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Retro computing and gaming, sci-fi books, tv and movies and other geeky stuff.Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265368&th=82167#msg_265368
http://www.appleoldies.ca/cc65/programs/dhgr/generaldemo.zip
I am wondering if this is something the Apple II Community wants to
pursue... this is a demo of a cross-section of the DHGR images I have been
processing with Bmp2DHR. Some good, bad,ugly.
To slow down or speed-up the slideshow use the numeric keys. 0 will wait for
keypresses.
But since I am getting no feedback I haven't updated the utility on-line
etc. In no rush to do so. I also haven't updated my cc65 stuff for awhile. I
don't hear much about that either.
If nobody is interested then that's fine.
This seems a little like Harry Potter's fields, so I am wondering if anyone
does anything with this besides me and Sheldon Simms.
If that's the case then who are we advancing this for? I'm having more fun
using this than writing about it... or uploading it for anyone else.
David Shmidt, I know it sounds dumb... but seriously. Is there anyone left
who is going to work with DHGR graphics?
Bill]]>Bill Buckels2014-08-27T12:40:56-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265373&th=82167#msg_265373
> David Shmidt, I know it sounds dumb... but seriously. Is there anyone left
> who is going to work with DHGR graphics?
I've said what I have to say on the subject. I have only this to add. http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/061/297/nic kcage.jpeg]]>David Schmidt2014-08-27T13:56:32-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265376&th=82167#msg_265376
bbuckels@mts.net> wrote in message
news:ltkjkj$u7q$1@speranza.aioe.org...
>
> This seems a little like Harry Potter's fields
Ouch! :-)
- Anton Treuenfels]]>Anton Treuenfels2014-08-27T15:00:41-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265379&th=82167#msg_265379
> I've said what I have to say on the subject. I have only this to add.
I don't know what that means, but i like the results Bill has produced. Sadly i cannot split myself into 2 or more pieces to do all the stuff i want to do. Currently i have too much to do already and stupidly hope that christmas vacation will give me some more time ;-)
-Jonas]]>STYNX2014-08-27T15:51:37-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265391&th=82167#msg_265391
> Is there anyone left who is going to work with DHGR graphics?
You work for future generations, in several years from now. Don't expect any return soon.
BTW where is the interest to TAG all pictures with a big Bmp2DHR ?
What is nice with Error Diffusion pictures is they look gorgeous if you are watching them from the neighbour's house... Sadly, at 15 inches of the screen, 160*200 pictures look like sometimes like Impressionist paints. Full of color but a little bit too grainy.
Olivier]]>olivier.zardini2014-08-27T16:16:09-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265392&th=82167#msg_265392
> On Wednesday, August 27, 2014 3:56:32 PM UTC+2, schmidtd wrote:
>> I've said what I have to say on the subject. I have only this to add.
>> http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/061/297/nic kcage.jpeg
It simply means I think Bill's restricting access to something solely
based on popularity (or lack thereof) is nonsensical. Just because mass
support isn't materializing today doesn't mean no one will ever be
interested. It's the same advice I gave Harry Potter when he was
lamenting the fate of Fields. Do what you love. Who cares what anyone
else thinks?
I simply find it bewildering that someone like Bill who is so prolific,
so skilled, and so free with absolutely everything else he does for the
community would suddenly take this petulant stance (sorry, Bill).
Just think of how this will look a year or six from now. Some kid picks
up a GS at a garage sale, has Schmenk-like intelligence with regard to
graphics, and starts exploring DHGR. She looks on comp.sys.apple2.* for
DHGR stuff - and finds Bill's posts: "Does anyone care? No? Ok then!
No DHGR for you!" "But wait!" she pleads. "I care! Bill - come back!"
But Bill has taken his code and gone fishing. He dangled it in front
of her, but then snapped it away. It's just sad.]]>David Schmidt2014-08-27T16:30:12-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265394&th=82167#msg_265394
> ... but seriously. Is there anyone left who is going to work with DHGR graphics?
