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Re: RGB Card Question



Jorge ChB wrote:
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:


mdj wrote:

I would suspect that the TEXT/GRAPHICS softswitch triggers it.

Correct, and the TEXT softswitch is off in MIXED/GRAPHICS mode.


It's possible in this case that the killer doesn't activate until a
video cycle ends or starts.


Well, if, as you say, the Color Burst is being gated in by the TEXT
softswitch then certainly it's going to be toggled on and off by this :


LOOP:
LDA TEXTMODE
WAIT (A FEW TENTHS OF A FRAME)
LDA GRAPHICSMODE
WAIT (A FEW TENTHS OF A FRAME)
JMP LOOP


I'd suspect that the colour burst being absent in the middle
of a frame would produce pretty bizzarre results.


Like for example ?
I ran the program above and nothing "bizarre" came on the screen.

I didn't say something bizarre *would* happen, only that it *could*
happen, because it is completely outside the NTSC specification.

Most analog monitors will probably ignore short-duration changes in
burst status, in either direction, but this is not a specified
behavior.  And the color reference oscillator is free-running
during the absence of the burst.

I expect that many digital monitors will react much more quickly
to burst changes, but it may still take a few lines, and results
will not be consistent across monitors.

It's undefined behavior.

-michael

Parallel computing for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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