Re: ASCII art / FIGlet

["Craig Bower" <to.email.me@post.a.request.message>]

> I hadn't really thought of doing _conversions_, but that's pretty cool
> that you've actually programmed something in that vein... be interesting
> to see it in action.

Hi Simon,

Heres an applesoft program to move the first 1K of page 1 Hires
onto page 1 text/lores - thus you'll wind up with pretty terrible
resolution.  But it will be "ascii" sort of resembling the hires image.

110 GR
110 FOR I = 8192 TO 9210
115 REM ** TO 9210 should really be 9216, but is safety
116 REM ** net for any resident applesoft program.
120 POKE 9216 - I , PEEK(I)
130 NEXT I

>> If you simply copy from $2000-$23FF into $400-$7FF you get a quick
>> and dirty hires to ascii (or lores) conversion.  And really, it would 
>> need

> I'll have to try that...

This is the quicker way to do it ^^^^ just do the move from the monitor.

*400<2000.23FFM

> I think that's a project that would definitely be worth completing... I
> can see myself wasting countless hours working on 2 second ASCII movies.

I have a very preliminary version of it right now.  It leaves memory
up to $2000 free for applesoft and stores up-to 28 images for rapid
display on the screen.  As it is now, it stores complete 1K lo-res pictures
sequentially in memory with no compression.

FPS isn't really an issue as you can move 1K very rapidly with machine
language.  Fast enough in fact, that you need only use the first lores
display page and no page-flipping.  The big hiccup comes when you run
out of data in the sequential buffer and need to go to disk.  Just the size
of the files involved requires ProDOS for both speed, and access to the
larger storage devices.  800K disks, Hard drives, etc.  Now having said
that, don't expect much more than 3-5 FPS - it looks ok on a IIgs!

> Does the player redraw the whole screen with every frame or just

Technically it redraws the whole screen by dumping 1K from
sequential (1K memory) buffer locations into $400.  It's not elegant
nor is it efficient, but it works! :)

Adding sound or music support would definitely be a challenge though!

Later,
Craig