>
> Bill
The demos you have uploaded are perfectly usable on retro-meetings. I have one of these meetings from 12.09-14.09. SHR, DHGR and DLGR are nice things that get attention from folks not into Apple II-stuff (until now). Imagine your demos running on e IIgs, IIe and Iic there for 80-100 computer freaks to see.
I can understand your thoughts about the way people say there like or don't like something. Getting approval is very rare whereas getting rejection is somewhat more common but the most common 'reaction' is the lack of response ;-)
As a programmer i like to get bug reports and 'bad reviews' because this means people have used my programs and found these things. If none says anything it could mean the software is not in use or it works flawlessly.
Anyways, i hope you keep up your work with cc65. I know of at least 1 person from Germany who is very interested in your demos. He uses them in a "workshop" kinda way to get familiar with the Apple II.
-Jonas]]>STYNX2014-08-27T17:25:43-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265396&th=82167#msg_265396
> Download it here:
>
>
>
> http://www.appleoldies.ca/cc65/programs/dhgr/generaldemo.zip
>
>
>
> I am wondering if this is something the Apple II Community wants to
>
> pursue... this is a demo of a cross-section of the DHGR images I have been
>
> processing with Bmp2DHR. Some good, bad,ugly.
>
>
>
> To slow down or speed-up the slideshow use the numeric keys. 0 will wait for
>
> keypresses.
>
>
>
> But since I am getting no feedback I haven't updated the utility on-line
>
> etc. In no rush to do so. I also haven't updated my cc65 stuff for awhile. I
>
> don't hear much about that either.
>
>
>
> If nobody is interested then that's fine.
>
>
>
> This seems a little like Harry Potter's fields, so I am wondering if anyone
>
> does anything with this besides me and Sheldon Simms.
>
>
>
> If that's the case then who are we advancing this for? I'm having more fun
>
> using this than writing about it... or uploading it for anyone else.
>
>
>
> David Shmidt, I know it sounds dumb... but seriously. Is there anyone left
>
> who is going to work with DHGR graphics?
>
>
>
> Bill
Im interested, but always swamped tween life and work to do much with DHGR at this moment, though I am constantly fiddling around with it making images to see what kind of "quality" image I can get out of an apple II]]>Kevin2014-08-27T17:33:35-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265420&th=82167#msg_265420
olivier.zardini@itn-group.eu> wrote:
> BTW where is the interest to TAG all pictures with a big Bmp2DHR ?
This is done using the overlay feature of this converter. It is an exercise
for the reader to produce his own tagged or untagged images. Also it is an
exercise for the reader to choose whether they will use any of the 8
error-diffusion dithers provided, or one of the 3 cross-hatches provided or
if they will simply produce a pixel by pixel verbatim rendering.
It very much interests me to follow the tradition of the Apple II image
producers like PC Paradies or Pixel Joint when they attached their logo to
their images. I consider what I produced here of better quality and also it
makes more sense to sign a demo with the program or programmer's name that
produced the imgae than some company.
> Sadly, at 15 inches of the screen, 160*200 pictures look like sometimes
> like Impressionist paints. Full of color but a little bit too grainy.
The IIgs is very coarse as well. By my standards I was already working with
32,768 true-color images in RGB in 1989 and the following year in 16.7
million colors first with the Everex VGA and then with the pre-release
versions of the ATI Wonder XL.
DHGR as an expression medium is fasconating despite its large pixel size.
These diffused images are Art today... but not grainy when viewed on my RGB
monitor on my Apple IIe. Just gigass beautiful pixels:)
I think Olivier beauty is sometimes just our moods and not what we really
see which is the point in exploring pyschovisual.
These are not merely dithers but dithers with options liek what some of the
other guys were doing around the time. Atkinson is what Apple did and in my
opinion was very poor. The worst.
