Wow! Is there any chance of you maybe re-releasing Homebrew with the (very minimal) colour clash removed?
Attribute clash is still present with ULA+. In fact, that's what I like about it - it's still a Spectrum with a 256x192 monochrome display and a low resolution 32x24 colour filter. I could modify Homebrew to give a larger variety of colours for the fruits and the nasties, but the colour clash will always be there.
What the new ULA does is provide 4 16-colour look-up tables for the attributes, with the ability to set the red, green and blue levels for each of those 64 colours. So, instead of being limited to the Spectrum's admittedly rather beautiful 15-colour palette, we can have up to 64 colours on screen (or more with a bit of trickery) and we can choose exactly which colours we want to use.
I'm knocking up a few test screens with the Egghead engine, just to see what the old fellow might look like with more colours and a different palette. I'll post a download link in this topic later tonight.
Attribute clash is still present with ULA+. In fact, that's what I like about it - it's still a Spectrum with a 256x192 monochrome display and a low resolution 32x24 colour filter. I could modify Homebrew to give a larger variety of colours for the fruits and the nasties, but the colour clash will always be there.
What the new ULA does is provide 4 16-colour look-up tables for the attributes, with the ability to set the red, green and blue levels for each of those 64 colours. So, instead of being limited to the Spectrum's admittedly rather beautiful 15-colour palette, we can have up to 64 colours on screen (or more with a bit of trickery) and we can choose exactly which colours we want to use.
I'm knocking up a few test screens with the Egghead engine, just to see what the old fellow might look like with more colours and a different palette. I'll post a download link in this topic later tonight.
If this gets popular (which I hope it does) we're gonna need a new suite of drawing tools
Attribute clash is still present with ULA+. In fact, that's what I like about it - it's still a Spectrum with a 256x192 monochrome display and a low resolution 32x24 colour filter.
Totally agree, this is still essentially a Spectrum, and so I'm considering putting some extra colours in my Christmas game.
Okay, I've knocked up a few experimental test screens. I've only used a couple of dozen colours, there are loads more still undefined. It plays the same, it just doesn't look like a Spectrum game any more.
OK, spent the day making a nice converter to convert hi-res pictures from the C64 (spit) to the new ULA64 ZX Spectrum modes. It was a real pain... first to rip the pictures and then to make the converter... C64 has 16 colours only, but it took some thinking to get them into ula64 mode properly... because one can have ANY combination of ink+paper of these 16 colours I had to use ALL 64 of the new colours to make the conversion work. I have included 9 really nice pictures in the slide-show, which you can get here :
Press ENTER between screens (don't press SPACE or you will Break it ;-) ).
Anyway, here are 3 screens from the slideshow, for the rest you will have to run it in SPIN :)
btw. the best of these are done by Veto ! :)
If any1 has any other good c64 pictures I could include (hires only!) then do give me a shout !!! :)
Nice job converting those pictures. Can we hope for a new option in Retro-x or Spin's screen editor? To be able to create a .scr file (and the necessary palette) from any computer image file would be really, really nice!
*waiting to see PC-to-ula+ and Amiga-to-ula+ conversions*
Can we hope for a new option in Retro-x or Spin's screen editor? To be able to create a .scr file (and the necessary palette) from any computer image file would be really, really nice!
Yes, BASin will be getting a ULA+ screen$ editor, which includes an import option.
I am not sure since it is quite crude... :) I.e. you need to rip the bitmap and colour data from the c64 (two files) - I do this with VICE and its debugger, so you need to have some knowledge of the c64 to do this (you need to find out where in memory the bitmap and colour data is stored). The convertor itself is quite straightforward, you select the area you want to rip and it saves the Screen$ .TAP file for ya.
If you still want it then tell me and I will zip it up for you :)
I am not sure since it is quite crude... :) I.e. you need to rip the bitmap and colour data from the c64 (two files) - I do this with VICE and its debugger, so you need to have some knowledge of the c64 to do this (you need to find out where in memory the bitmap and colour data is stored). The convertor itself is quite straightforward, you select the area you want to rip and it saves the Screen$ .TAP file for ya.
