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 14.04.2012 13:08, schrieb Balor Price:

On 14/04/2012 11:43, Leszek Chmielewski wrote:


My Jowettish is not good enough to recognise what does Roger mean 
with this personal mail to me:

the day i spam you you'll r a dint the bak u yar id!
Can anyone translate it for me to english? I live in Austria, so I do 
not have the abilitys of a native english speaker.


LCD



It's a bit Northern, this.  The day I spam you, you'll have a dent in 
the back of your head. (It's not meant as a threat, he's joking)

Howard


Thanks! I was wondering what he doess want again.
He NEVER made jokes before. I'm scared ;).

LCD

Re: Junk mail

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 11.04.2012 23:18, schrieb Wayne Weedon:

On 05/04/2012 06:57, nev young wrote:

On 04/04/12 23:39, da...@properbastard.co.uk wrote:

Was it just me who was sent a huge number of un-requested files?

I've added the sender to my email blacklist.



* WOOT *

My R* J* spam filter works!


Two attempts at indirect contact via 3rd party sites to me today.  
Might have to rework my filters.






Yes, RJ did it again.
Citation:
I use Boxbe to fight email overload. Boxbe prioritizes messages from 
people on my contact lists. SIGNUP
Don't he got it? He did the eMail overload! I do not want to prioritize 
HIS mails.

Oh, and he said: christ almight what a bunch of gaylords.
;)

LCD

Re: Junk mail

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 07.04.2012 15:30, schrieb Colin Piggot:


It certainly kills most of the fun of what used to be a great hobby 
and a certainly one of the major contributing factors as to why I've 
been so quiet in recent times, all it takes is one idiot to take all 
the enjoyment out of it.
Same here. He is the cause why I lost my joy in developing Retro-X 
further, and stopped to develop any image conversion software.
He is just one idiot who successed in make many authors in 8 bit scene 
sick of developing anything, with his cryptic mails and hammering.


I just want travel back in time and do something to stop him. Cutting 
off his arms or somerthing like this... ;)


LCD

Re: Junk mail

[Leszek Chmielewski]

And he wonders if his internet provider caps his speed??? I got 2 e-mails
with links and attachments and 35 exactly same mails with recommendation of
a f*g godd**n speedup software to my private mail adress with a requst
to click a link to let them know that he recommendet it.
This is enough! I ignored him just until now, but next time I will report
him to the public prosecutor for spaming me.
Maybe the admin can make a incoming Roger Jowett Filter for
sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no to save us from him? I will add a Filter to my mail.

LCD

2012/4/5 Andrew Gillen a...@joua.net

 No, second time I've been mail bombed by him in as many weeks. The first
 was a mail of 21MB, then tonight 40 odd individual mails plus one of 8MB.

 Every single one forwarded to ab...@gmail.com. I know they'll do nothing,
 but we can dream, right?

 --**
 From: da...@properbastard.co.uk
 Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2012 11:39 PM
 To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
 Subject: Junk mail


  Was it just me who was sent a huge number of un-requested files?

 I've added the sender to my email blacklist.

Re: Dave Infuriators

[Leszek Chmielewski]

The saving from Basic is a good idea because it will make possible to use
different Media for saving, but then you should also Load from Basic too.
Nice looking game btw.

LCD

2012/3/14 Andrew Gillen a...@joua.net

 Pleased you're all looking forward to it :)

 I'm looking to include the level editor as part of the release, though I
 need to figure out how to save data to disk. It's all well and good loading
 using the SAM DOS hook codes but saving I'm not so sure about.

 I have yet to tackle this, but does anyone have any tips?

 It was a miracle I managed to get this and Dave Invaders loading stuff
 during runtime ! I suppose I could drop back out to basic and have the
 basic listing deal with saving the block of level data out on exit from the
 editor maybe, but that seems a bit ham-fisted for want of a better term.

 --
 From: the wub the...@gmail.com
 Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 8:29 PM
 To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
 Subject: Re: Dave Infuriators

  This looks like great fun!  The background graphics are really
 effective too, can't wait to have a go! :)

 Rob.

Re: New Game - Dave Invaders

[Leszek Chmielewski]

I wanted to note that Boriel want to expand his ZX BASIC Cross-Compiler 
to support SAM Coupé in future too:

http://www.boriel.com/wiki/en/index.php/Other_architectures
But he will surely need help to finish it. His ZX BASIC is already great 
for coding games on Spectrum because he expanded the Spectrum syntax a 
lot and allow to use InLine Assembly, and I miss a good BASIC Compiler 
for SAM Coupé, with support of Strings and similar stuff. This would 
surely allow more people to write new Software for this machine.

Anyone of assembly wizards willing to help him in this task?

LCD

Am 29.01.2012 19:45, schrieb Chris Pile:

I'm not really sure exactly where the age divide falls on this issue
and I'm willing to bet none of us is classically young, but yeah!


I can categorically state that I fall into Old Git territory!


I keep meaning to do some Sam work again, but getting started always
feels like a huge effort...


Me too.  Finding both the time and, more importantly, the enthusiasm 
to do
anything on the SAM is pretty much impossible.  Which is why it's 
refreshing

to see new games and new developers such as Andrew and Rob still willing
to put the effort in.  Starting and (crucially) finishing any project 
on the SAM

can be nothing more than a labour of love these days.

Chris...

Re: Drive/SCART fault?

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Okay, thats strange. I Overreaded the good RF signals... Video signal 
for RF is made from RGB signals by MC 1377P chip, but Scart has some 
additional signals and supplies ölike +12V for switching to RGB. Maybe 
the +12V are too weak. Please check the voltage of +12Volt. Check also 
the condensators in PSU and SAM.


LCD

Am 24.01.2012 19:13, schrieb Aleš Keprt:
If you use the original floppy drive and have got power problems, you 
can simply call an electrician to repair your original power supply. 
You don’t need to replace it. Every normally skilled repair man will 
repair it.
I just wonder how it is possible to see problems on scart caused by 
power supply problems, and have RF image good at the same time.

*From:* Andrew Gillen mailto:a...@joua.net
*Sent:* Tuesday, January 24, 2012 6:44 PM
*To:* sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no mailto:sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
*Subject:* Re: Drive/SCART fault?
Hi LCD
Thanks, that's good to know it is just a PSU fault. The drive is the 
original drive that shipped with the SAM back in '91.
Is this something I should approach Quazar with, or is it something 
that can be resolved easily by someone as inept as me with 
electronics? I'd like to keep the original SAM supply really for 
aesthetic value.

Cheers
Andrew
*From:* Leszek Chmielewski mailto:retr...@gmail.com
*Sent:* Tuesday, January 24, 2012 12:21 AM
*To:* sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no mailto:sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
*Subject:* Re: Drive/SCART fault?
Am 24.01.2012 01:01, schrieb Andrew Gillen:
Anyone experienced any issues whereby accessing the floppy drive 
causes the display to corrupt? It starts off with the left hand side 
phasing off in jagged lines, then eventually the entire screen goes 
blank. When the drive has been shut off the display returns. This 
only effects the video signal from the scart socket - RF works 
absolutely fine.

