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Post by RaymondDay on Sept 30, 2005 8:32:34 GMT -5
Hi. I just want to show what this VIC-20 font looks like with Q-Link People connection and it's every place on Q-Link. Even the start of the 9 screen. This is how I was on Q-Link for me. I guess about the last year of Q-Link. Here is a photo I got off my 1084 monitor. I had this in my 128 for a long time. I put a ROM chip in that is double the size. I think 2K to 4K so just have to put a ground or 5 volts on the last address line of the ROM chip and it switches what font it uses. The VIC-20 I think only had 23 letters across the screen and on a TV with the big letters it looked good. But when they made the 64 and 40 letters across the screen it was to blurry on a TV. So they double the width of each letter. I think it don't look as good then. But about as good as you can get with a TV with out S/Video. But if you use a monitor or S/Video for your commodore 64 the VIC-20 font looks very good. It's the one commodore started out with. When I did this in the ROM. I did not know it was the VIC-20 font! I just thought it was the best font I found out of all I looked at to be burned in a ROM. Later I found that it is the font they use in the VIC-20. I downloaded this font form Q-Link. But I had to edit it so only the letters were changed not any of the keyboard symbols.
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Post by Jeff Ledger on Sept 30, 2005 8:37:22 GMT -5
Now thats really cool.. Bet this could be duplicated with VICE pretty easily.. Jeff
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Post by Leif Bloomquist on Sept 30, 2005 12:37:40 GMT -5
That's a neat idea with the POKE, can you give us any details/schematics? What does the POKE do exactly?
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Post by Golan Klinger on Sept 30, 2005 14:17:57 GMT -5
On my Mac I use a C= 64 emulator called Power 64 and one of the options is to use the Vic-20's font. It is much easier to read and I've been using as the font for so long that I completely forgot about it. Having it on a real 64 or 128 would be pretty cool.
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Post by jefferysto on Sept 30, 2005 14:28:32 GMT -5
Jeff, I did quick test in winvice 128. I downloaded 2 character files from: www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/firmware/computers/c128/index.htmlI tested the following files: characters.french.325167-01.bin and characters.german.315079-01.bin Both files will set the character set to vic-20 when you either go64 or hold down ctrl key when starting winvice128 (go to c64 mode) You must set the corresponding character set in setting/rom settings/computer/char int. Ray's poke will not work in this case, but i didn't check into what his poke does. Just wanted to let you know. Sincerely, Jeffery S. Stone
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Post by RaymondDay on Oct 1, 2005 8:26:15 GMT -5
I did a clock in my 128 a long time ago that used another type of CIA chip. All most like the commodore CIA chip. It's a 68B21. The clock chip is a MSM58321RS. I got the info. of how to do it on Q-Link. So that CIA chip still had some ports left over on it. It's at address $D780 just decoded $D700 more. In the 128 it's all ready decoded but in a 64 you have to add a chip to decode that address.
I did a lot of things to my other flat 128, The 1st one I got. But it was a mess! It all worked but I wanted a nice neat job. A long time ago when I had a week off work I went and worked on another Flat 128 I got. It nice and neat. I looked hard were I could piggy back chips on other chips to not use any board and have wires that were close to each other. I did not want any switch's on the out side of my 128. So I used the other CIA chip. I can do pokes like this.
POKE55168,4 = 1K color RAM swap. POKE55168,16 = Swop $D700 and $DD40 My 2nd SID. POKE55168,32 = Two Mouse ports on Both SID chips. POKE55168,64 = VIC 20 font. POKE55168,128 = JiffyDOS on, SYS 58260 restart basic.
Can all so do a poke like this:
POKE55168,64+128:sys58260
That will turn on JiffyDOS and switch to the VIC 20 font.
The color ram is about the same thing. In the 128 they all ready give you color ram that is 2 times the size so I just did the address line on it. I all so made the color ram so it's 8 bits wide not 4 bits. It don't add color but can use that ram for other stuff now.
I have a text file saved to my commodore disk some place that tells how to add in this clock. A program to that sets it in GEOS. This was before the CMD things that have clocks in them.
To switch the font. I burned a ROM chip with 2 fonts in them. The ROM chip is 2 times the size. The last address line of the ROM chip I have on the other CIA chip so it's like a switch to it and with a poke it switch it on and off and switch the font right there.
If some one else wanted this all you have to do it burn the ROM chip and put a switch some place on the out side of you commodore. You have to switch ground and 5 volts on the last address of the ROM chip. If you just want to use one wire you can put a resistor between 5 volts and the ground so it will not short out. This is how JiffyDOS does it.
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Post by RaymondDay on Oct 15, 2005 11:36:33 GMT -5
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Post by Pinacolada on Oct 17, 2005 3:22:19 GMT -5
That is hardware hackery at its finest. Kudos to you, Raymond... it all blows my mind. I did experiment with the VIC font in VICE, booting x128, switching the 64 font to the French one and booting QLink. The intro screen sure looked weird! And I was able to chat and it looked spiffy. Huzzah!
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