XEP80 looks like this on real hardware...

[Tyrop]

I occasionally see posts about the XEP 80. I bought one to see what it looks like on real hardware. If anyone is interested to see what it looks like, here are some pics using a Commodore monitor.

[Tempest]

Looks really nice. I thought about hooking mine up, but I didn't see a real use for it since I use my Atari for games. Did any games support it?

 

Tempest

[+orpheuswaking]

You can see the overscan issue that the XEP80 has in the first picture. I have mine hooked up to a security monitor that has a button to select underscan so I can get the entire window on screen

[jaybird3rd]

I tried using mine with my Commodore 1702, and I had the same issue: the entire picture wouldn't fit on the screen at once. I now have an Amdek 300A composite monochrome monitor (amber, my favorite color!), and that's what I use for the XEP80 when I have it connected.

 

The XEP80 is a nice enough display device, but aside for the few programs that specifically supported it (such as AtariWriter 80), its usefulness is limited.

[charliecron]

I wonder if there some cheapy external device that could accomplish this underscan for monitors that don't have it. That would be pretty awesome.

[+Stephen]

I can't get mine to display all 25 lines on a single device I own, including my 1084S, two VGA scan doublers, VCR, CRT TV.

[Tyrop]

I tried using mine with my Commodore 1702, and I had the same issue: the entire picture wouldn't fit on the screen at once. I now have an Amdek 300A composite monochrome monitor (amber, my favorite color!), and that's what I use for the XEP80 when I have it connected.

 

I have a Commodore 1802 monitor and I was able to fix the image (after I took the photos) by opening the monitor case and playing with some of the screws on the circuit board. There are a few of them that you can turn with your fingers (though 1 or 2 were hard to reach). One of them fixed the vertical image size and I was able to center the entire XEP80 image in the screen. However, when I went back to Atari regular image, it was squished.

[+orpheuswaking]

I'll try and get some photos of it running on my monitor here in a few... Just got to dig out my XEP80

[Marius]

Hehe OFFTOPIC:

 

What the ???

 

A BBS program in BASIC?

 

Tell me more?

 

Marius

[sloopy]

Hehe OFFTOPIC:

 

What the ???

 

A BBS program in BASIC?

 

Tell me more?

 

Marius

 

there were several BBS's for the 8bit written in basic... AMIS was one i ran for a while... 300baud, worked well...

 

sloopy.

[+wood_jl]

Hehe OFFTOPIC:

 

What the ???

 

A BBS program in BASIC?

 

Tell me more?

 

Marius

 

there were several BBS's for the 8bit written in basic... AMIS was one i ran for a while... 300baud, worked well...

 

AMIS!!! This brings tears to my eyes! It's been so long since I've seen that mentioned.....or running, for that matter! But man those were the days!

[Rybags]

Maybe open the thing up and run a slightly faster master clock.

 

Problem then is that you might run into SIO transmission problems.

[Tyrop]

Hehe OFFTOPIC:

 

What the ???

 

A BBS program in BASIC?

 

Tell me more?

 

Marius

 

It is a BBS I wrote when I was in high school in the 1980's just for fun. It is not AMIS, I wrote it from scratch. Recently, just for fun, I loaded it up and spruced it up a little, just so I could see it work again. When I took the photos, I wanted to show a Basic program listing with lines wide enough so I could show what 80 columns looks like in Basic on an XEP80. It is written in Basic (with a recent addition of some machine language), and it is definitely not of a professional quality. It was easy to use, and the users at the time (mostly other kids) liked it.

Edited November 6, 2010 by Tyrop

[sloopy]

Hehe OFFTOPIC:

 

What the ???

 

A BBS program in BASIC?

 

Tell me more?

 

Marius

 

there were several BBS's for the 8bit written in basic... AMIS was one i ran for a while... 300baud, worked well...

 

AMIS!!! This brings tears to my eyes! It's been so long since I've seen that mentioned.....or running, for that matter! But man those were the days!

 

then read AA more, this was just mentioned a while back...

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/156191-source-code-to-a-small-bbs/page__view__findpost__p__1920817

 

sloopy.

[José Pereira]

Hi, just answer me, as I never seen any XEP80 in front of me:

 

How it displays the 80columms, have it 640pixels display, or 4Pixels (3for Char and 1for spaces between Chars) to each char and still remains the 320Resolution?

