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Give the console colour and a cursor

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COLOUR COSTS A NIBBLE AND NO HARDWARE. A glyph is drawn in palette indices 0 and 1, paper
and ink, and a cell's attribute nibble adds sixteen to both - so sixteen banks is already
sixteen ink and paper pairs, and all that was missing was a register saying which one the
console draws in. That is port 0x06, read as well as written like the rest.

The palette a machine wakes up with is arranged so that HIGHLIGHTING IS ONE BIT: banks 0 to
7 are colours on black, banks 8 to 15 are the same colours as paper with black ink. So
attribute XOR 8 turns any pair inside out. That is a convention rather than a rule of the
machine - the device only ever adds the nibble and looks the answer up - but it is the
convention that makes a highlighted line and a cursor free.

Bank 0 is still grey on black, so nothing that was written before this has changed colour.

THE CURSOR IS THE SAME BIT AGAIN. It is drawn by turning its cell inside out rather than by
putting a block over it, so the character underneath stays readable, which matters to
somebody editing a line. The device draws it rather than the window, because on a machine
with a screen a cursor is a hardware feature - one drawn by the presenter would not be in a
picture the machine saved.

It blinks on the machine's own clock, half a second each way, so the phase is a pure
function of the cycle count and a screen saved at a given cycle is the same screen every
time. A blink on the host's clock would have made every saved picture a matter of luck.

Off unless asked for, with bit 2 of the control port. That is right for a machine - a
program painting its own screen does not want something blinking in the middle of it - and
CosmOS asks for one at boot. It also asks again when it takes the console back from a
program that has stopped, because a program handing key mode back the way it was told to
writes zero, which turns the cursor off. The shell owns the prompt, so the shell is what
makes sure there is something blinking at it.

