GlassOS - "I'm not dead"

[willrandship]

Plotter meaning grapher? Awesome! So this intends on covering all math functions, not just equations and arithmetic? Will it also handle statistics?

I thought it would just be a replacement for the homescreen, but with CAS functions. This is very good to hear!

[AHelper]

i will try to make the most out of it... but only so much that i know how to do,

Also, GlassOS beta is sorta-stable again and is now open-sourced on sf.net's svn.  An actual binary will come when i get the USB working... when i have time.

(i hate my keyboard not letting me type an upper case 'i' >:-(   )

[DJ Omnimaga]

Good to hear, I hope you don't have too much troubles . Also why does your keyboard prevents you from using an uppercase i?

[Jonius7]

This looks like great progress. I quite like the graphics of the gfiler. Keep up the good work!

[AHelper]

DJ_O:  No idea... anyone know the X11-related program that displays key events and such?

Jonius7:  Thanks, gFiler needs some help with its browse GUI, though...

Getting the latest SDCC that has a newer, better register allocater and makes smaller output.  (3.0.4)

[DJ Omnimaga]

Hmm no clue, you could maybe ask in the computer usage help section in case somebody knows. I never had any issue with letters not being useable, although I did have issues with sticky keys

[AHelper]

Its really weird... Its like it can't process the I key with an extra key held down... But its only certain keys.  If I hold right shift, up, or left (arrows, and maybe more), then the I key will not register being pressed.  Hitting other keys works. I have no idea how this issue can exist considering the keyboard I'm typing on right now has had many drinks spill into it, and to the lower parts of the laptop, but it still runs perfectly fine.  I know it isn't the OS as a fresh install of Fedora 15 and a debian OS have the same problem. 

On the side, I am thinking about how to make GlassOS not use direct LCD drawing...  Firstly, many programs use putchar() either directly or by using puts, printf, etc. to draw text and don't care about buffers.  The ones that do (games, clock, etc.) use gfx_putchar.  Other things like line drawing and buffered line drawing are separate functions.  A flag can be set to have the buffer auto-drawn after each function call depending on how you use it, ex. a text-based program can just call printf and work, but a game will have to set the flag, call printf and other gfx routines, then call ion_copybuffer when done manually.  Both instances will use the same function, but without the flag set will cause it to do ion_copybuffer when done.

[DJ Omnimaga]

It definitively seems like hardware issues.

As for the LCD drawing, would not using it only affect the OS itself, not games? If it's the latter, would it affect grayscale quality, for example?

[AHelper]

Well, the OS itself is the kernel and the launcher.  It may effect a few as they assume that there is no LCD buffer set up on program start, but I may use the LCD buffer, then directly clear it and draw text.  That will not clear the buffer and will result in the buffer drawn with text on it.  But other than that, it would just need me to optimize things, like Islands will be able to draw text properly as I made it before you could draw text in gfx mode (which I just hacked into page 0x7C and drew the font as sprites, ew).  If I have system popups and notifications (wink), then I can easily draw to the screen by making a copy of the LCD buffer, removing it when done.  Before, I had to make a buffer, copy the LCD to the buffer by reading the LCD ports, which is slow, then make another one as a working copy/foreground, draw the background rectangle (direct only), make ANOTHER buffer, copy from the LCD again into that one, then manage them all.  1st buffer is to restore when done, 2nd is for clearing the screen (clear text from the box in the clock), and the 3rd to draw to.  Instead, I can just make a copy of the current and copy the buffer back as to clear it because everything will draw directly. ^_^

Forgot to address greyscale.  Firstly, the greyscale is not a feature of the OS.  It is done by using the custom hook provided by the OS.  The clock, I think, turns it off when running, and some other things.  However, if you are running a greyscale program, you can handle it manually instead.  When the key is pressed, have the current buffer ready for the b/w drawing (clear, a pause screen with text above there the box will be at, etc.), then call the doclock function.  This implies that you have var_clock_int = 0.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Hmm I see then. Just as long as this won't affect programmers negatively too much either (such as how much troubles Kerm had to make Doors CS7 works in OS 2.53 MP or higher).

Also were you planning to make a topic about Islands at one point here when it progresses again? I remember seeing it and it looked quite cool so far, although I've never played the original.

[AHelper]

Hmm I see then. Just as long as this won't affect programmers negatively too much either

I try to keep changes to the OS backwards compatible, such as me not changing glassKILL code for 2-3 months when doing major kernel/lib changes and the game ran just fine :-D

Also were you planning to make a topic about Islands at one point here when it progresses again? I remember seeing it and it looked quite cool so far, although I've never played the original.

Have you seen the original game?  I linked to a rooster teeth vid. on cemetech of a game being played.  And I do plan to make a topic here when the game is finished.  I need to rewrite it when I complete the gfx merge in the OS.  For now, cemetech will still be my progress forum area.  As for now, no progress was done on it.  I have been busy on school and stuff to do much with the OS at all, really, other than get the source in the svn.

Side-note:  The latest SDCC is too slow for me to use.  It takes 7+ minutes to compile a small code file (clock and font data)... And it fails to work on the kernel code (I should submit a patch to them)

[DJ Omnimaga]

Ah ok yeah I think I do remember now. Hopefully you can resume work on it at one point. School and work can be annoying at times X.x (debugging too).

[AHelper]

Heh, debugging... Although I don't have too much asm-programming in GlassOS, I will say that I rarely debug C code per amount of code that I write.  Not saying that I don't do it, nor do I know how much others debug asm routines.  You can thank C/SDCC for that.

I hope that I will have time to work on it tomorrow.  That USB...

Oh, another thing to poll on... Since the ISR already showed that it can just pop up when it feels like it with the clock, what would anyone say about popup notifications?  If you get highlighted on IRC, a program has an update, an alarm for your clock goes off (all features that will be added), then a small notification bubble will push your display up and show the notification text and icon.  It can be cleared away and will not take focus away from you program (lasting a few seconds), or a flag can be set to hide notifications altogether.  Plausible? Not worth it? (looking at calcs with 3 ram pages that can only run 1 user program:-( )

[willrandship]

The shift-I problem sounds (can't say for sure) like a problem with your keyboard. Is it a new thing? If it hasn't been there long I'm probably wrong.

[AHelper]

It started suddenly earlier on in the month.  I didn't abuse it as much as my other laptop ;-)  Too bad the keyboard is breaking and not the mouse