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Colour Spectrum   [2021]

Colour Spectrum Released by :
Crest

Release Date :
10 July 2021

Type :
C128 Release

Released At :
Underground Conference 11

Achievements :
Mixed Demo Competition at Underground Conference 11 :  #2

User rating:*********_  9.3/10 (20 votes)   See votestatistics

Credits :
Code .... JackAsser of Booze Design
Music .... Jason Page of MultiStyle Labs
  LMan of Censor Design, Maniacs of Noise, MultiStyle Labs, Performers, Remix64.com, Tristar & Red Sector Inc.
Graphics .... DeeKay of Crest, News Press Magazine Staff, Oxyron
Concept .... tokra of Akronyme Analogiker
Loader .... Krill of Plush
Test .... DeeKay of Crest, News Press Magazine Staff, Oxyron


SIDs used in this release :
Colour Spectrum Ballad(/MUSICIANS/L/LMan/Colour_Spectrum_Ballad.sid)
Fifteenth Unfiltered(/MUSICIANS/P/Page_Jason/Fifteenth_Unfiltered.sid)
Forth(/MUSICIANS/P/Page_Jason/Forth.sid)
Hybris(/MUSICIANS/P/Page_Jason/Hybris.sid)
Seventh(/MUSICIANS/P/Page_Jason/Seventh.sid)
Turrican Amiga Port(/MUSICIANS/P/Page_Jason/Turrican_Amiga_Port.sid)
Vandalissimo Max(/MUSICIANS/L/LMan/Vandalissimo_Max.sid)

Download :

Look for downloads on external sites:
 Pokefinder.org


User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 9 March 2024
Manex: We were aware of the prominence of old SIDs in C128, so we carefully selected tunes from Jason's portfolio that sounded acceptable (for him) on 6581, too.. I think he even reworked some of them to sound better on 6581..
User Comment
Submitted by Manex on 30 September 2022
Next to Commodore, the ZX Spectrum is another thing close to my heart, so thumbs up for another C128 production. It's just a pity that music is not intended for old SID, because my C128 has one. I really don't want to add any components for different voltages, like a zener diode, etc. for the 8580. SIDs are too expensive these days. Despite this, music is still listenable.
Its funny, but for dark yellow - as a C128 RGB connection to my SONY, I used a SCART cable for ZX Spectrum 128, with only simple adapter to C128 (principle is exactly the same there, signals from the Toastrack 128 are also TTL with INTENSITY (in manual called BRIGHT), and this also output CGA palette without modification, like C128).
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 24 August 2022
Digger: It's certainly possible to convert these to c64 hires, even the Speccy advanced "FLI modes" like Hicolor and interlaced modes like Gigascreen would be possible. However, since the palette is so radically different (=way way more saturated, less luma ramps), one would probably not be able to find matching colors for most pictures to look good.
Recolorizing the entire picture, i.e. using different c64 colors in certain areas of one speccy color, would seem necessary, and overall the picture would look quite different!
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 20 July 2022
User Comment
Submitted by Strobe on 14 July 2021
You could achieve "dark yellow" on stock C128 equipment by cycling colours each frame, something you already seem to do in the first "interlace" part so the code is already there? Yellow/DkGrey, Yellow/Black & DkRed/DkGreen are combinations that would achieve "dark yellow" (in descending order of brightness).
User Comment
Submitted by Digger on 13 July 2021
A dumb question:
Would it not be possible to convert these to C64 hires? I know the colours would not match but still, the restrictions are the same or?
User Comment
Submitted by Monte Carlos on 13 July 2021
May sb please reinitialize the <Message ignored> bot, again?
User Comment
Submitted by Copyfault on 11 July 2021
First of all: finally a new CREST release \\o/

Don't have the hw in access right now (and for sure not the "correct" monitor cable;)), so I checked it on yt. Judging from the recording the pics *are* hires-interlace, so I'm now secretly looking forward to DK going the AFLI interlace route;)