Nine more checks in Tests/video.sh, to 41: that the attribute colours the ink and not the
paper, that XOR 8 turns both, that it reads back, that a cursor appears where the registers
put it and only when asked for, and that it goes dark again half a million cycles later.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01E2JrLzFvuFX9fgi1LDRjrW
This commit is contained in:
Anachronaut
2026-08-29 08:13:28 -04:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 978aec4809
commit d6feddd1b6
7 changed files with 235 additions and 21 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files
Source/Emulator/io.c
+36 -5
View File
@@ -26,6 +26,20 @@
// nothing needs to look further ahead than the byte it is about to take.
static int consoleKeyMode = 0;
static int cursorColumn = 0;
static int cursorRow = 0;
// What every cell the console draws is given. Zero is the pair the machine wakes up in,
// grey on black.
static uint8_t consoleAttribute = 0;
static int consoleCursorShown = 0;
// The device draws the cursor, so it has to be told where the console put it. Called
// wherever the cursor moves, which is every one of the few places that move it.
static void consoleCursorMoved(void) {
videoSetCursor(cursorRow, cursorColumn, consoleCursorShown);
}
static int consoleEnded = 0;
static int consolePushback = -1; // A byte already taken from the host, or -1.
static int consoleInterrupts = 0; // Whether an arriving byte puts the line up.
@@ -176,6 +190,8 @@ static void consoleSetControl(uint8_t control) {
// means one write can ask for line mode and interrupts together, which is an ordinary
// thing to want and would otherwise be undone in the same breath as it was asked for.
consoleSetMode((control & CONSOLE_MODE_KEY) != 0);
consoleCursorShown = (control & CONSOLE_CONTROL_CURSOR) != 0;
consoleCursorMoved();
int wantInterrupts = (control & CONSOLE_CONTROL_INTERRUPT) != 0;
if (!wantInterrupts) {
@@ -213,12 +229,12 @@ static void consoleShowWhatIsWritten(void) {
// hold Voyager to the same recorded results as SplitBit. It is also what makes --screen
// work on the plain machine: there is one console, and it drives everything it has.
static int cursorColumn = 0;
static int cursorRow = 0;
void consoleHome(void) {
cursorColumn = 0;
cursorRow = 0;
consoleAttribute = 0;
consoleCursorShown = 0;
consoleCursorMoved();
}
static void consoleNewLine(void) {
@@ -288,14 +304,17 @@ static void consoleDraw(uint8_t byte) {
switch (byte) {
case '\n':
consoleNewLine();
consoleCursorMoved();
return;
case '\r':
cursorColumn = 0;
consoleCursorMoved();
return;
case 0x08: // Backspace, which CosmOS sends when a line is being edited.
if (cursorColumn > 0) {
cursorColumn--;
videoPutCell(cursorRow, cursorColumn, 0, 0);
videoPutCell(cursorRow, cursorColumn, 0, consoleAttribute);
consoleCursorMoved();
}
return;
default:
@@ -306,10 +325,12 @@ static void consoleDraw(uint8_t byte) {
if (byte < CONSOLE_FONT_FIRST) {
return;
}
videoPutCell(cursorRow, cursorColumn, (uint8_t)(byte - CONSOLE_FONT_FIRST), 0);
videoPutCell(cursorRow, cursorColumn, (uint8_t)(byte - CONSOLE_FONT_FIRST),
consoleAttribute);
if (++cursorColumn >= videoColumns()) {
consoleNewLine();
}
consoleCursorMoved();
}
// ---- Waiting for a key when there is no terminal to wait on ----
@@ -538,6 +559,9 @@ static uint8_t consoleStatus(void) {
if (consoleInterrupts) {
status |= CONSOLE_STATUS_INTERRUPT;
}
if (consoleCursorShown) {
status |= CONSOLE_STATUS_CURSOR;
}
consoleFetch();
if (consoleEnded) {
// READY IS NOT SET HERE, although a read would answer immediately. The bit means
@@ -760,6 +784,9 @@ void setDiskLatency(unsigned long cycles) {
void deviceTick(unsigned long now) {
deviceNow = now;
// The screen blinks its cursor on the machine's own clock rather than the host's, so the
// picture is the same at the same cycle count however fast anything ran.
videoTick(now);
if (diskPending && now >= diskReadyAt) {
uint8_t command = diskPending;
diskPending = 0;
@@ -908,10 +935,12 @@ uint8_t OutputHandler(uint8_t DataByte, uint8_t Address) {
// obvious place to be, and stopping the machine over one is a poor trade.
cursorRow = DataByte < videoRows() ? DataByte : videoRows() - 1;
cursorTold = 0;
consoleCursorMoved();
break;
case CONSOLE_CURSOR_COLUMN:
cursorColumn = DataByte < videoColumns() ? DataByte : videoColumns() - 1;
cursorTold = 0;
consoleCursorMoved();
break;
case CONSOLE_COMMAND:
if (DataByte == CONSOLE_COMMAND_CLEAR) {
@@ -921,6 +950,7 @@ uint8_t OutputHandler(uint8_t DataByte, uint8_t Address) {
// Anything else does nothing. A command block reserved for later should be
// quiet rather than fatal, the same as the screen's spare registers.
break;
case CONSOLE_ATTRIBUTE: consoleAttribute = DataByte; break;
case CONSOLE_STATUS:
// Read only. A device saying how it is does not take instructions through the
// same hole, so a write here is ignored rather than meaning something.
@@ -988,6 +1018,7 @@ uint8_t InputHandler(uint8_t Address) {
case CONSOLE_STATUS: return consoleStatus();
case CONSOLE_CURSOR_ROW: return (uint8_t)cursorRow;
case CONSOLE_CURSOR_COLUMN: return (uint8_t)cursorColumn;
case CONSOLE_ATTRIBUTE: return consoleAttribute;
case CONSOLE_COMMAND:
// Write only. What it did is visible in the cursor and on the screen.
return 0;
Source/Emulator/io.h
+15 -1
View File
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
// does not change: writing sends a byte, reading takes one and waits for it. The other two
// are additions, so a program written before they existed cannot notice them.
#define PORT_CONSOLE 0x00
#define PORT_CONSOLE_TOP 0x05
#define PORT_CONSOLE_TOP 0x06
#define CONSOLE_DATA 0x00
#define CONSOLE_STATUS 0x01
#define CONSOLE_CONTROL 0x02
@@ -35,6 +35,13 @@
#define CONSOLE_COMMAND 0x05
#define CONSOLE_COMMAND_CLEAR 0x01
// ---- What colour to write in ----
//
// The attribute given to every cell the console draws from now on. Its low nibble picks one
// of sixteen ink and paper pairs, and the default palette is arranged so that XOR 8 turns
// any of them inside out - which is highlighting, and is also how the cursor is drawn.
#define CONSOLE_ATTRIBUTE 0x06
#define PORT_TEST 0x10
#define PORT_REFUSE 0x11
#define PORT_MEMORY 0x12
@@ -113,6 +120,10 @@
// That is not especially useful, but a control bit that quietly did nothing depending on
// another control bit would be worse than a burst of interrupts somebody asked for.
#define CONSOLE_CONTROL_INTERRUPT 0x02
// Show a cursor where the next character will go. Off when the machine starts, because a
// machine draws what it is told to and a program painting its own screen does not want one
// blinking in the middle of it. A system that reads lines from a person turns it on.
#define CONSOLE_CONTROL_CURSOR 0x04
// Set when there is a byte to be had. NOT set at the end of input, although a read would
// answer at once there: what it answers is 0xFF standing in for nothing, and calling that
@@ -129,6 +140,9 @@
// Whether the console is set to interrupt, for the same reason: everything a program can
// ask the console to be, it can also ask the console what it currently is.
#define CONSOLE_STATUS_INTERRUPT 0x08
// And whether a cursor is being shown, for the same reason as the rest: everything a program
// can ask the console to be, it can also ask the console what it currently is.
#define CONSOLE_STATUS_CURSOR 0x10
// Puts the terminal back the way it was found. Registered with atexit and called from a
// handler for every signal that can end this process and be caught, because a machine that
Source/Emulator/video.c
+63 -10
View File
@@ -33,20 +33,54 @@ static int rowsFor(uint8_t m) { return m == VIDEO_MODE_80x50 ? 50 : 25; }
int videoColumns(void) { return columnsFor(mode); }
int videoRows(void) { return rowsFor(mode); }
// ---- The two colours a machine wakes up with ----
// ---- Sixteen schemes a machine wakes up with ----
//
// Only two, and the rest of the palette left at zero. A program that wants colour sets it,
// and a machine that guessed sixteen entries on its behalf would be sixteen entries it had
// to overwrite. What it must not do is wake up unable to show text at all.
// A glyph is drawn in palette indices 0 and 1, paper and ink, and a cell's attribute nibble
// adds sixteen to both. So bank n colours text with entries n*16 and n*16+1, and SIXTEEN
// BANKS IS SIXTEEN INK AND PAPER PAIRS - a text attribute system that costs one nibble and
// no hardware at all.
//
// The arrangement is a convention rather than a rule of the machine, and it is chosen so
// that HIGHLIGHTING IS ONE BIT. Banks 0 to 7 are colours on black; banks 8 to 15 are the
// same colours as paper with black ink. Attribute XOR 8 therefore turns any of them inside
// out, which is what a cursor and a selected line both want, and a program that disagrees