Cheers
Andrew
Sure, the PSU supples not enough ampere or the drive (replaced?) 
consumes too much. I had similar issue with replacement drive, and 
after building new PSU all works fine.


Cheers

LCD

Re: Power supply circuit diagram

[Leszek Chmielewski]

I'm selling now one of them on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.at/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=110814185854

LCD

Am 14.01.2012 18:48, schrieb Thomas Harte:

You should sell those; some of us are pathologically incapable of
soldering but would love a quiet power supply.

On 14 January 2012 09:39, Leszek Chmielewskiretr...@gmail.com  wrote:

No, but my PSU was very loud after few minutes, so I adopted a normal
+5V/2A +12V/2A PSU by soldering the SAM PSU connector to it. Works
excellent!
In the manual they state which pins are GND, +5V and +12V, so it is very
easy and modern PSU are smaller and stronger.

LCD

2012/1/14 Aley Keprta...@atlas.cz


Hi guys, does anybody have the original Sam Coupe power supply unit
circuit diagram?
My power supply was damaged years ago and somebody repaired it by
replacing something inside with an old big zener diode. I just remember that
12V line was dead and that diode is just a random one which we were able to
get. Then in 90's it was not easy to buy good new diodes here, but it is
easy to buy anything on internet now. So I just need to know what was the
original piece in the PSU and I am going to replace it back.
Thanks in advance.
Aley Keprt

Re: Drive/SCART fault?

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Am 24.01.2012 01:01, schrieb Andrew Gillen:
Anyone experienced any issues whereby accessing the floppy drive 
causes the display to corrupt? It starts off with the left hand side 
phasing off in jagged lines, then eventually the entire screen goes 
blank. When the drive has been shut off the display returns. This only 
effects the video signal from the scart socket - RF works absolutely fine.

Cheers
Andrew
Sure, the PSU supples not enough ampere or the drive (replaced?) 
consumes too much. I had similar issue with replacement drive, and after 
building new PSU all works fine.


Cheers

LCD

Re: Power supply circuit diagram

[Leszek Chmielewski]

No, but my PSU was very loud after few minutes, so I adopted a normal
+5V/2A +12V/2A PSU by soldering the SAM PSU connector to it. Works
excellent!
In the manual they state which pins are GND, +5V and +12V, so it is very
easy and modern PSU are smaller and stronger.

LCD

2012/1/14 Aley Keprt a...@atlas.cz


 Hi guys, does anybody have the original Sam Coupe power supply unit
 circuit diagram?
 My power supply was damaged years ago and somebody repaired it by
 replacing something inside with an old big zener diode. I just remember
 that 12V line was dead and that diode is just a random one which we were
 able to get. Then in 90's it was not easy to buy good new diodes here, but
 it is easy to buy anything on internet now. So I just need to know what was
 the original piece in the PSU and I am going to replace it back.
 Thanks in advance.
 Aley Keprt

Re: Power supply circuit diagram

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Okay, I will build and sell some of them. It was easier to make than 
repairing a 1230/28 Turbo-Card for my Amiga 1200...



Am 14.01.2012 18:48, schrieb Thomas Harte:

You should sell those; some of us are pathologically incapable of
soldering but would love a quiet power supply.

On 14 January 2012 09:39, Leszek Chmielewskiretr...@gmail.com  wrote:

No, but my PSU was very loud after few minutes, so I adopted a normal
+5V/2A +12V/2A PSU by soldering the SAM PSU connector to it. Works
excellent!
In the manual they state which pins are GND, +5V and +12V, so it is very
easy and modern PSU are smaller and stronger.

LCD

2012/1/14 Aley Keprta...@atlas.cz


Hi guys, does anybody have the original Sam Coupe power supply unit
circuit diagram?
My power supply was damaged years ago and somebody repaired it by
replacing something inside with an old big zener diode. I just remember that
12V line was dead and that diode is just a random one which we were able to
get. Then in 90's it was not easy to buy good new diodes here, but it is
easy to buy anything on internet now. So I just need to know what was the
original piece in the PSU and I am going to replace it back.
Thanks in advance.
Aley Keprt

Re: full motion video

[Leszek Chmielewski]

My AMD X2 4850e is history, this means, something bad happen. The mainboard
was fu**ed up. It freezes after hours to minutes. Currently replaced that
with ASRock 990FX Extreme 4 (because it has a floppy connector), AMD FX
6100 and 8 GB DDR3 RAM. Just need reinstallation of Windows and restore my
development enviroment. Also my grandmother died 3th januar 2012, so at
moment I have other problems. Also my Spectrum game Quest for Witchcraft
need some bugfixing.
Please stop pesting me about BMP2SCR. It will be ready when finished.

LCD

2012/1/12 Roger Jowett rogerjow...@gmail.com

 help i have tried every older version of bmp2scr please are you
 working on it? it asks for a file input at the start i cant enter
 simple 512x384 avi files into it i have modified them with virtual dub
 i would have a shed load up on toob by now if it worked the more the
 merrier etc?
 anyone contact lcd to get it to work please:-

 Leszek Chmielewski retr...@gmail.com

 i just want to see one mode 3 interlaced animation working even if we
 never have an dma hi density mb-02+ style interface for sam or a ula+

 On 30/05/2011,  wrote:
  That is how delta compression (in Retro-X) works. It stores the
 difference
  between two screens in s interleaved sequence of unchanged and changed
 byte
  sequences (omniting 1 and 2 unchanged bytes so save more space and gain
  speed, so copy them to screen even if unchanged).
  You can store e.g.:
  50 bytes are unchanged, so skip these 50 bytes by increase pointer of
  current screen adress by 50
  14 bytes are changed, so copy these 15 bytes from memory to screen
  96 bytes are unchanfged, skip!
  67 bytes are changed, copy...
  You can see, it is primitive, but allows to store many frames if there
 are
  only small differences. You even do not need a flag byte becaues it is
  always the same sequence: Skips with size data and blits with size data
 and
  bytes data.
  I wrote a decoder for Spectrum only (allowing ca 50 fps if the frame
 size is
  below 2 kb), but I cannot code that good on SAM in Assembler, with all
 the
  bank management. I think, the SAM can display 50 FPS Delta animations
 with
  frame size of 3 KB (166 Frames stored on SAM 512=3.25 seconds animation
 at
  50 FPS) or 6.5 Seconds at 25 FPS. At 10 FPS (still fluid, 16,5) Seconds
 can
  be stored)
 
  Best regards
  LCD
 
 
 
  2011/5/30 Stefan Drissen stefan.dris...@gmail.com
 
  All you need are the differences (without compressing anything). Instead
  of
  saving raw screen$ data, you generate the difference between two frames
 as
  optimized machine code that only updates the screen addresses that need
  updating. There is a tipping point at which it would be quicker to
 simply
  refresh the entire screen. You may also want to insert entire screen
  refreshes every X frames to allow a fast forward.
 
