Author Topic: Q&A with Bruce Tanner (IS-BASIC writer) (Read 332330 times)

Tuby128 · « **Reply #165 on:** 2013.February.25. 21:59:08 »

Mr Tanner, Now I have seen your Forth environment, which is reminding me of the IS-BASIC. I'm wondering, by whom was this color scheme choosen? I meant the black background with the green characters and the red cursor and red status line. I suppose it was by you, or wasn't it? If it was, considering that in this time other home computers have colored background, e.g C64 has a bluish, and Spectrum has white (but I'm not sure about that), I'm curious why did you choose particulary black?

Zozosoft · « **Reply #166 on:** 2013.February.25. 22:04:53 »

These colors are EXOS defaults.
I think the black paper is more good for CRTs, because less radiation.
When possible I always chose black paper with green letters, for example in the Turbo Pascal editor or in DOS Navigator, and todays in the Total Commander.

BruceTanner · « **Reply #167 on:** 2013.February.25. 22:20:25 »

Quote from: Tuby128

Mr Tanner, Now I have seen your Forth environment, which is reminding me of the IS-BASIC. I'm wondering, by whom was this color scheme choosen? I meant the black background with the green characters and the red cursor and red status line. I suppose it was by you, or wasn't it? If it was, considering that in this time other home computers have colored background, e.g C64 has a bluish, and Spectrum has white (but I'm not sure about that), I'm curious why did you choose particulary black?

I think we chose the green on black because, as zozo says, it is easy on they eye. Early monitors, before colour, were usually green on black for the same reason (I don't think there was any reason why they could not have made, for example, red on black if they had wanted to). I think it was just the programmers who chose it but I can't remember who exactly!

They are also the colours of the Enterprise itself - mainly black with some green keys, a few blue and a red one. These colours were chosen by the case designers and fixed before we had software running.

These days with graphical Window environments black on white, like paper, is common, but in those days the whites available were too bright and harsh to be comfortable.

Zozosoft · « **Reply #168 on:** 2013.February.25. 22:47:55 »

From the EXOS specifications:
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

The 1 is the FORTH! How allocated the first number for you?

geco · « **Reply #169 on:** 2013.February.25. 22:52:27 »

And nowadays the black and white is irritating the eyes also like in eighties

, I do not know why it was chosen for windows, 10 years ago I tried to change the color scheme of winfos (fos is shit in hungarian)to black and green , but I did not have success, there were a lot of applications which did not let the modification, therefore I gave up. If I have to look too much this black and white screen my eyes goes to tired early. I love(d) the color scheme of EP, I could spend many hours front of the computer in a day without any problem

BruceTanner · « **Reply #170 on:** 2013.February.25. 23:06:23 »

Quote from: geco

And nowadays the black and white is irritating the eyes also like in eighties , I do not know why it was chosen for windows, 10 years ago I tried to change the color scheme of winfos (fos is shit in hungarian)to black and green , but I did not have success, there were a lot of applications which did not let the modification, therefore I gave up. If I have to look too much this black and white screen my eyes goes to tired early. I love(d) the color scheme of EP, I could spend many hours front of the computer in a day without any problem

Yes indeed. Probably meant to look like paper. I use a very light grey instead of white but, as you say, a lot of programs don't take notice of the system colours

geco · « **Reply #171 on:** 2013.February.25. 23:13:41 »

Quote from: BruceTanner

Yes indeed. Probably meant to look like paper. I use a very light grey instead of white but, as you say, a lot of programs don't take notice of the system colours

I am sure you are right

, but if I want to look paper, then I take a group of A4 paper and look on it

, I tried it also, much better than the black&white.
Yes, even those programs do not have setting for change colors, we are not able to use SET PALETTE command unfortunately

Tuby128 · « **Reply #172 on:** 2013.February.25. 23:36:48 »

First of all, I agree with you about the eyes thing, Geco.
I can imagine a hardware which inverts the intensity of every colour that came from the VGA connector. So you can get black background with white letters, but I think it's also worthless, if you use this converter by certain websites (like this one).
(I mentioned VGA output, because I still use this one.)