Bill]]>Bill Buckels2014-08-27T22:50:17-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265421&th=82167#msg_265421
Jonas.Groenhagen@gmx.de> wrote:
> I don't know what that means, but i like the results Bill has produced.
The best part is that this converter will take a 320 x 200 bmp output by
Simplify and produce a dithered DHGR file from the same bmp that the M2S
converter accepts as input. In other words, you now have SHR and DHGR output
capabiilities in Simplifly.
> Sadly i cannot split myself into 2 or more pieces to do all the stuff i
> want to do. Currently i have too much to do already and stupidly hope that
> christmas vacation will give me some more time ;-)
My wish is that someday I can clone myself into two or more parts but I
haven't been able to find the algorithm... yet.
Bill]]>Bill Buckels2014-08-27T23:04:55-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265422&th=82167#msg_265422
kevin@hackaday.com> wrote:
> Im interested, but always swamped tween life and work to do much with DHGR
> at this moment, though I am constantly fiddling around with it making
> images to see what kind of "quality" image I can get out of an apple II
This converter also accepts GIMP palettes *but* your ghetto converter used a
really crappy conversion palette (AppleWin) for LGR... The Wikipedia palette
works the best.
Bill]]>Bill Buckels2014-08-27T23:07:41-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265427&th=82167#msg_265427
olivier.zardini@itn-group.eu> wrote:
>160*200 pictures
These are DHGR pictures *NOT* SHR pictures. They are only 140 x 192 and have
a fixed palette of only the 15 lo-res colors. Did you take a look? Can you
do better?
Bill]]>Bill Buckels2014-08-28T00:29:57-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265431&th=82167#msg_265431
That being said, you've sparked an interest in me to investigate the Apple 64k RGB/Video-7 RGB card's 16 color 160x196 special RGB mode. I don't own one yet, but I guess some of the emulators may support it. Have you done any work with this yet? I'd love to read some more technical detail on it, as anything I've seen written doesn't go into it all that much.
It would seem to me to be a really interesting and novel way to utilize the IIe, especially if someone wanted to port games over to the platform-- graphics would be easier to map over, and the animation/game code would be a lot more straightforward, if I understand it correctly.
Of course, there's the challenge of the fact that these cards are a bit scarce, as well as the monitors to use them with, which takes a small general audience of interested Apple II owners to an even smaller pool of Apple IIe owners with this specific card.
This might also present an opportunity to create a new hardware spin of the Apple 64k RGB/Video-7 RGB card with touches like output to VGA/DVI/HDMI, ability to upload alternative character sets and toggle them on/off from code running on the apple, programmable color palette that can be set/toggled from apple code, RAM beyond 64k with some sort of fast/direct access from the video card's firmware, potentially even support for sprites?
It would seem to me that having a card like that, plus a Mockingboard (or even better: a respin/updated version of a Mockingboard) would make a VERY interesting and fun platform for new and old coders alike, perhaps even bring some retro coders in from other platforms to see how far they could go with it.
It's still and Apple II at its heart and remains backwards compatible, but has some bolt ons that help push it past where it was.
The question is, how feasible is this? Could a new Carte Blanche provide the basis for this kind of video card? Would anyone be interested in creating something like this, and an updated sound card? I'd love to hear from folks, if so, and I'd be interested in helping any way I can.
Until then, I'll play around in an emulator until I hunt down a 64k RGB card and a monitor that it will work with.
And Bill, if you feel properly compelled to document this mode, you'll at least have one incredibly interested reader.
Rich]]>datawiz2014-08-28T01:36:36-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265440&th=82167#msg_265440
schmidtd@my-deja.com> wrote:
> I've said what I have to say on the subject. I have only this to add. http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/061/297/nic kcage.jpeg
Bill]]>Bill Buckels2014-08-28T04:33:36-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265441&th=82167#msg_265441
bbuckels@mts.net> wrote:
>> BTW where is the interest to TAG all pictures with a big Bmp2DHR ?
