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Forums > CSDb Discussions > the limits of PETSCII
2019-12-14 12:30
oziphantom

Registered: Oct 2014
Posts: 478
the limits of PETSCII

How far can one go before it is not deemed "just PETSCII"?

Is it as long as one doesn't touch the char set in anyway? So any register modifications are fair game?
Or registers must be stock apart from colours?
Can't animate/colour change unless it is hardware supported? or even hardware supported changes are not legal?
2019-12-14 17:31
Dr. TerrorZ

Registered: Oct 2013
Posts: 11
These are just some quick thoughts.

It's possible to say it's simply an encoding and a set of character gfx that goes with that encoding, but conventions have come up over the years.

Dir art and BBS graphics (SEQ files) are certainly PETSCII.

But if a PETSCII compo is now set up then we are usually talking about the now popular executables that display a single PETSCII screen:

-Setting the background and border is ok.

-The character set itself should not be modified.

-Border changes mid-screen (raster splits) have apparently been acceptable in PETSCII competitions, so far I don't recall anybody pulling off background color splits.

-No changes to the screen area (even scrolling).

I'd think the more "pure" PETSCII is when there are no raster splits or sprites.

Animated PETSCII is obviously no longer a static screen. But it's possible that dir art/SEQ/BBS graphics have some means for animation with using just the encoding. So nothing's really that clear cut.

Technically you could also use multicolor text mode, but I guess the common understanding now is that this is not in the spirit of PETSCII. Maybe this is because the characters are not just a C64 specific thing (there are PET, VIC-20, Plus/4 graphics). Switching to multicolor would go too far from this common ground.
2019-12-14 17:38
Smasher

Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 512
my revolutionary (erm...) multicolor petscii Petscii logo POC was booted out of that petscii compo.
I don't forget ZeRyk, never! :P
2019-12-14 21:15
TheRyk

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2079
"If you can PRINT* it, it's PETSCII" (Groepaz many many years ago) Easy as that.

However, at last Plain PETSCII Graphics Competition 2017 there was s aubcategory in which everything showing more than one screen, scrolling or whatever demo hankypanky or gfx only BASED on CharROM would have been allowed, that's where stuff like Smasher's was dumped went ;)

*meaning Commodore BASIC V2.0 command PRINT in direct mode with default settings of a Vanilla C64 right after turning it on.
2019-12-15 10:18
Dr. TerrorZ

Registered: Oct 2013
Posts: 11
Background and border colours can't be changed with PRINT. And if a few POKEs are allowed, then why not others...

PRINT would also allow control codes in the middle of the screen.

I'm not in favor of any iron rule, just saying there's no really easy definition that would fit all.
2019-12-15 11:01
TheRyk

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2079
sure opinions might vary and some stuff depends on situation, e.g. BBSes normally would insist on $d021 $00 whereas I don't know any competition that insisted on certain $d021 value. having different $d021 values in one screen via raster splits, however, ain't PLAIN petscii in my book, same is true for using sprites or any fucking around with other VIC registers than $D020/21 and maybe $D018 to pick from the two ROM fonts (though most will prefer the default ROM setting $15 as upper/lower-case letters are far less useful for gfx than all the symbols in $D000-$D7FF font).

Plain PETSCII Graphics Competition 2017 Scroll down to see how I defined whether something is plain or wild last time. Of course I'm also not the Pope of PETSCII definition, just some dude, setting rules for competitions I organize. If you want to run a competition, you might come up with different rules.
2019-12-15 11:39
Jammer

Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1290
What Dr. Terrorz said ;)
2019-12-15 11:47
Raistlin

Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 572
ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), and therefore PETSCII, are from what I remember more about the text format than the character set. It’s a text format that relies only on the standard character set.

For purists I’d say that it therefore should only really rely on the characters... ie. single colour on a single colour background.

But that’s boring ... only so much you can do without changing colours ... so, yeah, whatever ;-)
2019-12-15 12:06
Jammer

Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1290
Enabling MC doesn't contradict using character set, it's still PETSCII charset ;)
2019-12-15 13:18
Raistlin

Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 572
It is.. but a purist would expect that the PETSCII text file (not executable) could be viewed in any software or on any platform that features that font.

But.... probably 90% of PETSCII pics would be disqualified under that so, yeah, all gloves are off I’d say ;-)
2019-12-15 13:39
Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2853
Semi-off topic: On PET, where no bitmap mode nor redefinable charsets exist, they use some kind of FLI on char mode with ROM charset to have a bitmap mode of sorts.

Pretty sure that won't qualify as PETSCII by any stretch of the definition, though. =)
 
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