Great pics! Now come back on the real deal, pretty please (with whatnot on top)!
User Comment
Submitted by Joe on 11 July 2021
Great graphics from those original artists, such superb control of those limitation!?
Nice interlace hires-mc stuff from you DeeKay!
Lovely music fitting this slide-show.
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 11 July 2021
It's not about thinking what is right at all. Fact remains fact.
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 11 July 2021
Again: So not caring what you think is right! ;-) Feel free to sue me for this release!..
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 11 July 2021
How much you dont like it is irrelevant. Doesnt change the fact it was the de-facto standard, which pretty much everyone followed after a very short period when CGA was brand new. CGA was designed for the 5153 actually, IBM didnt retroactively apply something there (technically all CGA displays came after it - it just wasnt available for the general public when CGA was released). It was only some cheap manufacturers that could get away without it in a short period after CGA was introduced - and those broken monitors disappeared from the market quickly once applications actually used those colors as intended.
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 11 July 2021
Let me say it in German: Brown fix kannste schon machen, aber dann ist halt scheisse! ;-)
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 11 July 2021
No matter how you choose to read those facts, they wont change.
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 10 July 2021
"...in order to achieve a more pleasing brown tone, special circuitry in most RGBI monitors, starting with the IBM 5153 color display,[10] makes an exception for color 6 and changes its hue from dark yellow to brown by halving the analogue green signal's amplitude."

Notice the words "most" and "starting with"! ;-)
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 10 July 2021
Are you trying to imply any of this is news to anyone? /o\ Still not working with the 1901 (the Monitor for the C128...)
(this gets it right afterall)
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 10 July 2021
@Groepaz:
SCART is no requirement, 6pin DIN, 9 pin Dsub (in lin.RGB setting!) or even VGA works just as well.. Did you even check out the Color Info screen? 8)
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 10 July 2021
Cool, so i only have to open the monitor, solder in a SCART jack, and build a broken rgbi to scart adapter. Couldnt be easier! =)
User Comment
Submitted by tokra on 10 July 2021
@Groepaz: You can relatively easily add a SCART-socket to the 1901 which enables analogue RGB-input. The monitor itself has the ability, just the SCART-socket is missing, see here:

https://johan.driessen.se/posts/Adding-an-RGB-SCART-connector-t..

Back in the day it was said that such a converted 1901 was better than the 1081/1084 for displaying AMIGA. Then you "just" need a simple RGBI->RGBA-converter that disregads the brown fix like the Sven Pook-one:

https://c128adapter.pook.nl/

Easy ;-)
User Comment
Submitted by XmikeX on 10 July 2021
Good time to link the C= Monitor List ::

https://gona.mactar.hu/Commodore/monitor/Commodore_monitors_by_..

Bluess you, Hungary.
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 10 July 2021
I wonder how i "circumvent this hardware hack" with the 1901 :)
User Comment
Submitted by tokra on 10 July 2021
Ah, the classic brown/dark yellow flamewar :-) I'm usually on the brown-front but for the sake of this demo you need dark yellow so I'm fine with it. When there are demos like Freespin today that require you to hook up a 1541 directly to a monitor with a small hardware-hack, this small hardware-hack (which really just circumvents an IBM-hardware hack) should be ok as well.

@Strobe: Ass DeeKay mentioned in double-pixel mode half a pixel is missing on either the left or right edge (don't remember which). In my original prrof of concept for the .SCR-viewer I used both methods allowing the user to choose. I may release this later.
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 10 July 2021
Oh, I totally forgot d) I don't have a CGA monitor, but a 1084! 8)
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 10 July 2021
Disqualifying yourself like a boss. Way to go.

(And if we start nitpicking - only Commodore Monitors count anyway)
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 10 July 2021
@Groepaz: a) that is just not true. Not ALL CGA monitors had brown fix. See the palette here: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter
b) as said: Not caring at all. "Brown fix" is just stupid, and Speccy does not use it!
c) your mother is shitty! >;-)
User Comment
Submitted by iAN CooG on 10 July 2021
/me blank stares at the people discussing about a shade of brown...
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 10 July 2021
LOL. _ALL_ CGA Monitors, including the Commodore ones, had this. Only shitty adapters didnt.
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 10 July 2021
@Strobe: a) cause that mode is broken and cuts off half a pixel according to Tokra, b) cause we could not have half pixels in the frame, which would especially suck with the font!

