Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-06
18:19:26
|  plus4emu 1.2.7
A new version of plus4emu has just been released. You can download the usual packages from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=192837&package_id=226942&release_id=611692, or check the home page (http://plus4emu.sourceforge.net/) for information about the emulator.
Here is a list of what has changed since the last release:
* added support for using the mouse to change the cursor position in the emulated machine, and copying text to and pasting from the clipboard; the following functions are available:
- left click: sets the cursor position
- right click: sets the cursor position, and copies the selected word to the clipboard
- ctrl + right click: sets the cursor position, and copies text from the selected line to the clipboard
- shift + right click: copies text from the whole screen to the clipboard without changing the cursor position
- middle click: sets the cursor position, and pastes text from the clipboard
- shift + middle click: pastes text from the clipboard without changing the cursor position
Note that these are disabled when a display mode that hides the menu bar and the mouse cursor is selected, or light pen emulation - which also uses the mouse - is enabled.
* new command line option (-keybuf) for typing text of any length at startup; the text can also be read from a file
* added machine configuration option to control the SID output volume; this also affects the sound recorded to AVI files
* increased TED audio output level relative to the default SID output level, for better accuracy in programs that use both types of sound at the same time
* minor sound emulation fixes
* the process priority of the emulator can be changed from the GUI (currently, this is only implemented on Windows)
* some utility improvements: 'compress' has more options now, and is optimized somewhat for slightly better efficiency and speed; 'p4fliconv' automatically detects the use of the C64 palette in GIF files and enables pixel exact reading mode, and there is a new experimental hires conversion algorithm as well
* minor optimizations
* in OpenGL video mode, the vertical interlace effect is now also displayed at quality 1 and 2, and quality 2 uses 32-bit textures for improved color accuracy at the expense of being somewhat slower (previously, both interlace and 32-bit textures were enabled only at quality 3)
* fixed bug that prevented the emulator display from being correctly redrawn when damaged on Windows in software video mode or OpenGL with the quality set to 0
* a few Linux compile and link errors have been fixed
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-07-07
13:56:33
 | Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Thank you Istvan 
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-08
08:26:56
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
I found a bug in the cursor position setting, though  It does not save/set/restore the color of the character under the cursor; the bug could be fixed in the next release, but if this feature is not actually found to be useful in practice by users, I may also consider just removing it.
A minor note: I think I mentioned this earlier, but the "Edit" links I have for the emulator do not seem to work; they just display a "Choose table" page with KB, ProgramNotes, and Programs as options - emulators are in Tools, however. Is this actually intended, or a bug, or maybe I am not doing something correctly ?
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-07-08
09:17:41
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
I may also consider just removing it
No, please.
I'm trying the printing functions. Does it exist a way to save the printed document as plain text or CBM-ASCII text?
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-08
09:46:42
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
> I'm trying the printing functions. Does it exist a way to save the printed document as plain text or CBM-ASCII text?
Currently, there is only hardware level printer emulation, so it can print to bitmaps (which can be displayed in real time and saved to .tga files), but cannot write text files. However, in the next version I could try implementing IEC level printer emulation, or maybe hack the existing MPS-802 emulation somehow to allow for saving text files.
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-08
09:51:25
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Although this is probably not suitable for your purposes, but for simple tasks like listing long BASIC programs to a file, it is also possible to use the IEC level drive emulation, and redirecting the output to a sequential file with CMD (the file will have a .S00 header, though).
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Posted By
nukem
on 2008-07-08
13:32:00
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
runz and rulz on every system!!!! :-D
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-10
10:05:33
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
SVS: for now, I can add a simple hack (which assumes the use of one of the two printer ROMs downloaded by the installer) that reads characters from the MPS-802 input buffer ($0093-$00E7), and writes the captured text stream to a file, using either the original CBM character set - with all the control characters included, if that is useful - or converted to standard ASCII (CBM-specific characters stripped or replaced with underscores).
If that solution is acceptable, I could release an updated 1.2.7.1 version tomorrow, which would also fix the above mentioned color bug when using the mouse to set the cursor position.
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-07-10
14:45:25
 | Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
istvan! don't you need a fancy icon?
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-10
14:58:44
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Well, if you have one, why not ? 
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-07-11
10:23:52
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Istvan: standard ASCII is good for exporting text to a PC file (.txt)
Regarding the printer type, pls. consider the more-standard MPS803, which graphic was better than MPS802, and furthermore it could have custom ROM.
Regarding icons, me too I have created more and they are published in this site: you only have to choose! )
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-07-11
10:40:29
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Istvan: standard ASCII is good for exporting text to a PC file (.txt)
Regarding the printer type, pls. consider the more-standard MPS803, which graphic was better than MPS802, and furthermore it could have custom ROM.
Regarding icons, me too I have created more and they are published in this site: you only have to choose! )
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-11
10:41:01
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Yes, I do plan to implement IEC level MPS-801/803 emulation, although only in 1.2.8; the new text save function of the MPS-802 emulation is more of a temporary workaround (since it still has all the disadvantages of the hardware level printer emulation, like being slow, having to load a new page manually after every 65 or so lines, etc.), but it was easy to implement, and it will be already in 1.2.7.1.