  This cannot be that difficult.
 
  Regards,
 
 
  Stefan
 
  -Original Message-
  From: owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no [mailto:owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no]
 On
  Behalf Of Roger Jowett
  Sent: zaterdag 28 mei 2011 01:56
  To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
  Subject: Re: Loading stuff from machine code with the ROM functions
 
  ok this is it my last daft email to the gang of 4!
  please
  as i dont have a clu
  if masterbasic compresses a screen when it saves it
  what would happen if you take two screens from my animation
  if you compress them both and look at teh two compressed screen fils
  surely the difference between teh two comrepssed screens is teh tiny
  onscreen difference between one screen$ and teh next - no i didnt
  think so either but still clutching at straws is fun
  surely once you have decompresed teh first screen the rest only really
  need to be the tiny differences that are made to that first image
  though
  i realise ol z80b is sturgling to get 4kb into video ram and that is
  jsut with copying not reading from a port whichshe has to do to read
  teh atom
  is there no other way of ziping things up a bit please?
 
 
 

Re: Resistor R55

[Leszek Chmielewski]

2011/10/4 nev young pasiphae1...@yahoo.co.uk

 On 03/10/11 23:40, Andrew Collier wrote:

 On 3 Oct 2011, at 16:22, Thomas Harte wrote:

  It looks like a previous owner of my current SAM has had occasion
 to replace resistor R55, or at least, to solder an additional copy
 of R55 on top of the existing one. See
 http://postimage.org/image/1g4kbz490/

 Immediate follow-on questions, mostly resulting from me being an
 electrical dunce, are: what does R55 do, what would be the likely
 effect if it was a bit dodgy and is it really okay just to solder
 an extra resistor on top of an existing one?


 According to the schematics in the tech manual, R55 is doing
 something to do with the MIC tape interface, and should be a 100kΩ
 resistor - which if I'm reading the photo correctly (the colour bands
 look {brown, black, yellow, gold}) is exactly what it is.

 Two of them wired in parallel are equivalent to a single resistor of
 50kΩ (assuming they both work) though I'm not certain what the
 implication of that is for the rest of the circuit.

  R55 and C28 form a feedback circuit that should square up the audio
 signal coming from the tape cassette.  Reducing R55 from 100K to 50K, by
 putting two in parallel, will increase the amount of feedback.

 The Bright signal is generated by the ASIC and appears on pin 18 (If I
 read my diagram correctly). It then goes to R65, R69 and R73 (all 36K
 [orange, blue, orange stripes]) to drive each of the colour driver
 transistors M3(green), M4(red) and M5(blue) (3x BC547).

 If you have lost bright on one colour look at the corresponding resistor
 and PCB connections. If the transistor has blown you would lose that
 colour completely. If you have no bright on any colour then check the
 output of the ASIC and the PCB connections from there to the 3 resistors
 for cracks, dry joints, broken through plating etc.

 If there is no signal coming out of the ASIC then get used to a dull
 life. :-(

 Nev

 My SAM has no BRIGHT too. There was a shortcut between Composite and +12V,
so the MC1377P was burned out (Just got a replacement by desoldering a Atari
Mega STE), I lost BRIGHT too as the ASIC was toasted a little too. After
replacing it with ASIC from my spare SAM the BRIGHT is back again.
It is time to design a replacement ASIC. Velesoft is working on one since
years, but he is too ambitious: 4096 Colours, Hardware sprites and
scrolling...

LCD

Re: Accessing Sam formatted disks through a USB floppy drive

[Leszek Chmielewski]

  You're welcome, glad to hear you got your data back. Most of my Sam disks
  are unreadable; whether my original Sam was close to the edge of spec or
  whether the disks have just degraded over time I'm unsure.
 
  And congrats on the new arrival! Sell the Sam and invest in some
 heavy-duty
  earplugs :)
 
  Geoff
 

It depends much on the disc drive. I had here some SAM discs which were
unreadable on PC or SAM, but a very good Drive I have for my +D was still
able to copy it to new formated disc, and I was able to copy almost all
files on my PC. The fail rate is very low. If the files are valuable for
you, I can try to recover them.

Leszek

Re: Accessing Sam formatted disks through a USB floppy drive

[Leszek Chmielewski]

I had only success using a slim line Parallel port floppy with my olt
Travelmate TM 312T Subnotebook.

2011/7/22 toberm...@waitrose.com

 Hi Dicky

 I remember this question from a few months back, especially because I've
 run out of space in my half height PC case too.

 The USB floppy drives simply aren't sophisticated enough to read
 non-standard disks, and never will be able to either. In order to run
 SamDisk you need to install an extra dll (I think?) to converse with the
 floppy drive controller, and that isn't connected with a USB port.

 Sorry about that!
 Howard

 Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
 --
 *From: * Dicky Moore dickymo...@gmail.com
 *Sender: * owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no
 *Date: *Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:38:26 +0100
 *To: *sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
 *ReplyTo: * sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
 *Subject: *Accessing Sam formatted disks through a USB floppy drive

 Hey all

 ** **

 Has anyone had any luck in copying Sam-formatted floppy disks to .dsk or
 .mgt images using a USB floppy drive?

 ** **

 Samdisk doesn’t support USB floppy drives and I’m not sure of any other
 software that can do this. 

 ** **

 I’m trying to recover all the E-tracker music I created back in the day. *
 ***

 ** **

 I’m trying to find an app that will make an image of the floppy disk, which
 then I maybe could mount that as a virtual floppy drive and samdisk could
 then work. No luck so far. Anyone have any ideas?

 ** **

 Cheers

 ** **

 Dicky

 ** **

 --

 Dicky Moore | Bearcraft 

 07702 100 180 

 http://dickymoore.co.uk | http://bearcraftmusic.com

 ** **

Re: ST Mice

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Where did Velesoft say it will not work? Velesoft only said, the mouse wheel
will not work, which is correct. I said USB (PS/2 Protocol) mouse will work
with this converter. This is correct too.
USB mouse with PS/2 support will work, The wheel status reading will not
work. Check the pinouts of Mouse connector on SAM. It has up, down, left,
right annd status of two buttons. No additional data lines for readind wheel
status. You are mixing up two problems, so both answers are correct.
There is only one solution: construction of a Mouse interface with direction
and button reading to the mouse input port, and SAM expansion bus interface
for non-standard reading of additional buttons and wheels.



2011/6/10 Roger Jowett rogerjow...@gmail.com

 you say it will velesoft says it wont?
 im getting a bit spammed misself here?!


 On 06/06/2011, Leszek Chmielewski retr...@gmail.com wrote:
  2011/6/6 war...@wdlee.co.uk
 
  Here's something interesting...
 
  An Atari ST mouse to usb mouse connector. In theory, this should also
 work
  with the SAM mouse interface, should it not? So we could use a modern
 usb
  mouse with the old MGT mouse interface?
 
