Friendly VGA text driver?

Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2008-12-26 04:41

Before I grab "vgahirestext" and start adding functions, I'm curious if
anyone has done a nice color 80x25 (or higher) VGA text driver yet?
Something along the lines of AiGeneric with tvtext commands?

Just need to know before I spend a couple days re-creating the wheel.

Thanks
OBC

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Mike Green · 2008-12-26 06:39

Look at the VGA text driver in my Propeller OS. It borrows from the windowed text driver by Phil Pilgrim.

Ariba · 2008-12-26 17:50

Hello OBC

Attached is a VGA Text driver with 100 x 50 characters, mostly compatibel to TV_Text, VGA_Text, PC_Text ...
It uses the HiRes_Text driver, so you can only set one color per line.

Also in the ZIP is a Demo, with a very simple Font-Editor for the 8x12 pixel font. It needs the VGA_HiRes_Font object, which is a slightly modified VGA_HiRes_Text object (the Start method return some pointers to the font). This object uses still an alternative font, but this font needs some polishing.

Andy

Post Edited (Ariba) : 12/26/2008 9:25:04 PM GMT

Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2008-12-26 18:01

Nice! I'm really enjoying the project, plus I've got some ideas for extending it a bit so I'll probably press on.. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Thanks for the VGA driver, that will save me some real time.

OBC

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Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 12/26/2008 6:26:27 PM GMT

mynet43 · 2008-12-26 18:51

Hi!

Attached is Yet Another VGA text driver. This one outputs 128 x 64 chars.

Mostly compatible calls but also includes cursor location which is missing in some of the routines (cursloc(x,y).

Enjoy your quest.

Jim

Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2008-12-27 06:31

@Jim:

Yup, that's the driver I'm using currently. Thanks..

I haven't found a way to support font color changes on the fly.
Is it even possible with the current driver? Be nice to be able
to support the ANSI color changes for linux terminals.

OBC

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mynet43 · 2008-12-27 15:30

Good morning,

You raised a very interesting question about changing color on the fly.

I played around with it a little and added a routine called "color" to the VGA_1024 driver.

It actually works, the calling sequence is:

vga.color($2840) ' where the upper byte is the background color (RRGGBB00) and the lower byte is the foreground RGB color.

Examples are $08F0 gold on blue and $2840 cyan on blue.

I attached the modified version called VGA_1024_test. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

If you like it, I can send it to the Obj Exch.

Jim

mynet43 · 2008-12-27 16:18

I can add another routine to allow different color combos on each row of the screen if that's what you want.

To change it more than that would be a little tricky.

Let me know what works best.

Jim

Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2008-12-27 16:47

Actually what I'm shooting for is the ability to change text color on the fly.
Background color could be set to one color to make things a little easier. (black maybe)
Multiple colors on a line would be ideal.

OBC

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mynet43 · 2008-12-27 17:02

You can change only the text color on the fly with this routine, just leave the background color the same and change only the foreground.

I'm attaching a newer version that allows changing it by row.

The calling sequence for this is:

vga.rowcolor(ColorVal, row) ' ColorVal is the same as described above, a word with two RGB values. Row = {0,1,...63}

Again, you can change just the text color here by leaving the background color unchanged.

Jim

Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2008-12-27 17:40

If we do something like this instead, we can keep a consistent background color,
(like black, which is perfect for the terminal I'm working on)

PUB color(ColorVal) | i
''reset screen colors
  repeat i from 0 to rows - 1
    colors[i] := $FF & ColorVal         '$2804 (if you want cyan on blue)

PUB rowcolor(ColorVal, row)
'' reset row color to colorval
  if row > rows-1
    row := rows-1

   colors[noparse][[/noparse]row] := $FF & ColorVal 
[/i]

Then we can define friendly color names like we did with AiGeneric in the main program.
(Don't use this reference, the colors are wrong.. {example only})

  BLACK             = $02
  GREY              = $03
  LWHITE            = $06
  BWHITE            = $07
  LMAGENTA          = $A3
  WHITE             = $AF
  RED               = $A2
  LRED              = $1A
  LPURPLE           = $1B
  PURPLE            = $03
  LGREEN            = $1C
  SKYBLUE           = $1D
  YELLOW            = $1E
  BYELLOW           = $A6
  LGREY             = $1F
  DGREY             = $08
  GREEN             = $A4
  ORANGE            = $06
  BLUE              = $A1
  CYAN              = $1C
  MAGENTA           = $FC
  LYELLOW           = $1E

Now if we could just do multiple colors on a line, it would be perfect,
but I think this is a limitation of the driver..

OBC

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Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 12/27/2008 5:45:51 PM GMT

mynet43 · 2008-12-27 18:05

I think there's a better approach.

Rather than changing the driver routines, it could be done in the calling program. That would leave the original routines available for general use.

Here's an example:

OrigColor := $08F0              ' set up original text and background colors

TextColor := $04                ' new foreground color for text

TextOnly := (OrigColor & $FF00) + TextColor ' mask out background,  then add text color (foreground)

avg.color(TextOnly)

' OR

avg.rowcolor(TextOnly, row)

Alternatively, I can add another routine(s) to input the text color and change only that. Would that help?

The only difficulty with changing it in the line is reading Chip's original code[noparse]:)[/noparse]

It's like wheels within wheels. I can do it, but it's very labor intensive...

Jim

Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2008-12-27 18:17

Why not just do this? (I think I broke the rowcolor somehow.. still hacking away at it)

PUB color(ColorVal) | i
''reset screen colors
  repeat i from 0 to rows - 1
    colors[i] := $0000 + ColorVal

PUB rowcolor(ColorVal, row)
'' reset row color to colorval
  if row > rows-1
    row := rows-1

   colors[noparse][[/noparse]row] := $0000 + ColorVal 
[/i]

OBC

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mynet43 · 2008-12-27 18:23

You forgot to index color, or the editor removed it when posting?[noparse]:([/noparse] I think there's a bug in the forum code.

I don't understand what the $0000 is for... I don't think it does anything.

Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2008-12-27 18:32

Good point, I was thinking ahead a little to possibly adding an option for changing the
background on the fly. Might be handy for inverse later.

OBC

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mynet43 · 2008-12-27 18:41

I'm going to take a break for a while.

Let me know if you want the text-only routines and I'll add them.

Jim

Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2008-12-27 18:44

mynet43 said...
I'm going to take a break for a while.

Let me know if you want the text-only routines and I'll add them.

Jim

Yes, they would be welcome. Thanks

OBC

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mynet43 · 2008-12-27 19:22

OK, here you go.

The new routines are:

vga.screentextcolor(TextColor) ' uses last byte for text color

' AND

vga.rowtextcolor(TextColor, row) ' row = {0,1,...,63}

The other routines: color( ) and rowcolor( ) are still there.

Let me know what you think.

Jim

Friendly VGA text driver?

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