// writes its own palette over the top.
//
// Bank 0 is grey on black, which is what the machine has always woken up as.
//
// BLACK IS BLACK AND GREY IS GREY. These were tinted towards green to begin with, on the
// theory that a phosphor never was neutral, and on a real screen it read as a fault rather
// than as character - a background that is nearly black looks like a background that failed
// to be black. A default should be the unsurprising thing; anything with a point of view
// about colour is 254 entries away and belongs to a program.
static const uint8_t defaultInk[3] = { 0xD8, 0xD8, 0xD8 };
// to be black.
static const uint8_t defaultInks[8][3] = {
{ 0xD8, 0xD8, 0xD8 }, // grey, which is what plain text has always been
{ 0xD0, 0x40, 0x38 }, // red
{ 0x50, 0xC0, 0x50 }, // green
{ 0xD8, 0xC0, 0x48 }, // yellow
{ 0x58, 0x80, 0xE0 }, // blue
{ 0xC8, 0x60, 0xC0 }, // magenta
{ 0x50, 0xC0, 0xC8 }, // cyan
{ 0xF0, 0xF0, 0xF0 }, // white
};
static const uint8_t defaultPaper[3] = { 0x00, 0x00, 0x00 };
// Where the cursor is, whether it is wanted, and what the clock says - which is what makes
// it blink without anything having to remember when it last did.
static int cursorAtRow = 0;
static int cursorAtColumn = 0;
static int cursorVisible = 0;
static unsigned long videoNow = 0;
void videoSetCursor(int row, int column, int visible) {
cursorAtRow = row;
cursorAtColumn = column;
cursorVisible = visible;
}
void videoTick(unsigned long now) {
videoNow = now;
}
void videoLoadFont(void) {
// One bit a pixel becomes one byte a pixel: index 1 where the font has a dot and 0
// where it does not, which is what makes the two palette entries below mean ink and
@@ -63,8 +97,14 @@ void videoLoadFont(void) {
}
}
uint8_t *palette = videoRAM + VIDEO_PALETTE_BASE;
memcpy(palette + 0 * VIDEO_PALETTE_BYTES, defaultPaper, 3);
memcpy(palette + 1 * VIDEO_PALETTE_BYTES, defaultInk, 3);
for (int bank = 0; bank < 8; bank++) {
// Colour on black, and then the same colour as paper with black ink, sixteen banks
// apart so that one bit turns either into the other.
memcpy(palette + (bank * 16 + 0) * VIDEO_PALETTE_BYTES, defaultPaper, 3);
memcpy(palette + (bank * 16 + 1) * VIDEO_PALETTE_BYTES, defaultInks[bank], 3);
memcpy(palette + ((bank + 8) * 16 + 0) * VIDEO_PALETTE_BYTES, defaultInks[bank], 3);
memcpy(palette + ((bank + 8) * 16 + 1) * VIDEO_PALETTE_BYTES, defaultPaper, 3);
}
}
void videoPutCell(int screenRow, int column, uint8_t tile, uint8_t attribute) {
@@ -152,7 +192,20 @@ void videoRender(void) {
const uint8_t *cells = videoRAM + VIDEO_MAP_BASE + mapRow * VIDEO_MAP_STRIDE;
for (int column = 0; column < columns; column++) {
const uint8_t tile = cells[column * VIDEO_CELL_BYTES];
const uint8_t attribute = cells[column * VIDEO_CELL_BYTES + 1];
uint8_t attribute = cells[column * VIDEO_CELL_BYTES + 1];
// ---- The cursor, turned inside out ----
//
// Not a glyph of its own, because a block drawn over a cell hides what is in it
// and a person editing a line wants to see the character they are standing on.
// XOR 8 swaps a bank for its reverse, which is what the default palette is laid
// out to make possible.
//
// The phase comes from the machine's clock, so a screen saved at a given cycle
// count is the same screen every time.
if (cursorVisible && row == cursorAtRow && column == cursorAtColumn
&& ((videoNow / VIDEO_BLINK_CYCLES) & 1) == 0) {
attribute ^= 0x08;
}
// ---- The additive nibble ----
//
// The low nibble of the attribute is added to every palette index in the tile,
Source/Emulator/video.h
+15
View File
@@ -96,6 +96,21 @@ void videoReset(void);
// of one-bit rows against 16 kilobytes of tiles.
void videoLoadFont(void);
// ---- The cursor ----
//
// Drawn by the device rather than by whatever is presenting, because on a machine with a
// screen the cursor IS a hardware feature - a display controller blinks it from a counter,
// and one drawn by the window would not be in a picture the machine saved.
//
// It blinks on the machine's own clock, so the phase is a pure function of the cycle count
// and a screen saved at a given cycle is the same screen every time.
#define VIDEO_BLINK_CYCLES 500000
void videoSetCursor(int row, int column, int visible);
// The machine's clock, for anything that has to know time has passed.
void videoTick(unsigned long now);
int videoColumns(void);
int videoRows(void);