 
 
 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Atari-ST-USB-Mouse-Adapter-Brand-New-/120732726502?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameAccessories_VideoGameAccessories_JNhash=item1c1c3b34e6#ht_2467wt_1139
 
  I suppose the other questions, which others will know better, are
 whether
  or not it would support a)optical mice and b)perhaps even wireless?
 Though
  I
  would presume there are other issues regarding power from the USB port,
  etc,
  for wireless and optical that might make it incompatible with the SAM.
 The
  item listing seems to imply that it would work with optical and wireless
  mice on the ST, so who knows?
 
  An interesting possibility! :-)
 
  It will work with SAM mouse interface and optical / RF mices without
  problems, but only if the mice supports PS/2 protocol (sold with a PS/2
  adapter). Pure USB mices are not supported.
 

Re: ST Mice

[Leszek Chmielewski]

2011/6/10 Roger Jowett rogerjow...@gmail.com

 i know leszek the darn thing crashes so often i get utterly sick of it


Your computer crashes too. Check your computer memory with Memtest


 usually my pleading would have started when my monthly usage total was
 just about up and i was desperate to get  a message thru to you in the
 hop ethat you would understand what i was asking ½the people im trying
 to communicate with dont seem to understand english not that my typing
 makes it much easier for them and then theres the irritating forums i
 had no idea where to look when i got to yours and everything i tried
 to look at didnt seem to answer what i was trying to find out
 29mb is the tap file size limit yes tzx too?


No, 29Mb is not the TAP limit. I guess, it is the limit of your emulator. I
made TAP and TZX that are much larger, over 100 MB. The limit is Filesystem
limit.


 i need to use an audio tap tzx player to play teh audio file from teh
 audio output of my soundcard into a real sam in order to get a 29mb
 hdf file from virtual sim koop land into a real sam aotm lite cant use
 parallel serial midi or even use sim koop to read/write to a real
 compact flash - which would make life much MUCH easier


Maybe the Trinity will do the job? I'm thinking about ordering it

gues simon cooke or someone in developer land receveived a shed load
 of invites everytime my comuter crasshed and i had to reinstall
 messenger programs that automatically ask me to invite frineds without
 actually keeping track of the invites already sent out which is kind
 of dimm a bit like not puttin ghte ocnneciton speed onscreen at all
 times so we can get an automatic refund at teh end of the month -
 unless your all in work getting free internet - in your lunch breaks
 of course!


So your computer must be replaced asap, there is something wrong. It can be
the PSU, the caps on Mainboard or faulty memory


 On 06/06/2011, Leszek Chmielewski retr...@gmail.com wrote:
  2011/6/6 war...@wdlee.co.uk
 
  Here's something interesting...
 
  An Atari ST mouse to usb mouse connector. In theory, this should also
 work
  with the SAM mouse interface, should it not? So we could use a modern
 usb
  mouse with the old MGT mouse interface?
 
 
 
 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Atari-ST-USB-Mouse-Adapter-Brand-New-/120732726502?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameAccessories_VideoGameAccessories_JNhash=item1c1c3b34e6#ht_2467wt_1139
 
  I suppose the other questions, which others will know better, are
 whether
  or not it would support a)optical mice and b)perhaps even wireless?
 Though
  I
  would presume there are other issues regarding power from the USB port,
  etc,
  for wireless and optical that might make it incompatible with the SAM.
 The
  item listing seems to imply that it would work with optical and wireless
  mice on the ST, so who knows?
 
  An interesting possibility! :-)
 
  It will work with SAM mouse interface and optical / RF mices without
  problems, but only if the mice supports PS/2 protocol (sold with a PS/2
  adapter). Pure USB mices are not supported.
 

Re: who wants some then ?

[Leszek Chmielewski]

2011/6/7 Roger Jowett rogerjow...@gmail.com

 oh shit im sorry i didnt realise i was talking to LCD

Orly?

 your wonderful bmp2scr program has crashed like a thousand times


Then do not use my program, write one yourself!
Your computer crash very often, reading from your other mails about your
internet connection problems.

and
 the output from it the 29mb tap and tzx files were finally converted
 to the sam coupe atom lite interface as i asked you maybe a year ago
 or more thanks to andrew colliers fantastic python script though im
 sure as heck it wont work on my machine
 so spamming is asking you to do something


Sorry, but for me it sounds not like asking, but more like demanding.


 or asking you why the hell your own software program which you wrote
 crashes so many times


Your computer seems to crash very often even with a active internet
connection. Sure, my program has some bugs too (it was alpha version), but
your hammering was the reason to freeze the development for unnamed amount
of time. The bugs were on the todo list. look at the whatsnew.txt. All
reported bugs are fixed until you came and started to annoy me repeatly with
the problems we both know about and I was working to find the reasons, but
the other reported 1x and not hammered like 1000x after I said, I will fix
them later. I have a real life too! But you keept hammering without even to
try correct spelling.


 i see of course a s a pc progrmamer you dont
 have to answer questions aboutyour program


Lies! I answered all question until you started to repeat them over and over
like the movie player for ATOM. How much times I told you, I have NO ATOM???
Coding a movie player on a emulated atom is not very good idea as you do not
know how fast it will work on a real machine. Hammering about it made me
unwilling to answer more [not questions but] demands from you. Until this I
was answering all your question, even repeated ones.
If your further answers were not answered, this, and maybe puting a ban
(spam filter) on you was the reason.


 its a bit like nemesis from
 konami on the speccy so what if it was so bad that it wasnt worth the
 money dont buy it


I purchased Nemesis from Konami on Spectrum back in the 80's and I think, it
is not that bad game after all. There are others I wasted money on, like
Knight Rider


 but dont compalin to us we couldnt care les once we
 ahve got your money it slike the internet connection speed no one
 actually gets what ethy pay for and they are all dead chuffed about it


Why not you ask wodafone about the slow speed? Is the slow speed only at
your home and in some other places the speed is much higher? They can surely
effort to put a 100,000 pound relay station near your home to improve your
connection.
If the next relay station is too far away, you can surely give your 3G stick
back and go out from the contract for free, then ask other providers where
the relay stations (senders) in the area you live are.

Okay, you was not spaming, but pesting.

Re: who wants some then ?

[Leszek Chmielewski]

2011/6/7 Roger Jowett rogerjow...@gmail.com

 humble apols
 spam is asking for something as well as sending invites from social
 networks is it?


Not if this will happen ONCE (one time, without repeats).

Spaming is hammering thousands of times to multiple people (I got three
invitations for Facebook). Spaming is finding hundreds mails from same
sender when returning from holidays, asking the same question in different
styles, and using teh instead if the, which is not the only reason why
it is very hard to read. Spaming makes people dull and stop them from
working on their projects due to time needed to read the spam/hammering and
find out, what the sender exactly wants, or due to get bored after hammering
about a small bug or asking for same feature over and over and over and
over...
Spaming is asking people to write software, they did not want to write. It
would be okay asking this once, but not for every piece of software he want.