> This is done using the overlay feature of this converter. It is an exercise
> for the reader to produce his own tagged or untagged images.
Bill]]>Bill Buckels2014-08-28T05:00:49-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265451&th=82167#msg_265451
> These are DHGR pictures *NOT* SHR pictures. They are only 140 x 192 and
> have a fixed palette of only the 15 lo-res colors. Did you take a look?
> Can you do better?
160*200 or 140*192, that does not change the fact that the pixel are big & rectangle and the effect of dithering is de facto limited.
BTW, why only use 15 colors and not the 16 ?
I guess any modern graphic utility on Windows is capable, based on a fixed palette, to convert a 140*192 256 colors picture into a 140*192 16 colors pictures applying dithering.
Could you provide also your source pictures to see what Paint Shop Pro is doing ?
> This explains how the overlay feature is used:
> http://www.appleoldies.ca/cc65/docs/dhgr/MyHairIsABirdDHGR.p df
>
> Overlaying a dithered and rendered file with discrete pixel to pixel text from a
> separate image (as shown above) is the best way to present clear and readable
> titling on the Apple II DHGR display' coarse resolution of 160 x 192.
Bravo, my fisherman friend. Bravo.]]>David Schmidt2014-08-28T12:00:48-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265457&th=82167#msg_265457
schmidtd@my-deja.com> wrote:
>Bravo, my fisherman friend. Bravo.
The use case is poorly worded, distracted, and editorial. The layout of the
pdf is draft. So your feeling is that any documentation is better than none
at all:) Tom De Marco in PeopleWare had a similar perspective on the
Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Chaos; paraphrased ... "Any process is
better than none at all."
My first posture was that nobody will use any of this. The Harry Potter
position is deliberate of course. In DeMarco's book the girl who brought
coffee to the team was the most important of the Development Team's members.
In my work, the Windows User is the most important of my Virtual Team's
members.
Whether or not you wanted to read the tedious age-old lament of the
ShareWare/FreeWare author, it proves that there is no girl standing with
coffee in hand when it comes to any of this... my imaginary Windows User
does not exist. 5 years ago when I wote my BMPA2FC converter it was for the
young son of an Apple II enthusiast. My work will be waiting for his
grandson, but odds are that his grandson will have a better ipad and will
not care about Apple II's or DHGR.
The documentation for all of this will be rough but usable. And better than
what Apple Computer would have given any of us. And will be provided to the
sound of one hand clapping.
There was never really a question of whether this source code would be put
online. My budget for my websites far exceeds my ability to maintain them,
so they are a rat's nest of files without pages (like doctors without
borders). This stuff needs to go someplace.
Bill]]>Bill Buckels2014-08-28T12:54:29-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265458&th=82167#msg_265458
Bill Buckels2014-08-28T13:52:28-00:00Re: Bmp2DHR General DHGR Demo available for download
https://www.megalextoria.com/forum2/index.php?t=rview&goto=265486&th=82167#msg_265486
1@speranza.aioe.org>,
Bill Buckels <bbuckels@mts.net> wrote:
> <olivier.zardini@itn-group.eu> wrote:
>> BTW, why only use 15 colors and not the 16 ?
>
> Because the default conversion palette is for the Apple IIe.
>
> "There are 16 colors available for use in this mode (actually 15 in most
> cases, since the two shades of gray are identical in brightness on original
> Apple hardware, except on the Apple IIgs). Note that six of the colors are
> identical to the colors available in High-Resolution (Hi-Res) mode."
I was always under the impression that Lo-Res colors 5 & 10 were the same.
I was testing my RGB-to-component converter on another TV last night,
though, and noticed that 5 was a fair bit darker than 10.
I'd expect that composite output from the IIGS would be identical to what
you'd get from the 8-bit IIs, under at least some Control Panel settings.
What possessed Apple to make the RGB rendering different?
_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?]]>scott2014-08-28T15:30:06-00:00