New demo uploaded: Blinkenlights

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 3:46 am

Blinkenlights

A simple file that graphically shows the values of several registers in the X16 which change regularly -- for example, the top of the accumulator stack, and some of the I/O registers.

It's an attempt to replicate the "blinking lights" of systems that used to use big ol' LEDs to represent register contents, alarm bars, and whatnot.

The C source is here: https://github.com/bobbyjim/x16-blinkenlights

Submitter

rje

Submitted

08/16/21

Category

Demos

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 3:49 am

The display looks kind of Tetris-y right now. I'd like it to look less like Tetris, and more like a bank of LEDs.

Any ideas?

Cyber · Post by **Cyber** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 4:32 am

Can you show example of LED bank you are talking about?

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:58 am

2 hours ago, Cyber said:

Can you show example of LED bank you are talking about?

I imagine this...

or this

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 7:07 am

3 hours ago, rje said:

The display looks kind of Tetris-y right now. I'd like it to look less like Tetris, and more like a bank of LEDs.

Any ideas?

Try the circle character (shift Q), and use bright/dark versions of colors. (You'll probably have to modify the palette a bit.)

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 4:00 pm

Yep, I was seeing the PDP-8 in my head. I'll try circles.

I'm also wondering if there's additional semi-useless information that might be nice to see on this kind of eye-candy display.

Maybe I can also draw some nice PETSCII beveled lines to break up the space into logical areas. Yeah, I'll try that too.

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:02 pm

Here's a concept for the second iteration. I'll try other colors as well, but red circles look very LED like, and the dark gray emulates "off" nicely.

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 7:40 pm

Looking for more useless info to display. Currently showing:

localtime

VIA #1 registers ($9f66 and $9f67 don't have any activity)

stack ($01d6 thru $01e5).

I suppose I could grab the registers.

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue Aug 17, 2021 10:16 pm

OK, merged the changes, and updated the Downloads entry.

rje · Post by **rje** » Wed Aug 18, 2021 1:49 pm

I added in a keyboard scan.

I also included the i/o status byte, because I had room for it.