@Groepaz: i do not care about IBM's stupid "brown fix" that they just introduced for one of their mainframes which had brown. Either have a generative palette or pick your own colors, don't do both.. Speccy did it right!.. And my resistor SCART cable, of which there were a lot in use back in the day (no c128 user I knew had a TTL cable!), is from the 80s..
User Comment
Submitted by XmikeX on 10 July 2021
Anyone who thinks CGA-brown-fix WAS NOT how it was with real C= (and IBM and others) hardware... needs to review the history again.

In short, Groepaz is correct.
User Comment
Submitted by Strobe on 10 July 2021
Nice to see a VDC 128 release! But why do you double the pixels to display it in ~640x200 when the VDC can NATIVELY do 320x200 using half the VDC RAM and loading into the VDC memory twice as fast? :)
User Comment
Submitted by chatGPZ on 10 July 2021
kinda funny that you disapprove of the palette in VICE (which Graham made and approved, btw - brown instead of dark yellow is very much how it is, unless you have a broken monitor or shitty adapter). Oh well :)
User Comment
Submitted by Max on 10 July 2021
Outstanding!
User Comment
Submitted by XmikeX on 10 July 2021
Once he remembers how to vote here, AUTOMATIC 10 VOTE from that XMX guy, the 128 DIVA.
User Comment
Submitted by Carrion on 10 July 2021
@Jackasser, @DeeKay
Thanks for info.
Remembering Crest Slide Story + Mufflon I was sure DK has some special tool for converting ;)
Cant wait to try it.Some time ago I tried (with mediocre results) a tool by Mirkosoft that he posted once at Plus4World forum. I think I could get back to this tool and try again while waiting for DK's tools.
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 10 July 2021
@Carrion: We may release the converter/viewer thingy I used for my gfx soonish, that allows you to pixel on PC and just save the PNG and that gets sent and displayed on C128 via network and 1541U!.. The viewer supports the three resolutions we used in this, the 2 Interlace logos and the 512x216 static screens.. Keep in mind that VDC is a lot more versatile than Speccy as you can choose your colours freely - of which you have 16, too (Speccy lacks dark grey!). Also, ofcourse, pixels are half as wide! ;-)
User Comment
Submitted by willymanilly on 10 July 2021
Great to see the VDC get some love. Nice work! On a side note The "proper approved palette file" c128-vdc-deekay.vpl is now the default palette for Z64K so cheers for providing that in the release. :)
User Comment
Submitted by JackAsser on 10 July 2021
@Carrion: the pictures are just reordered and reindexed to match VDC memory layout. This is done automatically by my tool. During display the pixels are doubleled in x.
User Comment
Submitted by Carrion on 10 July 2021
Oh wow. What an effort to convert all these...
And great execution too. Respect!

@DK
Any hints on what tools you used to pixel and/or convert the gfx? I'd like to give a try myself.
User Comment
Submitted by tokra on 10 July 2021
Really cool how you took my little proof-of-concept viewer for .SCR-files and turned it up to 11! Really makes the VDC shine. Hoping for more VDC/C128-releases :)
User Comment
Submitted by HCL on 10 July 2021
Yeah! Great to see Crest back with a colourful release :)
User Comment
Submitted by DeeKay on 10 July 2021
About turning off drives: Yeah, we saw this during the compo, too. I had to run S.T.F.U. to kill the c128 DCR's internal drive and then it worked. That's what you get when you don't do regression testing, cause our builtin STFU DID work on earlier builds, which were tested with 1541U on a DCR with a broken internal 1571CR.. Switched to a Flat c128 later on cause the DCR was just too unwieldy and also had a broken SID and a somewhat knackered VDC with lots of noise..
User Comment
Submitted by Monte Carlos on 10 July 2021
Cool, another feeding for my hungry 128D.
User Comment
Submitted by Hypnosis on 10 July 2021
Nice one! Great with a fresh C128 release!

If you're going to test this, turn off all drives but one if the demo gets stuck installing the loader.
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