Re: keyboard membrane replacement

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Warren, you are speaking for everyone here, I think. At least for me.
Maybe Roger will ask next time about tips how to fix his car?

@Roger: You got a hardware cheaper or gratis for your contract, which is
running for a defined time period, so if you cancel the (no one cares about
it) contract, you must pay cancelation bill, no matter how slow your fg
wodafone connection is. The contract just said how much (up to) the fg
speed can be, not how much you will really get. So if you cancel the
contract, face the reality and pay the 200 Pound. And read your contract
next time before you sign. Or ask a lawyer in a lawyer newsgroup. No, I'm
not working for teh fg wodafone, but I read my contracts.
I will put your mail address into my spam blocker.

2011/6/7 war...@wdlee.co.uk

 I can't speak for anyone else, but if you are going to send replies, please
 make them at least vaguely relevant. This is a place for discussing SAM
 related items, NOT vodaphone contracts, especially when they have absolutely
 nothing to do with the conversation at hand.


 Quoting Roger Jowett rogerjow...@gmail.com:

  are you sure if you work for voda phone you can send a letter asking
 for £200 for cancellation of contract after all 85kbps is exactly the
 same as the advertised 28.8mbps connection
 refund anyone?

 On 06/06/2011, Rich Mellor r...@rwapservices.co.uk wrote:

 Hi Warren,

 If we can sort out the problem, then yes, I intend sending out
 replacements free of charge to those who have bought them and not
 returned them for a refund.

 I will of course keep people updated

 Rich


 On 06/06/2011 11:32, war...@wdlee.co.uk wrote:

 Hi Rich,
 Thanks for taking the time to reply here. I bought one of the
 membranes, but must admit that I hadn't had the time to test it and
 discover the problems myself, till after Colin discovered and
 mentioned them, and I haven't had a chance to return mine yet.

 If you sort the problem, are you planning to send out replacements
 free off charge, to those who bought one and haven't sent it back for
 a refund? If you are, then I'm happy to hang on to mine without a
 refund for now, but it would be great if you could keep us up-to-date
 one way or the other.

 If you manage to fix the problem, I've no doubt that you could be on
 to a winner, as many people have had problems with their original
 keyboard membranes and eventually more will, no doubt. A successful
 solution would be very welcome!!

 Please keep us updated, and thanks for the heads-up!

 Warren



 Quoting Rich Mellor r...@rwapservices.co.uk:


 Colin Piggot quazar@... writes:


 Spent a bit more time on this today, and a few emails to Rwap...

 Warren wrote:
  No worries!  I'd have probably seen them on ebay anyway, and tried
  one, given the problems I've had in the past with my membrane.
 
  Pity the guy making them, didn't produce a test one first and at
 least
  contact somebody with a SAM to try it.

 I've done more testing, the new membrane does seem to have some
 issues with
 regards to the actuation force - take it out the SAM keyboard
 assembly and
 it works, but when fitted in the keyboard unless you batter the keys
 it
 doesn't register. Also, I have also noticed holding the new membrane
 against
 an old one is that when I line up the circular contact pads at one
 edge I
 can then see at the far end of the new membrane the contacts are out
 by
 about 2mm horizontally, that will also add further problems to the
 actuation
 of them.

 The membrane I have is now packaged up to get sent off for a refund.

Re: ST Mice

[Leszek Chmielewski]

2011/6/6 war...@wdlee.co.uk

 Here's something interesting...

 An Atari ST mouse to usb mouse connector. In theory, this should also work
 with the SAM mouse interface, should it not? So we could use a modern usb
 mouse with the old MGT mouse interface?


 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Atari-ST-USB-Mouse-Adapter-Brand-New-/120732726502?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameAccessories_VideoGameAccessories_JNhash=item1c1c3b34e6#ht_2467wt_1139

 I suppose the other questions, which others will know better, are whether
 or not it would support a)optical mice and b)perhaps even wireless? Though I
 would presume there are other issues regarding power from the USB port, etc,
 for wireless and optical that might make it incompatible with the SAM. The
 item listing seems to imply that it would work with optical and wireless
 mice on the ST, so who knows?

 An interesting possibility! :-)

 It will work with SAM mouse interface and optical / RF mices without
problems, but only if the mice supports PS/2 protocol (sold with a PS/2
adapter). Pure USB mices are not supported.

Re: full motion video

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Yes, but it will produce jumps between Frames and interlacing will also
stop when loading (loading will switch the interrupts off) unless you code
own loading routines. And again: Delta method will decompress on the fly,
unless you are talking about decompression of additionaly compressed delta
chunk.


2011/5/31 Roger Jowett rogerjow...@gmail.com

 so interlaced video could just display the same two frame for any
 number of frames until it had loaded or decompressed another tow
 frames...

 On 30/05/2011, Leszek Chmielewski retr...@gmail.com wrote:
  That is how delta compression (in Retro-X) works. It stores the
 difference
  between two screens in s interleaved sequence of unchanged and changed
 byte
  sequences (omniting 1 and 2 unchanged bytes so save more space and gain
  speed, so copy them to screen even if unchanged).
  You can store e.g.:
  50 bytes are unchanged, so skip these 50 bytes by increase pointer of
  current screen adress by 50
  14 bytes are changed, so copy these 15 bytes from memory to screen
  96 bytes are unchanfged, skip!
  67 bytes are changed, copy...
  You can see, it is primitive, but allows to store many frames if there
 are
  only small differences. You even do not need a flag byte becaues it is
  always the same sequence: Skips with size data and blits with size data
 and
  bytes data.
  I wrote a decoder for Spectrum only (allowing ca 50 fps if the frame size
 is
  below 2 kb), but I cannot code that good on SAM in Assembler, with all
 the
  bank management. I think, the SAM can display 50 FPS Delta animations
 with
  frame size of 3 KB (166 Frames stored on SAM 512=3.25 seconds animation
 at
  50 FPS) or 6.5 Seconds at 25 FPS. At 10 FPS (still fluid, 16,5) Seconds
 can
  be stored)
 
  Best regards
  LCD
 
 
 
  2011/5/30 Stefan Drissen stefan.dris...@gmail.com
 
  All you need are the differences (without compressing anything). Instead
  of
  saving raw screen$ data, you generate the difference between two frames
 as
  optimized machine code that only updates the screen addresses that need
  updating. There is a tipping point at which it would be quicker to
 simply
  refresh the entire screen. You may also want to insert entire screen
  refreshes every X frames to allow a fast forward.
 
  This cannot be that difficult.
 