If you still want it then tell me and I will zip it up for you :)
OK, thanx to Chevron I have added additional 14 pictures to the C64 Slide Show... it was quite easy to convert these though :) Anyway, you can get the updated Slideshow with all 23 pictures here (it also has a nice keyboard fix by Dunny... press any key now really ;-) ) :
Out of interest, from a historical perspective, how much work with this have hypothetically been to have included in the original Spectrum.
Does it use any advances in knowledge developed over the past 25 years, or is it something that could have easily been included at the time, if only they'd gone the extra mile?
If so, it would have defeated at least one angle of attack from Commode 64 Lusers ;)
(Okay, so they still would have had us on the sound, but meh - who needs sound anyway ;) )
Out of interest, from a historical perspective, how much work with this have hypothetically been to have included in the original Spectrum.
Does it use any advances in knowledge developed over the past 25 years, or is it something that could have easily been included at the time, if only they'd gone the extra mile?
If so, it would have defeated at least one angle of attack from Commode 64 Lusers ;)
(Okay, so they still would have had us on the sound, but meh - who needs sound anyway ;) )
Andrew
it's just a bit of extra logic in the ULA, I don't know how much space there was left in the original ULA, I'm sure chris smith can tell you.
Would it have lead to extra costs? Surely Sinclair's thrust was to make computers affordable for the average British family.
Regards,
Shaun.
if it would have fit into type of ULA that they bought then I can't imagine that the cost would have been any different, but I don't really know much about the commissioning and the internals of the ULA, so like I say someone else is more qualified to answer
if it would have fit into type of ULA that they bought then I can't imagine that the cost would have been any different, but I don't really know much about the commissioning and the internals of the ULA, so like I say someone else is more qualified to answer
Something like this would have taken up a lot of space. Each of the four CLUTs consists of 64 bytes of data. There wouldn't have been any 'RAM' blocks available in a ULA of that era (fairly sure about this, though not 100%) so the memory would have been implemented as a bunch of flip-flops, meaning one CLUT would require 64*8 = 512 flip-flops. That's an enormous number of gates compared to what is required to actually implement the rest of the 48k ula. Such a thing would have required a larger ULA or a more expensive kind with a RAM block in it.
The natural path for upgrading the ula was taken by Timex and only required fairly simple changes. Why the 128k spectrum's ula didn't follow such a simple path is a real question I've had for a long time.
Something like this would have taken up a lot of space. Each of the four CLUTs consists of 64 bytes of data. There wouldn't have been any 'RAM' blocks available in a ULA of that era (fairly sure about this, though not 100%) so the memory would have been implemented as a bunch of flip-flops, meaning one CLUT would require 64*8 = 512 flip-flops. That's an enormous number of gates compared to what is required to actually implement the rest of the 48k ula. Such a thing would have required a larger ULA or a more expensive kind with a RAM block in it.
The natural path for upgrading the ula was taken by Timex and only required fairly simple changes. Why the 128k spectrum's ula didn't follow such a simple path is a real question I've had for a long time.
ah yes, course I forgot about the sheer amount of registers.
Strangely though I don't think it would have altered the Spectrums' course at all. If anything the issue of colour-clash blighted the Spectrum in some people minds, and that hasn't changed (and never should it - it is part of what I think of as a Spectrum), so although I think they could have done it, I'm not sure they should have done it for any commercial reason.
Strangely though I don't think it would have altered the Spectrums' course at all. If anything the issue of colour-clash blighted the Spectrum in some people minds, and that hasn't changed (and never should it - it is part of what I think of as a Spectrum), so although I think they could have done it, I'm not sure they should have done it for any commercial reason.
besides that it was supposed to be a serious machine! for serious applications like word processors (laugh) and home accounting (rofl) etc etc.
you only need lots of colours and fancy graphics for GAMES! bah humbug!
