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Thread: CYGN-B

  1. #181
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    Greg,

    I can't speak to the assembly language programming in the DOG EPROMS, but that U-shaped spanner wrench (above the allen) is used to tighten the cylindrical nut above it to the dial on the other side of the panel. The allen wrench tightens the knob to the shaft of the pot. I don't remember how the pot was tightened to the panel - maybe under the dial.

    I also don't remember if a double giraffe was used at the end of Stairway, but the lumia effects were pretty much left to the Laserists. I almost always ignored Laser Images' advice on what to use and rather used what I thought looked best. No belt drives. All lumia motors were direct-drive. The fast ones had no gearbox. We used VERY expensive Swiss gearmotors (I think they were about $80 each and that was back in the 70's and 80's!) I have a few here if you want me to take a photo. I have pretty much all my optics (scan glasses and wheels) as well. They were very hard to get from LII and if I was ever rehired, I wanted my same stuff, so I kept it all.

    Ron


    Quote Originally Posted by Greg View Post
    $1CD0:
    00000000000101010202020303040404050506070808090A0B 0C0D0E0F1011121314151617191A1B1C1E1F20222325262729 2A2C2D2F3032333537383A3B3D3E404143454648494B4C4E4F 5152545557585A5B5D5E5F61626365666768696B6C6D6E6F70 71727374757576777879797A7A7B7C7C7C7D7D7E7E7E7E7F7F 7F7F7F

    That's the rough sine table. As placeholders, I've labeled the four dogloid routines MYSTRY, MYSTR2, MYSTR3, and MYSTR4.

    MYSTRY is probably the spinning boxes one. It takes two inputs which I have to guess at. (1) It loads a value from $EE which is not documented or used anywhere else. It also performs a BIT instruction on $07FF which maps to the end of the P7 BLU DAC, according to the memory map in the documentation. By externally sweeping the $EE input 0 through 255 and roll, the output produces a sinusoid on one axis. Maybe the BIT test is used to read a pulse train, as that input appears to switch the output between one of two offsets on the other axis. These inputs must relate somehow to Ron's comment about the time the routine was entered serving as parameter.

    MYSTR2 and MYSTR4 both do something funny with what appear to be dynamically generated addresses accessing data through indexed indirection on zero page, which isn't an easy thing to make work on the C64 because of the different memory map. I'll look more closely at what is going on and try to come up with a strategy.

    MYSTRY3 is either an upgraded or bug fixed version of the MOTION routine. It is the same motion, but much more of it, and it kind of looks like it could have been used as a star field effect where points closer to the edge move toward the edge faster.

    That is pretty much the legend I heard regarding the giraffe effect material. I remember Cracker Jacks being mentioned, which in the 1970s had animal pictures using that material. Ron's data format 2 posted previously says H.S.GIRAFFE (High Speed). I think this was two giraffe wheels spinning at high speed, and was used at the end of stairway to heaven. The effect produced lissajous figures in a snowflakey way. I walked in to Active Surplus about twenty years ago and exclaimed "Giraffe glass!" when I saw this huge wheel of it sitting there (Photo attached.) Were the high speed effects belt driven? I remember operating them with the controls above the faders on the upper right of the console.

    This other attached photo from Kilo Engineering is all I could find about the mounting of the ten turn pots on the panel. Anyone know how that tool that is not the allen wrench is used?

  2. #182
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    Hey, that's great you have an original not only collection, but complete set of optics! It would be great if you have time at some point to spread out all the optics, scan glasses, and wheels, and post a photo. The data spec 2 will contain the names of most of them I guess. The motors of course would be of interest to see too. I have one wheel that I think is an original LII.

    Regarding MYSTR2 and MYSTR4, it's not dynamically generated addresses. It's groups of three bytes in the data that include an address to other data and another value, probably a number of iterations = data segment length.

  3. #183
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    The "U' shaped tool fits the notches on the nut and the nut screws through the dial onto the potentiometer's bushing:

    Click image for larger version. 