By the way, the latter Windows versions (from XP) have settings to change the "desktop theme". It works perfectly, if you use applications, which uses the default windows theme by creation of the window. Unfortunately there is many applications which use "hard coded" color scheme, insead of default. The reason for this could be the "custom" made windows controls, or the developer didn't know (or didn't want to spent time) about how to get default parameters (especially if there is not so much time to accomplish a task).

lgb · « **Reply #173 on:** 2013.February.26. 01:38:52 »

Quote from: BruceTanner

I think we chose the green on black because, as zozo says, it is easy on they eye. Early monitors, before colour, were usually green on black for the same reason (I don't think there was any reason why they could not have made, for example, red on black if they had wanted to). I think it was just the programmers who chose it but I can't remember who exactly!

I guess it was not free of choice at that time (before the colour era). Green is caused the type of phosphor used in the CRT. This kind of phosphor is called "P1". There are other kinds as well (like the amber, which is "P3"). What I can guess, P1 was more easily made at the beginning or it was cheaper etc? Maybe there is a reason to denote number "1" for it, and having higher numbers for other colours which were used more widely later. Anyway it changed later when colour monitors needed red, green and blue too for every pixels

What is odd for me: white on black phosphor is "P4". This is odd, as b&w TVs should have this (as we all of know it can't be P1: they didn't have green image ....), so it must be used from the beginning.

I've just found this page, while trying to find out why P1 was so commonly used in monitors.

Zozosoft · « **Reply #174 on:** 2013.February.26. 09:45:39 »

Bruce! Have you noticed my question between the color discussions?

BruceTanner · « **Reply #175 on:** 2013.February.26. 10:10:53 »

Quote from: Zozosoft

From the EXOS specifications:
(Attachment Link)

The 1 is the FORTH! How allocated the first number for you?

I can't remember how we allocated those numbers...it does seem strange that FORTH came before BASIC As it was written later. Maybe there was another file type during development that we later did not need so FORTH filled the gap. One of the specification documents on your web site has the same list but includes FORTH

BruceTanner · « **Reply #176 on:** 2013.February.27. 20:23:07 »

Quote from: Zozosoft

I started with the EXDOS because I wanted to work my IDE controller.
Unfortunately EXDOS Technical Documents are missing!
My IDE hw and the low level routines are ready at about 1996. But at this time I thought totally new DOS needed...
Many years later when I started the disassembly then found: expanding the EXDOS with new disk handlers is a very-very-very simple thing! Few days later the IDE interface worked with EXDOS

Hi zozo,

From a while ago in this topic...if you have an IDE hard disk interface working with an Enterprise, have you ever tried something like one of these? http://www.amazon.co.uk/44-Pin-Male-IDE-Card-Adapter/dp/B005DJLD8Q
ie an IDE to SD card converter

Zozosoft · « **Reply #177 on:** 2013.February.27. 21:04:40 »

Quote from: BruceTanner

if you have an IDE hard disk interface working with an Enterprise, have you ever tried something like one of these?

Tested with CF card

Someone use with SDCard and PQI flash disk.
Probably everything can be connected to IDE will work, but possible needed enhancing the IDE ROM for some devices.
(Is my dream programming Enterprise in full time as you did at the IS

)

BruceTanner · « **Reply #178 on:** 2013.February.27. 23:15:15 »

It has just come to me how we assembled & linked the Enterprise software...with Microsoft M80 and L80 (still downloadable off the internet, they are CP/M programs so should run on the Enterprise itself!)
I think we had a Z80 card in an IBM PC to run them on.

Zozosoft · « **Reply #179 on:** 2013.February.27. 23:34:10 »

It is about how many time one compile of BASIC/EXDOS/etc?

Author Topic: Q&A with Bruce Tanner (IS-BASIC writer) (Read 332330 times)

Tuby128

Re: Q&A with Bruce Tanner (IS-BASIC writer)

Zozosoft

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BruceTanner

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Zozosoft

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geco

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BruceTanner

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geco

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Tuby128

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lgb

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Zozosoft

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BruceTanner

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BruceTanner

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Zozosoft

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BruceTanner

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Zozosoft

Re: Q&A with Bruce Tanner (IS-BASIC writer)