You could compare to Commodore's path. They bought a semiconductor fab that let them manufacture custom ICs at no cost. From what I've read they did whatever, whenever they wanted at the fab so the real cost of developing their ICs probably never figured into their final product. It would have been no skin off their noses to add four CLUTs onto their ICs :-)
If you didn't have a fab you'd have to plan to sell a million (or insert suitable large number here) Spectrums from the get go to recover the greater up-front cost of a custom IC that would let you create much denser logic in the same size die. The semi-custom route was safer and likely made much more sense.
besides that it was supposed to be a serious machine! for serious applications like word processors (laugh) and home accounting (rofl) etc etc.
you only need lots of colours and fancy graphics for GAMES! bah humbug!
True, especially with an early-eighties head on. Colours were not important at the time - just look at the monochrome ZX81 which was still selling well at the time of the Spectrums release. 64 colours on screen at once is nearly pushing the 16-bit era (but not quite...!)
Something like this would have taken up a lot of space. Each of the four CLUTs consists of 64 bytes of data. There wouldn't have been any 'RAM' blocks available in a ULA of that era (fairly sure about this, though not 100%) so the memory would have been implemented as a bunch of flip-flops, meaning one CLUT would require 64*8 = 512 flip-flops. That's an enormous number of gates compared to what is required to actually implement the rest of the 48k ula. Such a thing would have required a larger ULA or a more expensive kind with a RAM block in it.
The natural path for upgrading the ula was taken by Timex and only required fairly simple changes. Why the 128k spectrum's ula didn't follow such a simple path is a real question I've had for a long time.
Perfect. That's the answer I was looking for. Thanks AA.
EDIT: Why could they have not reserved an additional area of 'system RAM' for the CLUT? Maybe right after the attribute space?
Strangely though I don't think it would have altered the Spectrums' course at all. If anything the issue of colour-clash blighted the Spectrum in some people minds, and that hasn't changed (and never should it - it is part of what I think of as a Spectrum), so although I think they could have done it, I'm not sure they should have done it for any commercial reason.
The 512x192 mode would have been nice for serious software and the one 'natural' mode that Timex missed would have been a no-clash 256x192 mode with four colours, just like on the CPC. This sort of thing would have subtracted from Amstrad's market share.
But I do agree, the Spectrum was popular enough. Adding new features wasn't important to its ongoing popularity or survival as a platform. It just seems to me a shame that the 128k wasn't much of an improvement over its predecessor when it would have been so easy to do more.
Comments
Attribute clash is still present with ULA+. In fact, that's what I like about it - it's still a Spectrum with a 256x192 monochrome display and a low resolution 32x24 colour filter. I could modify Homebrew to give a larger variety of colours for the fruits and the nasties, but the colour clash will always be there.
What the new ULA does is provide 4 16-colour look-up tables for the attributes, with the ability to set the red, green and blue levels for each of those 64 colours. So, instead of being limited to the Spectrum's admittedly rather beautiful 15-colour palette, we can have up to 64 colours on screen (or more with a bit of trickery) and we can choose exactly which colours we want to use.
I'm knocking up a few test screens with the Egghead engine, just to see what the old fellow might look like with more colours and a different palette. I'll post a download link in this topic later tonight.
Egghead Website
Arcade Game Designer
My itch.io page
how'd you 'turn on' the ula64 in spin?
(I can't see it)
If this gets popular (which I hope it does) we're gonna need a new suite of drawing tools
Totally agree, this is still essentially a Spectrum, and so I'm considering putting some extra colours in my Christmas game.
https://twitter.com/bobsstuffgames
https://www.facebook.com/bobs.stuff
http://www.bobs-stuff.co.uk
dozy arse I've got the wrong version
cheers
Take a look:
http://rapidshare.com/files/303753096/EggheadPlus.tap
Egghead Website
Arcade Game Designer
My itch.io page
http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/C64Screens.tap
Press ENTER between screens (don't press SPACE or you will Break it ;-) ).
Anyway, here are 3 screens from the slideshow, for the rest you will have to run it in SPIN :)
btw. the best of these are done by Veto ! :)
If any1 has any other good c64 pictures I could include (hires only!) then do give me a shout !!! :)
Best regards,
Tomaz
Nice job converting those pictures. Can we hope for a new option in Retro-x or Spin's screen editor? To be able to create a .scr file (and the necessary palette) from any computer image file would be really, really nice!