  Regards,
 
 
  Stefan
 
  -Original Message-
  From: owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no [mailto:owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no]
 On
  Behalf Of Roger Jowett
  Sent: zaterdag 28 mei 2011 01:56
  To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
  Subject: Re: Loading stuff from machine code with the ROM functions
 
  ok this is it my last daft email to the gang of 4!
  please
  as i dont have a clu
  if masterbasic compresses a screen when it saves it
  what would happen if you take two screens from my animation
  if you compress them both and look at teh two compressed screen fils
  surely the difference between teh two comrepssed screens is teh tiny
  onscreen difference between one screen$ and teh next - no i didnt
  think so either but still clutching at straws is fun
  surely once you have decompresed teh first screen the rest only really
  need to be the tiny differences that are made to that first image
  though
  i realise ol z80b is sturgling to get 4kb into video ram and that is
  jsut with copying not reading from a port whichshe has to do to read
  teh atom
  is there no other way of ziping things up a bit please?
 
 
 

Re: full motion video

[Leszek Chmielewski]

That is how delta compression (in Retro-X) works. It stores the difference
between two screens in s interleaved sequence of unchanged and changed byte
sequences (omniting 1 and 2 unchanged bytes so save more space and gain
speed, so copy them to screen even if unchanged).
You can store e.g.:
50 bytes are unchanged, so skip these 50 bytes by increase pointer of
current screen adress by 50
14 bytes are changed, so copy these 15 bytes from memory to screen
96 bytes are unchanfged, skip!
67 bytes are changed, copy...
You can see, it is primitive, but allows to store many frames if there are
only small differences. You even do not need a flag byte becaues it is
always the same sequence: Skips with size data and blits with size data and
bytes data.
I wrote a decoder for Spectrum only (allowing ca 50 fps if the frame size is
below 2 kb), but I cannot code that good on SAM in Assembler, with all the
bank management. I think, the SAM can display 50 FPS Delta animations with
frame size of 3 KB (166 Frames stored on SAM 512=3.25 seconds animation at
50 FPS) or 6.5 Seconds at 25 FPS. At 10 FPS (still fluid, 16,5) Seconds can
be stored)

Best regards
LCD



2011/5/30 Stefan Drissen stefan.dris...@gmail.com

 All you need are the differences (without compressing anything). Instead of
 saving raw screen$ data, you generate the difference between two frames as
 optimized machine code that only updates the screen addresses that need
 updating. There is a tipping point at which it would be quicker to simply
 refresh the entire screen. You may also want to insert entire screen
 refreshes every X frames to allow a fast forward.

 This cannot be that difficult.

 Regards,


 Stefan

 -Original Message-
 From: owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no [mailto:owner-sam-us...@nvg.ntnu.no] On
 Behalf Of Roger Jowett
 Sent: zaterdag 28 mei 2011 01:56
 To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no
 Subject: Re: Loading stuff from machine code with the ROM functions

 ok this is it my last daft email to the gang of 4!
 please
 as i dont have a clu
 if masterbasic compresses a screen when it saves it
 what would happen if you take two screens from my animation
 if you compress them both and look at teh two compressed screen fils
 surely the difference between teh two comrepssed screens is teh tiny
 onscreen difference between one screen$ and teh next - no i didnt
 think so either but still clutching at straws is fun
 surely once you have decompresed teh first screen the rest only really
 need to be the tiny differences that are made to that first image
 though
 i realise ol z80b is sturgling to get 4kb into video ram and that is
 jsut with copying not reading from a port whichshe has to do to read
 teh atom
 is there no other way of ziping things up a bit please?

Re: Floppy Disks

[Leszek Chmielewski]

The USB Floppys have a extremly cut down controller which is missing ability
for low level access. So the answer is no. My Acer TM312T has a external
parallel port Disc drive, and it can read and write Coupé Discs, only
because the BIOS. It would be possible to make a USB Floppy which can use
SAM discs, but not in a standard way. And it would also need new drivers.

2011/4/5 war...@wdlee.co.uk

 Just as a side issue, with regards to Sim Coupe... (sorry for the quick
 change of topic!)

 This is probably a daft question, as I think I've read about the issue
 elsewhere, so forgive me... but is there no way to read/write to external
 USB floppy drives? Just thinking of my own case, and others are probably
 similar, where I use my laptop 99.9% of the time these days (and of course
 modern laptops don't have a built-in floppy drive.

 Not to mention, there are increasingly fewer desktop systems that include
 floppy drives these days anyway, so even people using desktops are
 increasingly likely to find it easier using external plug-in drives.

 Is it a complete impossibility? ;-)

 Quoting Simon Owen simon.o...@simcoupe.org:


 On 4 Apr 2011, at 16:02, Simon Cooke wrote:

  If SimCoupe uses rdtsc without setting the CPU thread affinity, there are
 issues on some systems where it loses track when the thread is scheduled
 onto another CPU core. Usually a bios update can fix this, or switching to
 use QueryPerformanceCounter.


 It did use QPC, but only for sub-system profiling within the emulator.
  That was becoming increasingly meaningless with multi-core systems, so I
 stripped it out a couple of months back!  Knowing the running speed and the
 framerate should be more than enough for most users.

 I remember taking special care of the issue in my floppy driver, where
 even kernel QPC could use up using different timestamps on some systems.
  There were fix utilities available to forcibly sync them, and I believe
 modern systems should use more reliable time sources.  Nasty stuff though!

 Si

Re: Random Sam BASIC question.

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Sorry, I was very busy improving my Retro-X in the last time. I found 
more and more messages from Sam-users in my gmail spam directory...


Thomas Harte schrieb:

Aha. I never stop learning. That was completly new for me...
For Acorn emulation I currently use Beeb. Just requested from the authors to
have a binary PC file import and export-function for one of the next
versions, like Sim Coupé. I have never heard about your emulator. Is there a
Acorn Electron screen interpreter/viewer available? I should test the export
of my screen converter, how it works on a emulator, but without binary
import it is a bit hard.



Oh, my emulator is ElectrEm, at http://electrem.acornelectron.co.uk,
though it doesn't import or export binary files at present. That's
probably a more startling revelation if I also reveal that it does
import and export ASCII text format BASIC programs. I've been doing
some work to it in the last few days anyway, to improve printer
emulation (I catch and interpret Epson FX80 typographic codes but so
far haven't been doing graphics) and to fix up some bugs that have
crept in while I was adding various other improvements, so I'll look
into that.

  
Even if it does not import binary files, your link helped me to get some 
important documents about Acorn. Now my Retro-X is also able to convert 
images to all Acorn graphical modes (0,1,2,4,5). I requested the binary 
import/export feature for Beeb Emulator and the latest release got these 
features now.

Your Tokeniser is a great idea...

In the meantime, I can provide a little assembly sourcefile compatible
with BeebAsm (roughly analogous to JAM or pyz80 in that it assembles
code directly to an emulator-friendly media image — see
http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/wiki/index.php/BeebAsm) that will use
the contents of a binary file to assemble such that when you run the
resulting DFS it just puts the contents on screen. So you'd just have
to put the binary output of RetroX with the asm, run the assembler,
then launch the emulator to test.

