Commander X16

1 hour ago, BruceMcF said:

/Aha, the classic composite displays often avoided that with the "don't output the second frame" trick.

Which is how PAL designed.

Doesn't the VERA support NTSC?  It does with the current spec/emulator at least.

1 hour ago, Ender said:

Doesn't the VERA support NTSC?  It does with the current spec/emulator at least.

It says it does. @TomXP411 is not talking about whether it exists, but how usable it will be. Since it's not something I'm keen on myself, I'm content to wait and see.

1 hour ago, Ender said:

Doesn't the VERA support NTSC?  It does with the current spec/emulator at least.

The VERA daughter board appears to be stable, and it has composite and S-Video output, both using NTSC.

1 hour ago, Ender said:

Doesn't the VERA support NTSC?  It does with the current spec/emulator at least.

VERA is supposed to support NTSC video, but you won't be able to get a readable 80x60 text screen on an NTSC monitor. The absolute best you can do with color composite video is 40x25, without interlace and color artifacts.

If you turn off the colorburst, the screen will show a black and white picture, which boosts the image quality some. That makes 80 column text readable.

However, there's no solution for interlace flicker on a CRT... so 60 row text modes are always going to flicker and be hard to read. 

The issue here is that the Commander boots up in 80x60 text mode, and many of the programs being written for the platform use that mode. So the OP will be losing out on a lot of functionality by trying to run the Commander on a composite monitor. It's better to stick with a VGA monitor, even if it's a CRT, so he can get the full experience. 

 

I think best will be to let lotharek.pl or retronics.eu manifacture directly in EU "made in europe". So it will be easy to get in Europe. All modern televisions LCDs LEDs can do ntsc in EU too.

1 hour ago, TomXP411 said:

VERA is supposed to support NTSC video, but you won't be able to get a readable 80x60 text screen on an NTSC monitor. The absolute best you can do with color composite video is 40x25, without interlace and color artifacts.

That follows pretty much directly from using composite video ... if it is full interlaced then you have the artifacts, and if its half interlaced you just don't have the vertical resolution. I know that S-video can do a touch better than composite, with better separation of the chrominance from the luminance, so perhaps 64x25 if S-video is available.

Someone who wants to run composite "for the retro feels" is going to have to set up the autostart to support that, and it also follows directly that many of the programs that run on the CX16 will not work correctly or ideally on a composite display.

So "supports composite" on a hardware level doesn't imply that composite is ideal. OTOH, the heart wants what it wants, so that is not likely to dissuade those who are really keen on it.

3 minutes ago, BruceMcF said:

That follows pretty much directly from using composite video ... if it is full interlaced then you have the artifacts, and if its half interlaced you just don't have the vertical resolution. I know that S-video can do a touch better than composite, with better separation of the chrominance from the luminance, so perhaps 64x25 if S-video is available.



Someone who wants to run composite "for the retro feels" is going to have to set up the autostart to support that, and it also follows directly that many of the programs that run on the CX16 will not work correctly or ideally on a composite display. xForth16 doesn't yet care how many columns display, but if I have a block editor, I am not going to make special arrangements for sub-64 wide displays.



So "supports composite" on a hardware level doesn't imply that composite is ideal. OTOH, the heart wants what it wants, so that is not likely to dissuade those who are really keen on it.

 

On 1/18/2021 at 12:11 PM, edrive said:

Are there thoughts on other character sets other than us?

Depending on how you encode them, there are up to 256 characters available. The character set lives in RAM once the system starts, so you can easily alter the character glyphs. If there isn't already a character editor on the download section here, there will likely be one soon enough. Maybe I'll take that on as a quick weekend project...

Quote

I don't bother about the power supply, that is something one can buy here or DIY.

The system will actually come in a Micro-ATX case and will use a standard ATX power supply. As far as I know, all ATX power supplies are switchable between 120v and 250v, so you won't need to source an EU power supply. You will just need a cable.

This one should do: https://www.amazon.de/Premium-Cord-Stromkabel-für-230V/dp/B00AOAJAUC

 

 

I myself am planning on finding a good old tube VGA monitor but I do wonder about S-Video. Composite not so much but S-Video should look pretty good on a broadcast monitor (e.g. Sony PVM). I think even then 640x480 might be a big ask but I think games might look really good - maybe arguably better than VGA who I guess we'll find out!