Flightdeck program

[lowrybt]

Hello,

I'm working my way through a number of great "old" programs for the QL, including the 1.07 version of Flightdeck. I'm trying to use it on a US QL with a SGC and original ROMs running off a floppy. The pre-simulation settings screen loads and functions as it should. When I enter the simulation environment, the instrument panel has a range of skewed or misplaced items (see attachments). I've tried with and without RES_128 to no effect.

If anyone has experienced this issue before, do you have any recommendations or fixes?

Thanks, Tom

[RWAP]

Send me an email - as I still publish QL Flightdeck - I may be able to help - the attachments were missing from your post, so I am not sure what you are seeing.

It could potentially be an issue with the JSU ROM as the way it handles characters is different to the UK and european versions of the QL

[tofro]

To quote the technical guide:

For monitor operation, a 50Hz 624-line non-interlaced system is used; this is the same system as is used on the English QL. The full 512x256 pixel display is available, and the default windows and character size are the same as for the monitor mode on an English QL .
For TV operation, a 60Hz 524-line non-interlaced system is used in which the number of raster lines available is limited to 192. In order to ease the task of software conversion, an alternate display font is provided which allows a 6x8 character square instead of the usual 6x10. This ensures approximately the same number of visible rows of text on both PAL and NTSC QL s, at the cost of true descenders and reduced vertical spacing. The default windows and graphics scaling for TV operation are different from those of the English QL .
It is to be expected that a different version of any applications software (or at least different options) will be required for NTSC operation on domestic televisions.

That is, if the program runs in TV mode, it might be confronted with smaller characters, and an overall slightly lower resolution.

[RWAP]

To quote the technical guide:

For monitor operation, a 50Hz 624-line non-interlaced system is used; this is the same system as is used on the English QL. The full 512x256 pixel display is available, and the default windows and character size are the same as for the monitor mode on an English QL .
For TV operation, a 60Hz 524-line non-interlaced system is used in which the number of raster lines available is limited to 192. In order to ease the task of software conversion, an alternate display font is provided which allows a 6x8 character square instead of the usual 6x10. This ensures approximately the same number of visible rows of text on both PAL and NTSC QL s, at the cost of true descenders and reduced vertical spacing. The default windows and graphics scaling for TV operation are different from those of the English QL .
It is to be expected that a different version of any applications software (or at least different options) will be required for NTSC operation on domestic televisions.

That is, if the program runs in TV mode, it might be confronted with smaller characters, and an overall slightly lower resolution.

I had forgotten the reasoning - I just remember that for both War in the East and D-Day, they used two different UDG character sets - one for the US QLs and another for the European ones.

[lowrybt]

I just sent Rich the screenshot. So, if I'm understanding this correctly, not all commercial QL programs were coded to deal with both PAL and NTSC environments and it's possible that is the issue I am seeing here. Might there be anyway through SCART and HDMI TV settings that I can deal with this? Thanks, Tom

To quote the technical guide:

For monitor operation, a 50Hz 624-line non-interlaced system is used; this is the same system as is used on the English QL. The full 512x256 pixel display is available, and the default windows and character size are the same as for the monitor mode on an English QL .
For TV operation, a 60Hz 524-line non-interlaced system is used in which the number of raster lines available is limited to 192. In order to ease the task of software conversion, an alternate display font is provided which allows a 6x8 character square instead of the usual 6x10. This ensures approximately the same number of visible rows of text on both PAL and NTSC QL s, at the cost of true descenders and reduced vertical spacing. The default windows and graphics scaling for TV operation are different from those of the English QL .
It is to be expected that a different version of any applications software (or at least different options) will be required for NTSC operation on domestic televisions.

That is, if the program runs in TV mode, it might be confronted with smaller characters, and an overall slightly lower resolution.

I had forgotten the reasoning - I just remember that for both War in the East and D-Day, they used two different UDG character sets - one for the US QLs and another for the European ones.

[RWAP]

I will have a look tomorrow - have you tried the demo version from Dilwyn's site - http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/demos/flightdeck.zip in case it is something in the code.

I do not recall Flightdeck using UDGs but I may be wrong.

It would also be worth testing if the same happens on q-emulator running JSU ROM.

[lowrybt]

I was unable to get the demo version to run on Q-Emulator. The issue is the EXEC_W command not finding Flight_obj which is definitely is on the virtual drive (flight.obj). I did test Ekotek Simulator with the JSU ROM and it worked great. I realize that Ekotek SIm and the Flight Deck are of different origins. TB

[RWAP]

OK - I can confirm that it also has issues on q-emulator running JSU QL ROM

The correct screenshot (JS ROM):

.

Even worse is that Q-emulator does not display the screen properly under JSU ROM either!

I initially thought it was the way the text was positioned, but actually it looks to be the graphics routines - the circles are basically much too fat.

This therefore appears to be how the graphics and text positioning routines interact - however, I cannot make the circles (drawn in BASIC) appear with the corect ratio, size and position.

For example, the blocks behind the circles are drawn with:

Code: Select all

1700 DEFine PROCedure Outline(x,y)
1710   FILL 1
1720   LINE x+1,y+9 TO x+9,y+1 TO x+61,y+1 TO x+69,y+9 TO x+69,y+60 TO x+61,y+68 TO x+9,y+68 TO x+1,y+60 TO x+1,y+9
1730   FILL 0
1740 END DEFine

[lowrybt]

Rich,

Thanks for diagnosing this. I will enjoy the program on Q-emulator. Tom

[RWAP]

I would like to know if there is a way of correcting the graphic output on a JSU QL - it might be down to getting the right scale but unlikely...