[Coco] EZGen on NitrOS9 level 1

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 24 November 2012 14:09:59 Bill Pierce did opine:

> Gene,
> It's level 1 so there's no "gshell" that's level2 multivue. It just uses
> the os9 graphics primatives. It doesn't even use GFX or GFX2. Since
> it's level 1, It probably cheats and writes directly to the screen as
> that was the norm for level 1 ML graphics.
> 
> Bill

Well, the 6847 had more than its basic text mode screens, Bill.  I can 
recall from my coco1&2 days that it could do, in the gfx modes, both a 51 
column screen and a 64 column screen, which telewriter64 used but it was so 
packed I found it difficult to read on the 9" B&W tv I used as a monitor in 
those days, so I did the majority of my src code carving in those days on a 
51 column screen.  But it did eat memory like a pig, so when I was done 
editing, I also killed that screen to get enough memory to run the C 
compiler.  ISTR the graphics driver to do those screens was a simple 'gfx'.  
At some point back in that era I acquired a 12" amber screen and a wp-rs 
and was in visual paradise, so when I bought a coco3 and a maggie monitor 
that passed 15 years ago, one of the things that rather quickly was made 
operational was the WP-RS, with a modified init table in it that ran the 
monitor at about 18.5 kilohertz and expanded the display about 2" larger in 
both directions.  The default init table was built for a 4x color 
subcarrier crystal and to run at somewhere near 15.75 kilohertz horizontal, 
only used about a postcard size area in the middle of that 12" monitor, and 
that of course would never do.  Since one can go up in sweep speeds w/o 
endangering the average horizontal output transistor, I started out by 
reducing the dead space until the slightly dimmer display was within 1/4" 
of the tubes edges and it was doing about 18.5 to 19 kilohertz horizontal 
sweep, some gain from the code and some gain from the loss of high voltage 
which of course expanded the height too but there's a knob to turn that 
down.  Then analyzing the vertical I found that there was room enough in 
the on board 2kx8 memory chip to allow another line of text, so I made that 
a 80x25 line screen & adjusted the height to fill the screen.

I ran that, right beside the 15" color monitor until I needed desk space 
for a linux setup here about 10 years later and took it to the basement 
shortly after I retired and I was given the computer desk from my old 
office to put it on.  But that didn't have room for both monitors, so the 
WP-RS and its monitor finally got retired to a storage shelf a few feet 
away.

I think, some of that was at least 20 years back up the log.  I've been 
retired for 10 years & change now.

Cheers, Gene
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