Where can I find the icons ?
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-07-11
15:46:06
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
nope yet, im working on.. not some shitty 5 minutes and done so stuff! but give the weekend there is some boozing event on that weekend.. please be patient i have an idea already
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-11
17:28:30
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
OK, I will release the 1.2.7.1 update later then, rather than today as originally planned.
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-17
09:18:47
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Any news ?
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-07-17
11:52:54
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Istvan, it seems that the icon-packs that were online are disappeared... Even Luca is not able to trace them.
Unfortunately my home PC crashed some days ago, then unfortunately I cannot send them until I resume it (motherboard is gone...)
If somebody of the plussiers has downloaded the 2 files, please send them to Istvan for its releases and to Luca for restoring. Thank you!
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-07-17
17:03:48
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
my icon isn't finished yet, im on the transparency fixings now (on pure dark back looks ok but on clear i don't like it..) and there was some time consuming events besides.. boozing parties etc
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-07-18
12:15:47
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Hi all,
the icon-packs are downloadable from:
http://plus4world.com/theme.htm
The images of the page do not show all the icons, then you're encouraged to DL and visualize. I hope you like them!
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-18
12:58:33
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
SVS: thanks for posting the link to the icons.
Chronos: well, I only wanted to know if I should wait for the icon to be done, or just release the updated version now in a few days with SVS icons, and then add your one later in 1.2.8 ?
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-07-19
04:32:13
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
youre right, just release it and i send my stuff when its done.. sorry for any inconvenience
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-07-21
19:05:48
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
The updated version is now released. Since there are some - even if minor - new features, it is actually 1.2.8, rather than 1.2.7.1 as previously announced. The changes are:
* new option for saving the printer output to a text file, either as the raw characters sent to the printer, or converted to ASCII
* slightly improved compression when saving the printer output in TGA format
* added Windows icons from the Plus/4 icon set by SVS
* when using the mouse to set the cursor position, the color of the character under the cursor is now saved, set, and restored correctly
* minor utility and Windows installer improvements and fixes
* some optimizations in software video mode, and serial floppy drive and printer emulation
Download link: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=192837&package_id=226942&release_id=614881
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-08-01
12:41:32
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Any comments ?
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-08-01
14:17:01
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
your graphic converter is fu**in' awesome! emu too
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-08-04
15:14:03
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Great work, as usual
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2008-08-12
07:57:10
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
This emulator is very powerful. The speed of its development is also very impressive. If we begin to count points for every facility of every emulator then plus4emu may become champion. So it will be very interesting for me and possibly others to know more about person of the author, about background of this software development, about history of his relationship with C+4, etc. I hope Luca may organize interview with these and other topics for LoneNews. Is it possible?
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-08-15
10:57:38
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
SVS: this beta build (http://www.sharemation.com/IstvanV/plus4emu.7z) of the emulator includes preliminary IEC level MPS-801 emulation. There may be some bugs to be found and fixed, but the most important thing to be tested is compatibility with the real printer, as I do not have one, so the implementation of the control characters is based only on the documentation.
A few other changes since the previous release: bug fixes related to using D64 error information, some minor debugger fixes and improvements, and LED display for the IEC level drive emulation (so that it can be seen if there was an error).
Although I had plans to include a DLL interface for the emulator, and adding a new format to the compress utility, these can probably be left out from the next release due to the lack of interest.
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-08-18
12:26:42
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Is anyone interested in testing the new printer emulation ? The file was not downloaded yet.
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-08-19
02:52:09
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Be patient it's holiday time
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-08-20
16:16:48
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Well, it is not really a problem, although I intended to release a new version at the end of this week, so some feedback could have been useful
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-08-22
18:03:06
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
In the not very likely case that someone is interested, here is the list of what is done for the next version:
* added a C interface that allows using the emulator as a shared library in other programs; the library and header file can be found in the 'plus4lib' subdirectory of the binary packages, and a simple example program with compile instructions is also included
* implemented IEC level MPS-801 printer emulation, in addition to the previously existing hardware level MPS-802 emulation
* added a new button to the debugger GUI that makes it possible to break only when a branch is taken (i.e. the opposite of 'Step over')
* LED display is now also implemented for IEC level drive emulation
* the ROM images required by the emulator are included with the binary packages, and no longer need to be downloaded separately
* fixed a bug in the 'Step over' function of the debugger
* fixed/improved support for D64 error information; this allows some copy protected games that previously did not work to load correctly
* the 'compress' utility has two new compression methods, some new options, and the original method is 3-5 times faster now while producing identical files; also, compression support in 'p4fliconv' is improved somewhat
* various minor bug fixes, optimizations, and other improvements
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-08-25
10:07:19
| Re: plus4emu 1.2.7
Well, the next release will probably the last one, after 1.2.9 I think the development of the emulator and related tools should be discontinued (other than possibly minor bug fixes), since it is apparently not used by anyone, and it is in a reasonably complete and finished state already.
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