*waiting to see PC-to-ula+ and Amiga-to-ula+ conversions*
Yes, BASin will be getting a ULA+ screen$ editor, which includes an import option.
D.
I am not sure since it is quite crude... :) I.e. you need to rip the bitmap and colour data from the c64 (two files) - I do this with VICE and its debugger, so you need to have some knowledge of the c64 to do this (you need to find out where in memory the bitmap and colour data is stored). The convertor itself is quite straightforward, you select the area you want to rip and it saves the Screen$ .TAP file for ya.
If you still want it then tell me and I will zip it up for you :)
TC
do you have a link to original c64 screens?
OK, lemme find them for ya (couldnt find all of them, sorry):
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=84126
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=82731
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=81159
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=76259
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=57361
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=81164
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=58381
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=38967
http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/C64SlideShow.tap
This will probably be it... not many more good c64 hires pics around :)
Best regards,
Tomaz
PS: Spot two pictures which were actually converted from ZX Spectrum to C64 first !!! :) So we have done the full circle with new palette :)
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=72583
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=46150
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=77659
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=77461
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=42221
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=58626
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=58066
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=30864
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=52225
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=84139
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=59801
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=40100
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=83294
Does it use any advances in knowledge developed over the past 25 years, or is it something that could have easily been included at the time, if only they'd gone the extra mile?
If so, it would have defeated at least one angle of attack from Commode 64 Lusers ;)
(Okay, so they still would have had us on the sound, but meh - who needs sound anyway ;) )
Andrew
it's just a bit of extra logic in the ULA, I don't know how much space there was left in the original ULA, I'm sure chris smith can tell you.
Regards,
Shaun.
if it would have fit into type of ULA that they bought then I can't imagine that the cost would have been any different, but I don't really know much about the commissioning and the internals of the ULA, so like I say someone else is more qualified to answer
Something like this would have taken up a lot of space. Each of the four CLUTs consists of 64 bytes of data. There wouldn't have been any 'RAM' blocks available in a ULA of that era (fairly sure about this, though not 100%) so the memory would have been implemented as a bunch of flip-flops, meaning one CLUT would require 64*8 = 512 flip-flops. That's an enormous number of gates compared to what is required to actually implement the rest of the 48k ula. Such a thing would have required a larger ULA or a more expensive kind with a RAM block in it.
The natural path for upgrading the ula was taken by Timex and only required fairly simple changes. Why the 128k spectrum's ula didn't follow such a simple path is a real question I've had for a long time.
Write games in C using Z88DK and SP1
ah yes, course I forgot about the sheer amount of registers.
https://twitter.com/bobsstuffgames
https://www.facebook.com/bobs.stuff
http://www.bobs-stuff.co.uk
besides that it was supposed to be a serious machine! for serious applications like word processors (laugh) and home accounting (rofl) etc etc.
you only need lots of colours and fancy graphics for GAMES! bah humbug!
If you didn't have a fab you'd have to plan to sell a million (or insert suitable large number here) Spectrums from the get go to recover the greater up-front cost of a custom IC that would let you create much denser logic in the same size die. The semi-custom route was safer and likely made much more sense.
Write games in C using Z88DK and SP1
True, especially with an early-eighties head on. Colours were not important at the time - just look at the monochrome ZX81 which was still selling well at the time of the Spectrums release. 64 colours on screen at once is nearly pushing the 16-bit era (but not quite...!)
https://twitter.com/bobsstuffgames
https://www.facebook.com/bobs.stuff
http://www.bobs-stuff.co.uk
Perfect. That's the answer I was looking for. Thanks AA.
EDIT: Why could they have not reserved an additional area of 'system RAM' for the CLUT? Maybe right after the attribute space?
The 512x192 mode would have been nice for serious software and the one 'natural' mode that Timex missed would have been a no-clash 256x192 mode with four colours, just like on the CPC. This sort of thing would have subtracted from Amstrad's market share.
But I do agree, the Spectrum was popular enough. Adding new features wasn't important to its ongoing popularity or survival as a platform. It just seems to me a shame that the 128k wasn't much of an improvement over its predecessor when it would have been so easy to do more.
Write games in C using Z88DK and SP1