  
This would be a nice feature if I can build it into my program, to 
generate fully executable files, eventually wuith compressor. At moment 
I do not know the TAP format of Acorn and also no details about disc 
image formats, but because there is much to do with other stuff, this is 
something for future.
Anyway I'm happy that Beeb's import works fine. I generate my files and 
can import them in debugger with fr  3000 command (xxx=filename, 
3000 replaced by 5800 in modes with 10240 bytes screen size)

I'm clueless about the BBC hardware (apart from the CPU, the Electron
shares nothing with the BBC on a component level), but hopefully
there's a BBC emulator that does the binary loading/saving you want.

  

Now yes!

BTW. Do you use API calls in your emulator? I'm looking for a reference of
Linux and Mac API calls online. There are a lot of Windows API calls
documented, but no Linux and Mac calls. I looking for example for the
eqivalent of GetAsyncKeyState(). There is a demand for Retro-X on Mac and
Linux...




I think SDL itself might still be using some of the libraries that OS
X inherited from all the OSs before it, which are all deprecated now
and generally not a good idea.
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/ is probably the best
reference resource, but I wouldn't describe myself as an unadulterated
fan.

  
Cocoa looks like it would be a nice library, but because I do not use C 
or C++ but PureBasic, so I should write a wrapper first. Anyway this is 
a good starting point for the conversion to other OSes.

Thats right... I also use ithe Internet to do some research about graphics
formats and image preprocessing. Asking people to help, helping other
people... In the 80 my programs are just simple and small games, and
Utilitys, in the 90 I learned to code better games and used first time my
own graphics converter that I wrote on Amiga. And now with PC I'm stick to
internet having not much free time to finish coding my projects.



I don't know if I even had a computer in the 80s... I think probably
not. I was only born in 1980, so I guess my parents wanted me running
around outside instead, which I did and seem to remember very much
enjoying. I had a secondhand Electron for about a year before my Sam,
then skipped the 16 bits entirely to go PC and then Mac. The internet,
which I think we first got a link to in 1996 or 1997, was a
revelation.

  
I was born in 1971, so my Home computer experience begann 1985 with a 
Spectrum 48+, then I moved to Spectrum 128, In late 80's I had a Amiga 
500, then I moved again to Spectrum and 1990 I purchased my SAM Coupé, 
then 1995 my first PC. I do never like to play outside, so I prefered to 
play with my computers. I think, I got Internet in 1998.

I think the only thing of any length I ever wrote on my real Sam was
an Outwrite clone in BASIC. It was very slow indeed, and couldn't
print.

  
That sounds cool! I wrote some SAM games like 

Re: Random Sam BASIC question.

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Sorry for the missunderstanding. Anyway, I'm sure that all memory paging 
ports are read and write ports, bacause there is no other way to 
determine which bank is currenly paged in.


LCD

Thomas Harte schrieb:
I meant are they read/write, or write only? However in the interim, 
I've found a copy of the Technical Manual online and discovered that 
they are read/write, which I wasn't expecting.


On 28 Aug 2008, at 21:06, Leszek Chmielewski wrote:


251 = High Memory Page Register
250= Low Memory Page Register

Greetings,
LCD

Thomas Harte schrieb:

Port 252 is read/write? Anybody got any idea about ports 250  251?

On 28 Aug 2008, at 20:22, Leszek Chmielewski wrote:


James R Curry schrieb:

Okay, utterly random question...

How does one determine the start address of the screen in Sam BASIC?

I forget.

It has been years.

-- James R Curry
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

SAM adv. technical manual says:

10 LET A=IN 252 BAND 31
20 LET BASE=(A+1)*16384

BASE=Start of Screen

greetings
LCD

P.S. But the structure of Information in Screen$ for Palette 
interrupt changes is unknown to me yet. |-D.

Re: Random Sam BASIC question.

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Thomas Harte schrieb:
Oh, it was probably my fault for being unclear, since the original 
question was how do I find out where the screen is and the answer 
was read port 252, then I guess that raises the presumption that 
other vague questions are about the function of ports, not whether 
they're write-only.



Yes, but I should read next time more carefully |-D.
There are machines with write-only paging registers though. The Acorn 
Electron is definitely one. But it has a generally painful paging 
mechanism overall — per the documentation, to get to an arbitrary 
page, you have to request a page of one of the few ROMs that the 
keyboard and BASIC ROM can recognise to be not themselves so that 
they'll release the bus, then do your actual page; it took me ages to 
find a scheme for my Electron emulator that matched that documented 
behaviour and the expectations of all the software that just does 
whatever it feels like.


To be honest, I houugh Acorn Electron has the same processor as C64 and 
Atari XL, and I was sure, they hawe no Ports and anything is 
memory-mapped (By the way, I currently extending my Retro-X to Acorn 
Electron and Amiga screen conversion, is your Electron Emulator probably 
for SAM???).
The OS ROM on that machine just keeps a record of the last thing it 
paged, and juggles as it feels correct when interrupts go. But it also 
steals about 3.5 kb of a 32 kb machine for various other things, so 
its help isn't always appreciated.


If you substract 10 to 20 Kb for the screen, there is not much left to 
code... Anyway, the games I have on Beeb suffer from this. Most games 
use monochrome hires or 4-Colour Fatpix mode.
Anyway, blah blah blah, 250/251 being read/write makes some things I 
was mulling over much easier. I'm hoping to release my 3d wireframe 
code as a sort of engine for others to use. You just supply an 
'update' function and the code builds around it and calls it to do 
logic and drawing. There's a function call for drawing objects and 
that's about it. Obviously I'm going to need to be much more careful 
and open about paging.


Releasing your 3D engine for others is a great idea, I saw the Videos on 
YouTube, I think, you can improve the speed of line drawing by optionaly 
draw every second pixel of the line on screen (like Mercenary on Speccy).
I'm also giving serious consideration to knocking up a quick BASIC 
dialect to try to increase the code's reach to non-ASM people and make 
it more likely that some actual titles will be released. But if I 
manage that then it'll be through a PC/Mac-side compiler rather than 
any sort of Sam-based interactive environment.


Excellent idea (that is something I was planing for Retro-X, but as 
Cross-Suite, with supply for multiple Machines, with modern BASIC 
dialect and comfortable Scintilla-Based editor. Unfortunally I was never 
very good at coding in Z80 assembly, and using ROM Routines), I'm 
looking forward to see your work, as you are much more gifted coder than 
I'm.
Most importantly, I'm really, really keen to get what I have bundled 
up so that you don't have to understand it to be able to use it.



I understand  |-D.

LCD



On 28 Aug 2008, at 21:23, Leszek Chmielewski wrote:

Sorry for the missunderstanding. Anyway, I'm sure that all memory 
paging ports are read and write ports, bacause there is no other way 
to determine which bank is currenly paged in.


LCD

Thomas Harte schrieb:
I meant are they read/write, or write only? However in the interim, 
I've found a copy of the Technical Manual online and discovered that 
they are read/write, which I wasn't expecting.


