Denial

Because #FujiNet networking on #Commodore systems uses the KERNAL, they work everywhere; even on an unexpanded #VIC20, shown here running a version of ISS Tracker that runs in 5K of RAM.

Code here: https://github.com/FujiNetWIFI/fujinet- ... r/vic20-5k



-Thom

Cool!

How does this interface to the internet?

via FujiNet, a wireless network adapter that started on the #Atari8bit, but has been moving to other platforms.

For the Commodore systems, it interfaces via the serial (IEC) port, and utilizes the KERNAL for all I/O.

It provides virtual disk, printer, modem, and network adapters all in a single device, powered by an ESP32.

-Thom

How different is it to the Atari version? I have one for my Atari, so do I need a separate one for Commodore machines, or can I wire up an adaptor cable to convert from SIO to IEC and use the Atari version but with different firmware at least to try it out? As the serial interface is different (Commodore has In- and Out- on the same pins, but Atari has them on separate ones) I assume that's not possible, but I thought I would ask.

For certain versions of FujiNet (e.g. the Apple variant) this is possible, but because of how the bus is electrically coupled on the Atari ,what you ask isn't possible with an Atari unit. This is why we haven't pursued making a universal unit; the BOM cost of modularizing the bus coupling is very prohibitive.

However, building a prototype is easy enough using an ESP32 DevkitC-VE (WROVER-E), you just need to connect the pins on its carrier to the appropriate pins on the serial port.

-Thom

Anyone want to make a better PETSCII map? This was my first whack at doing any PETSCII drawing, and I needed a petscii editor with tracing paper to do it

-Thom

tschak909 wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 8:03 am Anyone want to make a better PETSCII map? This was my first whack at doing any PETSCII drawing, and I needed a petscii editor with tracing paper to do it

-Thom

How about https://csdb.dk/release/?id=226078?
Add a frame to compensate the screen dimension and play with the palette.

tschak909 wrote:Anyone want to make a better PETSCII map?

Given that a lot of the tiles are either a pure 8x8 water or 8x8 land shape, it appears feasible to me to construct a 2 KB character set that draws the world map from 256 user defined characters, much in the same way "Imperium Romanum" does so for Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Together with the tile map, that should leave just enough room on an unexpanded VIC-20 for the business logic.

Can you help do that? I have a _LOT_ of work to do.

-Thom

tschak909 wrote:Can you help do that?

Here we go (download):



Source is included. This uses screen codes $02..$BB (186 in total) for the map display. $02 is the "complete water" tile, $0E is the "complete land" tile. It is possible the matching algorithm also found other duplicate character definitions, I didn't check for that.

The character set is located at $1000 and excludes screen codes $00 and $01 as these 16 bytes are needed for the BASIC stub. A small loop copies the tile map from the executable into place into the screen RAM at $1E00.

The resolution is 192x160 pixels corresponding to ±180° longitude and ±90° latitude with an equirectangular projection, adjusted for the non-square pixel aspect ratio (exact for PAL, slightly stretched vertically for NTSC). The VIC register init code uses offsets from the KERNAL default values at $EDE4 to correctly recenter the display regardless which TV norm.

There is room in screen RAM to add another screen line to display the ISS position. You'd need to add character definitions after the character set for the digits, "ISS character", and any boilerplate. One text line is probably sufficient if you shorten the angles to have at most 2 digits after the decimal point: "ISS:_XXX.XX°_E,_XX.XX°_N" is exactly 24 characters (without the quotes, underscores replaced by blanks, W or S possibly replacing either E or N).

I have a _LOT_ of work to do.

So have I, but as I made that suggestion to do a tile based display, I found it appropriate to back it with a proof of concept.

Greetings,

Michael


P.S. I found the Wikimedia original of the map unfortunately doesn't feature the Great Lakes.

That's cool, did you use a tool to convert the bitmap to a charset?

-Thom

tschak909 wrote:[...] did you use a tool to convert the bitmap to a charset?

For sure I didn't create the character set and tile map by hand.

I use C and a self-written image processing library for that kind of stuff.

I finally got around to testing this and got it working. This is so cool! I love the original PETSCII map.


BTW I'll be demoing this at World of Commodore as part of my display on cool network apps

Mike wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 3:15 pm ...
unfortunately doesn't feature the Great Lakes.

That is a beautiful conversion of the map. Considering the southern tip of Hudson Bay and the outlet of the St Lawrence, I don't think the largest great lake would be any larger than three pixels which wouldn't be worth the bytes.

I've been away so long, this is mind-boggling what folks are coming up with.