****************************************************** * VIDEL INSIDE (c)oderight 1994 Trisomic Development * ****************************************************** Function: extended screen resolutions, virtual screen manager Required hardware: Atari Falcon030, monitor (?) Spread as: Freeware Author: Fran‡ois GALEA (Zerkman) Current version: 1.2 English documentation: WARNING: The author of this software cannot be taken as responsible for eventual damage caused to the hardware. Your using of this software implicates your approbation for this warning. It is extremely recommended to read this documentation text in its integrality, before any using of the software. The Videl Inside package features the following files: - VI.PRG (executable file) - VI.DAT (ASCII file which contains the video modes) - VI_FRA.TXT (French documentation) - VI_ENG.TXT (English documentation (the file you're reading right now) These files can be copied and spread freely, as long as they aren't copied separately. In addition, any translation or modification of the executable and documentation files without a written agreement from the author is prohibited. Now, let's explore the Videl Inside world... 1. WHAT IS VIDEL INSIDE ? Videl Inside (or VI) is an utility exclusively conceived for the Atari Falcon030, that allows you to reach more important resolutions than the standard Falcon ones, on your monitor, without any hardware modification of any sort. This way, you'll be able to see what the Falcon's video processor (called Videl) is capable of! VI also features a virtual screen manager, that allows you to define a screen size which is only limited by the size of your Falcon's memory. The picture that is displayed on the screen is only a part of the whole picture, that scrolls following the mouse cursor displacements, in order to visualize the screen space in its entirety. 2. INSTALLATION: Copy the VI.PRG executable file and the VI.DAT data file to the AUTO folder of your boot disk partition. WARNING: The executable file must be placed with the last files of the AUTO folder, but programs like OUTSIDE or MiNT must be placed after it. This will make the other resident programs not crash when installed with VI. 3. VIDEL INSIDE WORKING: While under the GEM Desktop, Run VI.PRG from the AUTO folder. A configuration box appears. It is divided in three sections: - Selection of the monitor type; - Selection of the video mode; - Virtual screen options a. Selection of the monitor type Three choices are proposed: monochrome screen (such as the Atari SM 124/125 monitors), RGB screen (like any color TV set or PAL/NTSC monitor), and at last VGA monitor (regroups all the VGA/SVGA or multiscan monitors). Each monitor type has an assigned VI video mode, and a virtual screen configuration, that will allow you, if you often change monitors (like I do), to have access directly to the mode which is the most adapted to your needs and your monitor. b. Selection of the video mode Six video mode definition lines can simultaneously be displayed. Click one of them if you want to select the video mode it defines. At its right hand side, can you act on the scrolling buttons, to have access to all the available defined modes. The selected mode is displayed in inverted video. c. Virtual screen options To enable the virtual screen option, you can click the 'Big Screen' labeled button, which will be displayed in reverse video. Both editable fields labeled 'screen size' X and Y this way become operational. They'll allow you to set the screen size you want to use. Beware not to define a too big screen size in comparison with the available memory: the computer may crash during the system initialisation. Note: In order to get a better compatibility, as much physicl as software, the width that you define will be rounded to the closest lower 32 multiple, and the height to the closest lower 16 multiple. d. Other parameters Click on 'Options', in order to get into the diverse options configuration mode. Then you'll be able to select or unselect the ones you wish to activate, by clicking on the little squares that correspond to each of them. You can exit this option mode by clicking on the 'Set' button. Both labeled 'Scroll threshold' X and Y editable fields are here to define the distance (in pixels) between the mouse pointer and the screen edge, under which the screen shifts. This function obviously works only if the virtual screen option is activated. The 'correct threshold' option allows you to adapt the virtual screen vertical threshold automatically, according to the horizontal threshold, and to the size of the pixels. The 'configuration mode on boot' option allows you, when activated, to launch the boot configuration mode at any system reset, without having to hold the right Shift key, while booting the system. Another option called 'Update NEWDESK.INF' allows you, when activated, to modify the GEM Desktop configuration on initialisation, in order to get into the Desktop directly under the selected VI resolution. If this function is not activated, you'll have, if you want to work under the video mode you selected, to change the resolution with the 'Set Video' function of the Desktop, so that it's as close as the VI mode as possible. (for example, using a RGB monitor, if you have configured VI to 832x592 interlaced True Color, you'll have to set a True Color-80 columns-interlaced mode) e. Getting out from the configuation mode Once you have set all these parameters, you can click the 'Use' button, to save your settings, and exit the configuration screen. If you click twice on a chosen video mode, this will produce the same effect. You can also exit the program without saving the parameters, by clicking the 'Cancel' button. To use the selected configuration, you must reset your computer, VI will automatically install, and once under the Desktop, you'll be able to take profit from your Falcon's power. WARNING: If you're using either an Atari monochrome or a VGA monitor, be very careful: the available video modes can not be supported by your monitor. If you don't know if a certain mode works with it or not, first select a mode which resolution is greater than the one from a mode that you know your monitor supports (for example, the 640x480 mode works on most of all monochrome monitors). If the mode that you selected actually works on your monitor, there's no problem with it. You can go on selecting a greater mode than this one. Otherwise, if the screen display looks unstable, or if the monitor displays nothing, don't insist, you could cause damage to your monitor. Just reboot your computer, and during the initialisation process, hold down the left key, that allows you to disable VI's installation, ans this way to get onto the GEM Desktop, in order to select another video mode that works correctly with your monitor. 