Posted By
Litwr
on 2024-02-09
09:34:33
|  New FLI tools
It has been my dream for a long time to play with the hidden graphical capabilities of the +4. Little did I know that this could take more than 30 years! I was able to create a library that can help develop static FLI images using the C language, and can also help develop assembler programs that use the FLI screen. There is also a utility that can convert images into the PRG files that generate the corresponding images on the C+4 screen. As a side effect, I wrote a small color reference guide that can help navigate the +4 color sky.
It is interesting that the hardware vertical scrolling implemented in the TED is an almost completely redundant feature! My code doesn't use it.
It seems that my tools are still too raw and not very friendly for other developers but I am ready to provide more support if my works will arose some interest.
So I present the C/Asm DFLI library and Simple Color Converter. The color chart mentioned above is also published.
https://litwr2.github.io/plus4/cross-c-fli-programming.html
https://litwr2.github.io/plus4/fli-converter.html
https://litwr2.github.io/plus4/plus4-palette.html
IstvanV's FLI Converter is still the best but my utility has several small advantages too.
Two prg-files are attached, they demonstrate that the library can be used to create games and demos.
http://litwr2.atspace.eu/zone/starships-c.prg
http://litwr2.atspace.eu/zone/supercolors-c.prg
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2024-02-09
11:42:29
| Re: New FLI tools
The last two files are here as well: starships-c.prg supercolors-c.prg
For clarity, I asked Litwr if these are officially released, but they aren't, they are just for generating discussion 
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2024-02-09
13:18:30
| Re: New FLI tools
IMHO every post on forum suggests some discussion... It is interesting for me to delve into some details of the +4 hardware. For clarity, my primary goal was to get some tools that would allow me to utilize as much colors as possible and without any flicker. I got some results and now I dare to share them.
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Posted By
George
on 2024-02-09
17:11:24
 | Re: New FLI tools
@Litwr Great work, my freind! Thanks for your passion!
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2024-02-10
01:58:30
| Re: New FLI tools
@George Thanks. But it seems we are all very obsessed here. 
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Posted By
MMS
on 2024-02-10
14:41:56
 | Re: New FLI tools
wow, these are great. Thank you for the sample program too, they are very useful for the weaklings
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Posted By
Charlemagne
on 2024-02-10
15:42:20
| Re: New FLI tools
Hello Litwr,
I have only one question... I saw your colour values (palette) on your site and I found one on Wikipedia:
There is a little bit difference between values..., so which one is closer to the real values? Yours or Wikipedia's?
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2024-02-11
02:36:20
| Re: New FLI tools
@Charlemagne Sorry, I am not a color wizard. I just did a very plain transformation. I printed a gamut using plus4emu, then I did a screenshot, then I exported RGB/HSV values from the image, sorted them by the H and V values, and finally I published my results.
The values in Wikipedia can be correct too because RGB/HSV values depend on brightness/contrast levels. There is also a little difference for PAL and NTSC colors. It's all written on https://litwr2.github.io/plus4/plus4-palette.html that was mentioned above. Thus there is no the fixed RGB chart for the +4. IMHO the best thing is to make a dynamic js-chart where we can change the brightness/contrast levels and switch between PAL and NTSC. The perfect chart may also contain the inverted PAL colors.
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2024-02-11
03:57:02
| Re: New FLI tools
@Charlemagne: Wikipedia is most of the times quite shyte regarding these niche topics. According to the official TED documentation, and anyone with working eyes, Luminance signal is not linear at all. These pages are usually made on little research and a lot of assumptions.
@Litwr: Why that clumsy roundabout way? plus4emu is a nice Open Source project. You can find colour map with all bells and whistles in display.?pp files. It would've been easier and more accurate using them. YapeSDL would've been another good source. What you need can be found in video.* files in this project.
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2024-02-11
13:34:43
| Re: New FLI tools
@gerliczer If it had been that easy somebody could make a color chart long ago. The plus4emu/yapesdl sources do not contain RGB/HSV values, they generate palettes. My chart just uses these generated values.
@MMS Thanks and I am ready to provide more but it can take another 30 years.
I have also published an article about photos on the first PCs. It, of course, contains some information about our TED machines.
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2024-02-11
13:14:36
| Re: New FLI tools
@Litwr: (facepalm) C'mon, man. I was not talking about your applying colour-space transformation formulae to a colour palette or creating charts from the results of calculations. I was talking about creating a screenshot in an emulator and extracting the colour palette from that instead of using the shared source code to generate them. Whatever you did after obtaining those, can't be judged if it was clumsy and roundabout because you didn't go into details explaining it.
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Posted By
SVS
on 2024-02-12
12:35:46
 | Re: New FLI tools
Big work Master Litwr! I just can suppose how much work you did to achieve these results!
Now the new tools are aimed at willing graphic designers. 
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Posted By
MMS
on 2024-02-12
14:37:50
| Re: New FLI tools
and C programmers
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2024-02-15
01:11:55
| Re: New FLI tools
@SVS Thanks. However let me present the sheer numbers:
about 1100 LOC of the 6502 assembly;
about 400 LOC of the C/C++ code.
IMHO it is not that big. Actually I expected that the supercolors effect would be more impressive. Sorry I was too lazy to do more.
However I like that my results prove that it is possible to write games and demos that utilize the extended DFLI modes via a standard library.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2024-02-26
02:37:52
 | Re: New FLI tools
@litrw: you have mail, I tested your specimen and mailed the results. It works perfectly on real iron! This is the 280 lines one.
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2024-02-28
12:57:11
| Re: New FLI tools
Thank you. It looks fantastic, much better than on any emulator.
@MMS You can use your favorite PL. You need just to port a short C-subroutine to this language.
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