On 28 Aug 2008, at 21:06, Leszek Chmielewski wrote:


251 = High Memory Page Register
250= Low Memory Page Register

Greetings,
LCD

Thomas Harte schrieb:

Port 252 is read/write? Anybody got any idea about ports 250  251?

On 28 Aug 2008, at 20:22, Leszek Chmielewski wrote:


James R Curry schrieb:

Okay, utterly random question...

How does one determine the start address of the screen in Sam 
BASIC?


I forget.

It has been years.

-- James R Curry
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

SAM adv. technical manual says:

10 LET A=IN 252 BAND 31
20 LET BASE=(A+1)*16384

BASE=Start of Screen

greetings
LCD

P.S. But the structure of Information in Screen$ for Palette 
interrupt changes is unknown to me yet. |-D.

SAM Games and Retro-X

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Hi there!

There are some Perfect condition SAM Coupé games available on austrian eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.at/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=250273008908

http://cgi.ebay.at/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=250273010072

http://cgi.ebay.at/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=250273011162

And now: Did someone of you download my Retro-X from World of Spectrum homepage?
Does anyone use the SAM ordered dither conversion modes for writing new SAM 
software?
I never got a feedback from SAM Users (except Wolfgang Haller) about the usage 
of BMP2SCR EXP and Retro-X SAM Conversion modes.

Greetings...

LCD

Re: Grabbing floppy images

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Simon Owen schrieb:

Leszek Chmielewski wrote:
You coded the fdrawcmd.sys? It should work with onboard floppy 
connector under Win2K.


Yes, and yes :-)


I changed the code from example HANDLE h = 
CreateFile(.\\fdraw0, GENERIC_READ|GENERIC_WRITE, 0, NULL, 
OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL) to PureBasic syntax: 
Handle.l=CreateFile_(.\\fdraw0,#GENERIC_READ|#GENERIC_WRITE,0,#Null,#OPEN_EXISTING,0,#Null) 



but Handle returns always -1. I guess, that's not correct.


The actual path being opened is \\.\fdraw0, but the backslash characters
need to be escaped in C by adding additional backslashes before each.

Try changing .\\fdraw0 to \\.\fdraw0  and see if that works.  If
it doesn't, check GetLastError() to see what it returns.  If you're
still having trouble, e-mail me off the list and I'll look into it.


Thanks, it now seems to work, the handle is now every time 892. I never 
used C before, so I did not knew that trick :-[ .
Btw.: you wrote, RealSpectrum Emulator use Fdrawcmd to read discs. I 
tried to read +D discs under Win2K, but Sector 10 is bad on every disc 
(Directory sector 10 is corrupted), SimCoupe reads all directory entries 
correctly. I guess RealSpectrum use a older version of Fdrawcmd, because 
it works fine only under Windows 98SE or older. The newer RS32 has no 
ability to read real discs.
maybe it could be easier to use a standard SAM Disc, and create a 
dummy file, which has a Sector bitmap that reserves all sectors nr 10

 on the whole disc.


That's pretty much what I had in mind, but with additional dummy entries
to reserve sector 10 on the directory tracks.  2 hidden entries can be
added to each, to prevent the listing stopping so the remaining entries
will be searched.

I though, you want to modify SimCoupe to format and write discs with 9 
sectors, that means, need to change the ROM, File Bitmap layout, etc.

When the image is used in the emulator, saving will not use sector 10 in
the directory since it has hidden files in it.  The dummy file prevents
sector 10 being used across the rest of the disk.


Thats what I mean too.

To write to a USB floppy drive would just need the 10th sector to be
dropped, and the remaining 720K written to the raw device.  When opening
the USB drive in SimCoupe, the emulator will need to provide suitable
dummy details for every sector 10.

So you automaticaly can recognise USB Drives, I guess. I never used USB 
drives and have no Apple here, but Mac users have no other chance to 
connect a floppy drive, if they got no internal floppy connector.


A Image of 256 Bytes of the last directory entry, which is 
precalculated and could be written on any disc, reserving sectors 
that are not accessable from PC. Any files saved after that on this 
disc, would be avoid writing these sectors, so no need to change 
SimCoupe.


If there are more than 17 files on the disk, getting a directory listing
would attempt to read track 0 sector 10.  A SimCoupe change is still
needed to return something for that read attempt.  It would also be wise
to block attempts to write to sector 10, since it can't be saved.

Oh, I forgot about writting dummy sectors to directory sectors 10. So 
8+1 Entrys needed, so this will reduce the number of saveable files to 
71. But for data transfer needs it does not matter very much. The dummy 
entrys did not need to have a bitmap.

Si



Cheers!
LCD

Re: New SAM!

[Leszek Chmielewski]

That's a bit bad, unfortunally it is not possible to edit (at least one 
day before auctions end), a eBay fault! There will be no second time for 
you to try, unless you stop the auction, but I would write something 
like SAM Coupé (SAM Coupe). I myself have two SAM Coupé so no need for 
it at moment, I just need a new drive, but this SAM  does not have one, 
right? The current price is okay for a new SAM, so if I didn't had 
purchased a car this month, it would be a nice buy, even for a higher 
price and without drive. The TV Screenshoot looks a bit strange (cannot 
zoom it), maybe bacause it was the first ROM version?


LCD

Gavin Smith schrieb:
Erm, in my infinite intelligence and perfectionism, I listed the new 
SAM as a SAM Coupé. This means that if you search for SAM Coupe 
you won't find it. DOH! It ends today (Weds) at lunchtime for anyone 
interested - I say this just in case someone searched for SAM Coupe 
and couldn't find it. No more spam, promise ;)


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=220245979532



On 13 Jun 2008, at 2:17 PM, Thomas Harte wrote:


That's quite a find. But one thing, the auction says:

One of my pics shows the power supply without the plug and if you
look closely you can see that the wires are tied up and completely
unused., and:
I have uploaded pictures of the test that I carried out.

But the listing only seems to have one picture (the Sam in blue
wrapping) and no obvious links to other photos. But maybe I'm being a
dunce?

On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Gavin Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I've a brand new SAM on eBay at the moment! It was won in a CVG 
magazine
competition many years ago and stored in a cupboard all these years. 
Check

it out if you're interested:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=220245979532

Gavin

PC - SAM Picture conversion

[Leszek Chmielewski]

Hi there!

After giving up my old BMP2SCR I'm working currently on Retro-X, which 
can convert PC images to SAM Coupé Modes 1-4, and save them in MGT 
container.

This is a unfinished work in Progress version:
http://rapidshare.com/files/106078373/Retro-X_WIP6.zip.html
It is very different from BMP2SCR, better and faster, but instruction is 
in german only, for the moment.
There are different conversion modes like midtone, error diffusion and 
ordered dither.
I hope you don't mind that there are also some other computers 
supported: Spectrum, QL, Amstrad CPC, MSX, C64...
If you have comments, please note that I'm currently moving, so tommorow 
I will be for two weeks away from internet.


LCD