VideoNuLA (Part 1) : A New Graphics Card for 8-bit BBC Micro (Wi-Fi Sheep Tech Video)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 พ.ค. 2018
- The original line of Acorn 8-bit BBC Micro computer where known for there fantastic graphics modes.. However the limited colour palates which were never updated until the later Archimedes, leave much to be desired!
Luckily for those Micros still operating in the 21st century, Rob Coleman has come to our rescue with his brilliant Video NuLA replacement graphics card for the system, which expands the colour capabilities of the veteran BBC Micro three fold!
More info on the Video VuLA can be found at:
stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopi...
More more info about Wi-Fi Sheep goto: www.ident-online.co.uk/wifisheep
And don't forget our Patreon: / wifisheep - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
This card is built by my Friend Robert Coleman. He's one of the most intelligent kindest and honest people ive ever had the pleasure to know. I was in school with him.
Hi could not agree more! I have met Rob on a number of occasions, he's even reached out to me about these videos and I have a part 3 update in the works! The Video NuLA is a very impressive and well produced product so full credit to Rob!
WiFiSheep hes the best mate. Great videos by the way. I've subbed.
You just brought memories flooding back with the Revs sounds! I used to own a B and had all kinds of Roms and addons on it. I’ve just bought an Electron off EBay too :)
Thanks for your comment and kind words! Have fun with your Electron, if you've not already seen heres my video on the ELK th-cam.com/video/yuKlyNf_M-Y/w-d-xo.html
Just remembered I bought one of these at Acorn Wakefield show and not got round to fitting it. Thanks for the video. Got the MMC upgrade too.
another excellent video ;))) I'm going to buy a videoNula and watching your video gives me great confidence on installing it :)
The best way to bend the legs in is to do it on the table top.
Hmm not sure I guess with some fiddling it could look better.
I was on the point of doing that tbh... but still went for the pliers! Thanks for your comment!
Oh, you got a real one (am I right thinking there were only 50 made?) I have it setup on B-em. The 12bit colours are something close to breath-taking on a 30+ year old machine :)
Oh yes defiantly real! Not tried it with B-em yet but must get that set up.. It really is quite something! The model B i'm using generated some interesting issues which i think confirm somethings up with the machines 35 + year old RAM. Also no sideways RAM support which I need for some of the extra features, hence the planned part 2 with the Master 128.
PS have no idea on how many were produced but think tha'll be another production run
It's more pallett-able... your pun was not lost on me.
alot of work went into the presentation great
Subbed =D I will get one of these! It's appealing to me because it replaces a chip that can die from overheating.
found a BEEB loving channel. lovely jubbly. SUBBED :)
Same!
Hmm can you only change the colors with this card or it has even more graphic extensions such as a higher screen resolution?
Its mainly about colour palettes, however it dose add some extra screen modes, no more or higher resolution but it allows for a high res (MODE0) with 12 colours as apposed to the standard 2 colours
Where could I find MMB explorer? tried googling for it, cam up empty =(
Hi, the MMB software was supplied on a CD that came with the Turbo MMC device when I bought it. Most of these PC based file explores tend to be pay only and not in the public domain.
WiFiSheep cheers dude, I'll dig out my CD :)
It was originally open source by Martin Mather, who made the original version and published the design. His site seems to be down, but I'm sure there are many links on stardot (somewhere) or you could wayback machine for mmbeeeb.
Old School cheers, manage s to find a CD I got with my MMC with an older version on, required an old library file, but I got it working :) will have a dig around on stardot though. Thanks :)
web.archive.org/web/20120711213312/members.multimania.co.uk:80/mmbeeb/
Hmm, had to skim-watch to 12:50 to see what it actually does. Could have followed the link, I suppose!
Cool topic.
But that computer generated "music" you have going in the background is very annoying!
The 8-Bit Guy's latest video update on his Dream Computer project, the Commander X16, is showing off a 128K graphics card that has been designed for the project. The current prototype is on a little separate board that can be attached to the the expansion slot of a Commodore 64 expansion slot with an adapter. That way the team is able to use existing C64 machines to write the firm ware kernel for working with this graphics card. It's very possible that this graphics card will end up being available separately. In which case it could become a card for the entire retro community to embrace. It has graphics prowess that exceeds the C64 graphics capabilities. More sprites, hardware screen scrolling, larger screen resolution modes, much larger color palette, better character attributing capabilities, faster performance - it's more akin to Amiga graphics than C64 graphics..
Im fully aware of the Commander X16 project infact I posted about Video NuLA on the Facebook group some months back before any hardware had been announced. The two interface graphics boards are from the looks of it very similar, the Video NuLA recreates the stock ULA chip of the Beeb. Unlike the Commander X16 It dose not have any RAM of its own and still relies on the main machine RAM and 6502 CPU to drive it.
@@WiFiSheep the way it has its own memory that is not in the address space of the 6502 looks to be advantageous - and cleverly done. That is how it can have 128K of video ram and hence support higher res video modes and larger color palette than any graphics subsystem of the early 80s micros. The clever part is this: when watching the recent video it is described how to interact with the video card and there is an address in 6502 memory that poke data to. But even though this at first seems very limited and a bottleneck, there is this auto-increment mode of using it, so a large block of memory can be prepared in 6502 address space and then blitted into video memory using this auto-increment mode. So is possible to write to graphic memory with efficiency.
Am excited that this card could become available separately - I'd like to combine it with this FPGA-implemented 80186 board that has 1MB of memory. Can then boot MS-DOS and use Borland Turbo C to write programs that use it. (On the Commander X16 will be limited to 6502 assembler or BASIC, limited to 64K memory area with 8K being bank switchable.). An MS-DOS retro gaming machine would also be able to use those Adlib compatible boards for sound - solving the sound system is still a lingering issue for the X16 project as they haven't landed on a definitive sound solution yet.
They're called "dirt cheap Chinese logic analyser hooks" - throw it away and use solder instead!
So still eight colours ?
MODE 2 will now do a full 16 as you can allocate an additional 8 to the flashing colours and use these as statics. The other stock modes will be limited to the normal number of colours so MODE 1 will have 4 but you can choose which 4 out of the 4000+ palette you want.
There are some new modes in the MODE 97 + area such as a new MODE0 with 12 colours in high res (80's high res) so some new options there.
@@WiFiSheep Might look into getting one then for my master, then again will any software make use of this other than re tweaking the existing pallet ?
some software is appearing if you have a pi tube direct fitted and your using a master you can take advantage of the ZX spectrum and Amstrad CPC modes which do allow for the running of these platforms games and software on your beeb! Plus there is a version of DOOM in the works which is a port of the 1993 DOS build.
@@WiFiSheep Ok I am officially interested now. I have been looking for a good reason to refurb the master.
VVB
21:15 "more pallette-able" b-dum-tishhh! :)