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    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  4. #184
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    Quote Originally Posted by Greg View Post
    snip
    MYSTRY is probably the spinning boxes one. It takes two inputs which I have to guess at. (1) It loads a value from $EE which is not documented or used anywhere else. It also performs a BIT instruction on $07FF which maps to the end of the P7 BLU DAC, according to the memory map in the documentation. By externally sweeping the $EE input 0 through 255 and roll, the output produces a sinusoid on one axis. Maybe the BIT test is used to read a pulse train, as that input appears to switch the output between one of two offsets on the other axis. These inputs must relate somehow to Ron's comment about the time the routine was entered serving as parameter.
    snip
    There weren't enough 351 bits available for all the different Dog stuff, so there were three switches added to the remote panel - two switches to select between 4 posibilities and one switch that inverted y axis output. The 352 card was introduced to distill the 3 - 351 decoder boards down to one board. This was done so up to 2 more dmux boards could be added to get 32 more select bits. This was done concurrent to the installation of the ADIG box. (accessory digital image generator) There was a key pad added to the control panel that let the Laserist interact there too. The ADIG signal was wired to the fixed cycloid select switch.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  5. #185
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    Brian,

    To my knowledge, the ADIG keypad was never implemented. At least mine was never used for anything. Just a waste of panel space. And speaking of a waste, in my opinion, the ADIG was one of the singular worst pieces of equipment ever installed by Laser Images. Definitely the most unreliable board I ever experienced. More problems than it was worth. I thanked the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may you be touched by his noodley goodness) when it became obsolete with the use of the ADATs. Wasn't it built on an S-100 card? With a 6502 processor!

    (I think that we are documenting a good bit of LII history in this thread!)

    Ron


    Quote Originally Posted by laserist View Post
    There weren't enough 351 bits available for all the different Dog stuff, so there were three switches added to the remote panel - two switches to select between 4 posibilities and one switch that inverted y axis output. The 352 card was introduced to distill the 3 - 351 decoder boards down to one board. This was done so up to 2 more dmux boards could be added to get 32 more select bits. This was done concurrent to the installation of the ADIG box. (accessory digital image generator) There was a key pad added to the control panel that let the Laserist interact there too. The ADIG signal was wired to the fixed cycloid select switch.

  6. #186
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    Thanks for the long lasting chuckle, Ron. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is my go to deity on the occasions that Tolkein doesn't serve up a contextually appropriate Ainur. I was actually eating Mr Noodle when I read your comment, so your blessing was potent. Can't stop laughing.

    I notice that that number (Synchronicity2) in The Police show ends with some graphics that I can state certainly do not appear in the DOGN roms for that show. Was the ADIG the box attached above the main console? That never appeared before the McLaughlin changed to AVI laser shows.

    Whatever the remaining two DOGN routines do I expect to be recovered given time. I can code around the addressing through zero page now that I see exactly how the entire 4K of rom breaks down. It means entering nearly 4K of hex into the C64 though. I could order something like an SD to 1541 dish drive emulator, wait for it, and hope I can find a way to automate the transfer of that data, but that would take longer and be more of a headache than just entering the data, so that is what is happening currently.

  7. #187
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    Hey Ron,

    I think I remember using the keypad, but I could be wrong. I agree the ADIG was a dog. (Sorry...) (Greg, the ADIG was in a 2U bud box under the hybrid card cage in the control console.) Originally the entire board (yes S100) had +5/gnd dasychained to every chip from a single point. I actually reworked each of them to get them to run a little more reliably.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  8. #188
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    It turns out that the MYSTR2 and MYSTR4 routines and all the data are just the graphics that appear at the end of the song Synchronicity2. That leaves the MYSTRY routine that accesses the sine table and is doing something when it's 9 bits of input are stimulated. I wonder if it's possible that the different dogloids all come from this routine, by being fed various input signals (but coming from where?)

    Seems like the thing to do is build this routine in the emulator so that a parameter space of probe signals may be applied.

  9. #189
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    Best guess pins N & R

    Click image for larger version. 

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    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  10. #190
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    Which appear on the pins A input 1 and B input 1 of the "U9 QUAD 2-1 TRI-STATE MUX" 74LS237 according to the schematic. Good, so external inputs were not an impossibility.

    An interesting result was finally obtained by seeding some registers used by the MYSTRY routine. One of the attached photos shows the complete pattern of points output (minus 200-255 on Y due to C64 screen resolution). Flipping bit 6 on the $07FF input switches the pattern from the big one to the small one.

    What is interesting is that the pattern is created discontinuously as can be seen in the other photo. This at last is dogloidish behavior which will be investigated further. Of great use would be a stereo 8 bit DAC for the C64 so the output could be viewed on the oscilloscope. It appears such thing may even have recently existed, and I am attempting to get the attention of this individual and find a schematic.

    c64 stereo dac
    http://www.c64os.com/buyersguide/?feature=digimax
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails dogloid_routine_output.jpg  

    dogloid_routine_output2.jpg  


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