I have finally understood a key part of the encoding of #quicktake 150 images, and that gives me hope again to finally shrink this bit buffer to 8bits.
I failed three times already and could only get it down from 32 to 16 bits.
This thing is not just Huffman encoding. It reads bits without discarding some of them in one situation (or refuses some). This is weird and leads to wild left-and-right shifting in all cases, which is vastly suboptimal.
#Retrocomputing #apple2
#apple2
2 posts2 participants0 posts today
2400 AD (Apple II, DOS) (1987)
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#2400AD #apple2 #apple2games #DOS #DOSgames #rpg #origingames #videogames #gaming #games #retrogaming #retrogames #arcade #backgrounds #gamebackground #urban #city #cityscape #skyline #skyscraper #pixelart #pixelaesthetic #VGArt #80sgames
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#2400AD #apple2 #apple2games #DOS #DOSgames #rpg #origingames #videogames #gaming #games #retrogaming #retrogames #arcade #backgrounds #gamebackground #urban #city #cityscape #skyline #skyscraper #pixelart #pixelaesthetic #VGArt #80sgames
This old white box contains an Apple IIe and green-screen monitor, despite the "Apple Macintosh" label in one corner. The computer hasn't been turned on or even taken out of the box in at least 20 years.
I would like to check whether it still works, and maybe dabble with some BASIC coding for nostalgia, but it'll remain in the box for the foreseeable future. I have a very messy house without much space, and generally lack the spoons to do anything about that.
Also I assume that the floppy disks which I was given with the computer would now be unreadable.
Anyone want to hack on Battleship server and clients for #FujiNet? We can target #Atari8bit, #Apple2, #ColecoAdam, #TRS80CoCo, #MSDOS, and others.
#retrogaming #retrocomputing #gamedev
come to #fuji-game-system on: https://discord.gg/2Ce9guX
I've got some 40 year old Apple 2 disks I'd like to archive. I have a Kryoflux and a PC drive. I'm able to get a lot of data of most of them, but some have bad sectors (obviously), mostly in early tracks where the OS lives. If I got an Applesauce instead would that do better at recovering some of these? They are expensive, does anyone have one I can "rent" for a couple weeks? Alternatively if I bought one, where might I donate it afterward? #apple2 #retrocomputing
Attn #Apple2 #FujiNet users: Since we have a lot of people that are like "I can't code, but I can test!"
If you have a //c or a IIc+, please grab a nightly, flash with the FujiNet flasher.
Grab the one appropriate for your board:
once flashed:
* mount from apps.irata.online :: /APPLE_II/Utilities/2018-01-23 - ProDOS8.2mg into smartport drive 1
* mount from apps.irata.online :: /APPLE_II/Testing/dos33.woz into disk ][ drive 2.
Boot.
Try to access the DOS 3.3 disk in ProDOS utilities (catalog, copy, whatever.)
Are you able to?
Please come to discord: https://discord.gg/2Ce9guX and let us know.
For #Apple2 users with #FujiNets that wish to help with testing:
Can people attempt to reproduce this bug, and post their results?
https://github.com/FujiNetWIFI/fujinet-firmware/issues/996
DHGR really makes a difference. (Photo credit @GLaG_38 ) #Retrocomputing #apple2
This is the farthest the Apple III has gotten in a long while. Still lots of garbage on the video mode but it can draw a picture of itself.
Have to build some MK4332 replacements. More soon, I hope. #apple3 #apple2 #retrocomputing
Let"s try sending DHGR to Mastodon.
Continued thread
I thought I was nearly done with the big wins, but I gave a second (or fifth, probably!) look at the bit getter, which of course works by shifting bytes (a thing the 6502 does one bit at a time...).
I (finally) managed to get it down to an 8-bit "buffer", and that paid off!
-11 seconds.
#RetroComputing #Apple2 #QuickTake
As I don't have any new project in the pipe, I spent my saturday going back to see if I have progressed in #6502 #assembly, and gave a bit of attention to my #Quicktake for #Apple2 JPEG decoder.
I think I progressed: decoding a Quicktake 200 photo now /only/ takes 190 seconds (3 minutes 10), a 25% improvement and a whole minute less than previously!
That one time that I emulated a #Macintosh that was emulating an #Apple2 on an #AtariST.
While reading Laine Nooney's book "The Apple II Age" I learned that in the early 1980s there was a "Diet Analysis" program. Thanks to @a2_4am it is in The Internet Archive! As someone who has recording and analyzed their daily diet every day since 2011 I often wondered if such a concept was even possible for me to develop as a fun project. You know I'm going to give that software a full tour now that I know it wasn't just possible but actually existed. Keep in mind the usual limitations it would have of running on a computer of the era where 64 KB of RAM and multiple disks of 140 KB each was a pretty snazzy setup. #diet #fitness #RetroComputing #Apple2 archive.org/details/DietAnalys…
Internet ArchiveDiet Analysis Program (4am and san inc crack) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveDiet Analysis Program is a 1981 productivity program developed by Javed Aslam and distributed by Tess Enterprises. It is preserved here for the first time.
Continued thread
Turns out it’s core is Print Shop but patching it so that it loads from the hard disk, has some other upgrades, etc. In many ways that’s even more impressive. Also the presenter wrote his own custom presentation program that runs on Apple II so could build a self contained presentation/demo of the software. #RetroComputing #InitHello #apple2
I love that enthusiasts continue to write new software for 8-bit computers, like this Print Shop style program for the Apple II being presented at the INIT-HELLO conference :) #InitHello #apple2 #RetroComputing
INIT HELLO is now live on Twitch! twitch.tv/init_hello
I realized I hadn't mentioned it here yet but I have created A2CDVI cards and they are available on my Tindie store. I've got a lot already assembled and tested, ready to ship out quickly.
https://www.tindie.com/products/mrtechgadget/a2cdvi/
What is A2CDVI? It is a new RP2040 based device running the A2C_DVI firmware by Mike Neil. It plugs into the video port on the back of an Apple IIc or IIc+ and generates digital video signal to output to a modern monitor via an HDMI cable.