4. THE NEW CONFIGURATION MODES The 1.1 version of Videl Inside features two new resolution configuration modes: the mode using the command line, and the configuration mode on boot. a. using the command line: VI can be executed by any program, and this way can be configured in an automatic way. This can be useful for certain boot managers, such as Xboot, to fix a different VI mode for each system configuration. The command line format is the following: VI.PRG mon,w,h,col (comment: the parameters can be separated either by commas (','), spaces (' '), or points ('.'). The reason for this ability is that some boot managers don't send the entire command line to VI if some of these characters are used.) - mon is the monitor type you want to configure. (1=mono, 2=RGB, 3=VGA) - w and h are the screen dimensions which correspond to the mode you want to select. - col represents its number of colours: col number of colours 0 2 1 4 2 16 3 256 4 True Color If none of the VI.DAT inernal modes corresponds to all of these parameters at the time, VI stops its execution by displaying an error message, and your configuration is not considered. If you want to enable the virtual screen option, you must add two other parameters, representing the width of the virtual screen for the first, and its height for the second. b. Configuration of VI by the boot config option This option is activated if you hold down the right Shift key while in the Falcon's initialisation phase. The available video modes list corresponding with your monitor then appears. The currently activated mode is preceded by a tick symbol. The selectable mode is displayed in inverted video. You can select another mode by moving in the list using the vertical arrow keys, and pressing the Return key while on the wanted mode. You can also define a virtual resolution, first by activating the virtual screen option, by pressing the 'V' key, then by setting the height with Shift+Vertical arrows, and the width with Shift+Horizontal arrows. 5. HOW TO DEFINE YOUR OWN VIDEO MODES Videl Inside's video modes are intirely reconfigurable. They are stored in the VI.DAT data file. You can create your own video modes: VI has been especially designed to make that possible. You must meanwhile know the Videl chip quite well. The VI.DAT file structure is the following: each video mode is composed of a 35 maximum character ASCII line, that will appear in the configuration box. In the following line, there are some numeric parameters, separated by commas, written either in decimals (default), or in hexadecimals (they are in that case preceded by the '$' prefix). Here's the list of these parameters: - Monitor type to which the mode corresponds (1:monochome, 2:RGB, 3:VGA) - Horizontal and vertical size of the screen - Number of bitplanes of the picture (2^nb= number of displayable colours) - Video mode (Xbios format), that is initialised, before the VI mode installation. Il must correspond to the closest Xbios mode to the VI mode (at the ST-compatibility, number of colours, 80/40 columns, interlacing (RGB), and double-line mode (VGA) levels). Note: the PAL and overscan flags (#5 and #6 bits) must systematically be set to zero. - The Videl vectors follow: HHT,HBB,HBE,HDB,HDE,HSS,VFT,VBB,VBE,VDB,VDE,VSS,Vwrap,Vmode,VCO. $FF8282,$FF8284,$FF8286,$FF8288,$FF828A,$FF828C, $FF82A2,$FF82A4,$FF82A6,$FF82A8,$FF82AA,$FF82AC, $FF8210,$FF82C2,$FF82C0. All these vectors must be read or written in the word format (2 bytes). You can add remark lines in VI.DAT. They must be preceded by the ';' prefix. You cannot insert remark lines between the two lines that define a video mode. 6. NOTE FOR PROGRAMMERS VI installs in the Cookie-Jar a cookie which identifier is TDVI. The following long-word contains in its high weight byte the version number in decimals, multiplied with 10. (for example, the 1.1 version is coded by $11000000. The 1.0 version was coded by $02000000, which was a forgetting, but this kind of update problems should not happen again.) The three following bytes have no utility for the moment, but this is possible they'll be used in a future version. That's all, about how to use Videl Inside... ---------------- Videl Inside is a production from the Trisomic Development group. This group has the particularity that it only develops applications, utilities, and miscellaneous software, for the Falcon030. Its members are now Alriad, Kor, Melkor, Pozzi, SoniX, Soyuz and Zerkman. You can contact us at the following address: Fran‡ois GALEA (Zerkman) 19, rue du Moulinet 78610 Le Perray-en-Yvelines - FRANCE - e-mail: afranch@gamay-gw.iut.univ-lehavre.fr (Pozzi) e5172@iut-orsay.fr (Zerkman) e5254@iut-orsay.fr (Kor) You can send to us a floppy disk with your own video modes, the ones that will be selected (if we haven't discovered them before !) will allow their authors to be mentioned in the future VI versions... At this address you'll be able to get the latest version of VI, if you add a stamped reply envelope to your sending. That's all folks, I wish you a good enjoyment with Videl Inside, and I hope you could understand this documentation in spite of my poor English level (I learned it at school, so forgive me...) Zerkman, April 1995. --------------------