Commander X16

I'm trying out release candidates before publishing the final r41 release.

This is RC3:

http://www.pagetable.com/docs/tmp/x16emu_linux-r41_rc3.zip

http://www.pagetable.com/docs/tmp/x16emu_mac-r41_rc3.zip

http://www.pagetable.com/docs/tmp/x16emu_win-r41_rc3.zip

Please test and report issues here. The final version will be released within a week.

Release notes:

• 
  KERNAL
  
  
  
  • 
    keyboard
    
    
    
    • 
      added 16 more keyboard layouts (28 total)
      
    
    
    • 
      Default layout is now Macintosh US
      
    
    
    • 
      "keymap" API to activate a built-in keyboard layout
      
    
    
    • 
      custom keyboard layouts can be loaded from disk (to $0:$A000)
      
    
    
    • 
      Caps key behaves as expected
      
    
    
    • 
      support for Shift+AltGr combinations
      
    
    
    • 
      support for dead keys (e.g. ^ + e = ê)
      
    
    
    • 
      PgUp/PgDown, End, Menu and Del generate PETSCII codes
      
    
    
    • 
      Numpad support
      
    
    
    • 
      Shift+Alt toggles between charsets (like C64)
      
    
    
    • 
      Editor: "End" will position cursor on last line
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • 
    VERA source/target support for memory_fill, memory_copy, memory_crc, memory_decompress [with PG Lewis]
    
  
  
  • 
    fixed headerless load for verify/VRAM cases [Mike Ketchen]
    
  
  
  • 
    don't reset screen colors on mode switch
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  BASIC:
  
  
  
  • 
    BLOAD, BVLOAD and BVERIFY commands for header-less loading [ZeroByteOrg]
    
  
  
  • 
    KEYMAP command to change keyboard layout
    
  
  
  • 
    support DOS8..DOS31 (and A=9:DOSA etc.) to switch default device
    
  
  
  • 
    MOUSE and SCREEN accept -1 as argument (was: $FF)
    
  
  
  • 
    Changed auto-boot filename from AUTOBOOT.X16* to AUTOBOOT.X16
    
  
  
  
  


• 
  Monitor:
  
  
  
  • 
    fixed RMB/SMB disassembly
    
  
  
  
  

Emulator:

• 
  allow apps to intercept Cmd/Win, Menu and Caps-Lock keys
  


• 
  fixed -prg with -sdcard
  


• 
  fixed loading from host filesystem (length reporting by MACPTR on EOI)
  


• 
  macOS: support for older versions like Catalina (10.15)
  

I am having trouble loading an application with `-prg` when also using `-sdcard`.  I captured two gifs to help show what I'm seeing.  One was captured with `x16emu -sdcard card.img -prg AIRSHIP.PRG -scale 2 -joy1 -debug -gif with_prg.gif`, and the other with `x16emu -sdcard card.img -scale 2 -joy1 -debug -gif without_prg.gif`.  This is with the same `card.img` file, so the only difference is whether I am using `-prg` or if I am using `LOAD` once the emulator is running.  I should note how the first thing my application does it attempt to load additional resources from files on the SD card, however it should disable both layers before doing so (the "Loading..." text is made from hardware sprites).  The case using `-prg` never actual runs, and is somehow loading up the incorrect player sprite as well.  I suspect the loading of additional resources is the culprit.

That all said, loading manually with `LOAD` still works fine.

 

There are some more characters in ISO8859-15 that are on the US International keyboard in Linux "setxkbmap us intl" and "setxkbmap us altgr-intl":

œŒ on xX and kK with Alt Gr, ïÏ on jJ. It's a bit strange that œŒ are on two keys.

US-International keyboard layout (Linux) also has ®® on vV and ëË on rR. I think one should at least have ®® also on vV since it is unused now, and that would open the opportunity to have ëË on rR later.

When using "setxkbmap us intl" in Linux you can type ' using AltGr+' and " using AltGr+Shift+'. I think this is better than ' followed by space and Shift+' followed by space which are the only alternatives in Windows with US-International to type ' and ".

My God man, you're a machine.

On 5/7/2022 at 9:52 AM, Michael Steil said:

• 
  
  
  
  • 
    
    
    
    • 
      US layout is now US-International
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

While US-International is a great feature as an option, having " ' and ^ as dead keys by default would indeed be quite annoying when programming in Forth. ' is a standard forth word, as is ." and ABORT" ... among others. The only reason " is not a standard word is that it was implemented with different stack effects in different Forth systems.

Don't know if this has changed or not since R38 / pre-release R39, but -prg would use the host FS even with an SD image....

@ZeroByte I think you are correct.  The problem was that the emulator was loading an older build artifact from my project repo rather than the fresh one that was put on the card image.  Thanks for clearing that up and helping me figure that out.

This sort of begs the question, what is the correct use of `-prg` and `-sdcard` together?  I thought the point of `-sdcard` was to run using a card image as the filesystem.  It never occurred to me that the host filesystem played any part once that was specified.

@JestinProbably it should obey the host-vs-SD situation, but I remembered it being that way because I used it to bootstrap loading my PRG while testing so the PRG was fast, but then ran with the speed of SD once booted - saving a little time for each test run.

 

On 5/7/2022 at 7:11 PM, mobluse said:

There are some more characters in ISO8859-15 that are on the US International keyboard in Linux "setxkbmap us intl" and "setxkbmap us altgr-intl":

œŒ on xX and kK with Alt Gr, ïÏ on jJ. It's a bit strange that œŒ are on two keys.



US-International keyboard layout (Linux) also has ®® on vV and ëË on rR. I think one should at least have ®® also on vV since it is unused now, and that would open the opportunity to have ëË on rR later.



When using "setxkbmap us intl" in Linux you can type ' using AltGr+' and " using AltGr+Shift+'. I think this is better than ' followed by space and Shift+' followed by space which are the only alternatives in Windows with US-International to type ' and ".

The keymaps are direct conversions of the official Windows .klc files. Can you check whether what you know from Linux is part of

• 
  http://kbdlayout.info/kbdusx and
  


• 
  https://github.com/commanderx16/x16-rom/blob/master/keymap/klc/20409 United States-International.klc
  

?

If yes, we have a bug. If no, we have to decide whether we want to have these Linux additions.

On 5/7/2022 at 10:47 PM, BruceMcF said:

While US-International is a great feature as an option, having " ' and ^ as dead keys by default would indeed be quite annoying when programming in Forth. ' is a standard forth word, as is ." and ABORT" ... among others. The only reason " is not a standard word is that it was implemented with different stack effects in different Forth systems.

These are only dead keys in ISO mode, not in PETSCII mode. I'd assume users will be mostly in PETSCII mode for programming, and in ISO mode for productivity?