Vic GUI

Wilson · Post by **Wilson** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 6:19 pm

Kananga wrote:Did I say I hate writing documentation?

No, but you did a great job with it!

It was interesting to read.

Nice demo as well. I can't help but notice a certain visual problem though. The cursor seems to consistently flicker during movement (at least in VICE). Are you waiting until the next frame to redraw after erasing?

This really is progressing quite nicely. Good work!

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 12:13 am

Thanks for the encouragement

The cursor also flickers on the real Vic-20.
The graphics routines do not wait for screen refresh yet and screen updates and cursor movement simply hide the cursor and redraw it after the update.
Certainly much room for improvements there.

I don't know if you noticed, but the source code is on Google code too. Admittedly it is perhaps a bit hard to read. Suggestions for changes or better code are very much welcome too!

Ivanhoe76 · Post by **Ivanhoe76** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:16 am

Kananga, you have all my admiration, this project is a real wonder, go on with it!!! About the name, I'd propose Vic=ndows.... I know, I know... maybe It's better Vic=ux, far less bugs inside!!!!

akator · Post by **akator** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 11:08 am

A GUI on the VIC is really impressive, to say the least. I've just gotten back into the VIC after many years, and I'm astounded by what's possible...

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 12:34 am

Actually "vin" was just the first name I came up with, without pondering too much. I am open for suggestions

In the meantime, I am slowly making progress on keyboad input handling (and focus management) so I am getting closer to the point where disk I/O will come in.

Due to the lack of multi-tasking, it may be a good idea to have a routine which takes a device,filename,target address, loads the file to the given address (in background*) and fires an event when done.
On the device side, it might be good to have some kind of driver interface. On first sight, the minimum functions needed for the low-level interface are: open device/file, read (byte or or block), write (byte or block), close. For devices that support it seek and tell are needed too. That's how it is done in POSIX and ANSI-C. Looks simple and clear enough to me.

* that's where timers come in.

Something else I keep thinking about is color & sound. Simple beeps shouldn't be too difficult, but I am still impressed by the music & sound of recent demos. It's impressive what the good ol' Vic can do.
I don't want to spend all of the CPU time on a sound routine, so is anything feasible for playing some kind of system sounds/effects?

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 3:18 am

Kananga,

I tried this last night and am very impressed.

I look forward to being able to click on a drive button and see the directory and click on a game and start it.

So far this is very cool, I never used GEOS but expect it was similar. Will it be able to do simple multi tasking via interrupts? e.g. open a little clock display that updates while using a calculator and browsing a disk?

A lot to ask of the humble Vic but I wonder if this would be a record breaking lowest powered multitasking gui?

You should be able to have a background piece of music playing via interrupt. Mega Cart does this. If you kept it to 2 channels plus noise you could also have system beeps on one of the 3 channels.

Great work. I look forward to seeing more and a big thank you.

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 3:48 am

Ian, thanks for your comment!

Vic20-Ian wrote:I look forward to being able to click on a drive button and see the directory and click on a game and start it.

I want that too! Let's see how long it takes to get there.

Vic20-Ian wrote:So far this is very cool, I never used GEOS but expect it was similar. Will it be able to do simple multi tasking via interrupts? e.g. open a little clock display that updates while using a calculator and browsing a disk?

You can achieve the appearance of multi-tasking with an event-driven-system, timers and careful programming. That's how I did it in the nineties in DOS (*shudder*). GEOS works similar. It requires splitting long-running task into pieces. The protothread concept of ConTiki looks interesting, maybe that is the way to go.

Vic20-Ian wrote:You should be able to have a background piece of music playing via interrupt. Mega Cart does this. If you kept it to 2 channels plus noise you could also have system beeps on one of the 3 channels.

The first interrupt handler I ever wrote did play three channels from a table. Most of the music I put together sounded horrible, because some of the notes you can play on the VIC are slightly off-tune. And perhaps because I am too stupid when it comes to music. But you are right, it shouldn't cost too much CPU time.

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 6:36 am

Carlsson (if he returns) is the music expert but 6502 Dude and Nbla000 should be able to help with a chunk of music player code and tunes from the background of the Megacart.

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Mon Apr 26, 2010 3:20 pm

No music yet, but another step towards a GUI:
http://vin20.googlecode.com/files/vin-0.1.prg

New features:
- Keyboard input. (find the input field

)
- Improved Window handling.
- Lots of minor improvements. (cursor still flickers though)
- One bug guaranteed!

Until now I have mainly concentrated on UI primitives, but most future enhancements like fonts, etc. need at least file I/O and memory management. So I will probably not release another prototype too soon.

Have fun and please post comments!

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Mon Apr 26, 2010 3:32 pm

Cool!

I think the "mouse" needs to be a bit faster.

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Mon Apr 26, 2010 3:50 pm

Boray wrote:Cool! I think the "mouse" needs to be a bit faster.

True. It gets worse, when using a real mouse at the Vic-20. A configurable increment for X/Y movements would be good.

Ivanhoe76 · Post by **Ivanhoe76** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:00 am

Is it a "poor" vic doing that? I can't believe it: windows open and close quickly without caring if they contain hires graphic or text only... and you can even switch each other without problems!!!! If this is the beginning, I think the fianl version will really shock us!!!!!

Wilson · Post by **Wilson** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 5:04 pm

Wow! Some nice improvements!

Regarding the mouse speed: I don't know how it would feel in this application, but have you thought about making the cursor accelerate as the joystick is held in one direction? Examples of it in action can be found in Deja Vu and Uninvited for the C64. It's nice because you get both precision and speed, but then again GEOS feels just fine without it.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:42 pm

What exact settings should I be using to run this in VICE?

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Wed Apr 28, 2010 1:21 am

@Mousespeed:
Accelerating the mouse cursor may be an option for the Joystick-mouse. It's on the list of things I'd like to try. If implemented wrong it can be annoying, because you have to do tiny steps for precise movements, otherwise acceleration jumps in and pushes the cursor beyond the target.

@VICE settings:
- 16K or more (I know it's like cheating for "unexpanded" purists

)
- PAL
- Joystick emulation.
That's what I use. And PAL emulation for the "real" touch.
Everything else I left at default settings.

On the real VIC (PAL) I just plug in the 16K expansion and a Competition Pro or M1 mouse. (And of course uIEC-SD or 64HDD to load the program, haven't put it on a floppy disk yet)