 

 

Thanks.

Greets.

José Pereira.

[Rybags]

It's a totally seperate display to what your normal monitor or TV shows - the device attaches to your serial port and the computer instructs it what to show, and it drives a second monitor.

 

So, you can in theory have 2 screens with totally seperate stuff on them. But the XEP80 won't show any normal Atari stuff like multicolour graphics, PM graphics etc.

Edited November 6, 2010 by Rybags

[José Pereira]

It's a totally seperate display to what your normal monitor or TV shows - the device attaches to your serial port and the computer instructs it what to show, and it drives a second monitor.

 

So, you can in theory have 2 screens with totally seperate stuff on them. But the XEP80 won't show any normal Atari stuff like multicolour graphics, PM graphics etc.

 

 

But what you are saying is that it just have 640resolution with XEP80?

 

How someone with XEP80 sees the Screen when it "ON" the Computer?

And how he can change from XEP80 into Normal set?

 

This XEP80 produce Artifactings like 320Mode?

But it's possible to create different Fonts for it, isn't it (possible some Mono Game?)?

 

 

Sorry for soo many questions, but was alway curious about it but never remember to ask when I was here at AA.

Thanks.

José Pereira.

[Rybags]

I don't have one and haven't used one.

 

It was intended as an 80-column display generator for Word Processing, terminal programs and the like.

 

Not sure, but I think it's text only - not intended for doing graphics.

 

Probably no artifacting possible either - half the purpose of the thing is to have a quality readable 80 column display without such annoyances.

 

 

All that aside, you wouln't get much of a game on it - every command has to trickle over the serial bus, so e.g. filling a 640x240 bitmapped display using SIO at 19.2K would take about 15-20 seconds.

Edited November 6, 2010 by Rybags

[drac030]

XEP80 doesn't connect to the serial port (SIO), it connects to a joystick port, and serial communication is setup through it, at 15625 bits per second, IIRC. Crap solution, if you ask me.

 

The display resolution is not 640 horizontally either. If I remember correctly, the char matrix is 5x9 pixels. 5 pixels * 80 characters = 400 pixels.

 

EDIT: it contains two charsets corresponding to the two standard Atari charsets. Creating user charsets is not possible.

 

The device has a pixel mode, 320x200 black and white, nothing can be done with it apart from loading gr.8 images, which look better on the original gr.8 anyway.

Edited November 6, 2010 by drac030

[José Pereira]

XEP80 doesn't connect to the serial port (SIO), it connects to a joystick port, and serial communication is setup through it, at 15625 bits per second, IIRC. Crap solution, if you ask me.

 

The display resolution is not 640 horizontally either. If I remember correctly, the char matrix is 5x9 pixels. 5 pixels * 80 characters = 400 pixels.

 

Hey, wait a minute.

If it's 80x5=400 it almost sure shows all the 80Chars in 384+16 special T.V./Monitor?

And what in Vertical? 9x25=241.

 

Soo, it is just the normal Atari 384x240 with some more pixels, but need some special Monitors?

 

I never had a Monitor (only the Polish Green one (that Timex Computers Portugal send the Zx compatible to Timex Poland and Poland send us the Monitors...)). What were the Monitors possible to be used with XL/XE and what were their resolutions (C= for instead, what resolution they have?)?

 

 

Thanks.

José Pereira.

[drac030]

If it's 80x5=400 it almost sure shows all the 80Chars in 384+16 special T.V./Monitor?

 

XEP80 does not need a specjal monitor, it needs a *separate* monitor, because it generates a separate video signal (separate from the normal Atari output, that is).

 

And what in Vertical? 9x25=241.

 

According to Windows calculator, 9x25 = 225.

 

What were the Monitors possible to be used with XL/XE and what were their resolutions (C= for instead, what resolution they have?)?

 

I personally have a Commodore 1085S, but you'd probably prefer 1084S, which accepts composite video signal (1085S is RGB only). There are also Philips monitors similar to 1084S, I don't remember the exact model number now.

 

The Polish green monitor you mention is probably a Neptun M156B, like this one: http://www.ibi.uw.edu.pl/~draco/vbxe/vbxe_overall.jpg The photo shows mine in 2009, it was produced in 1987 by (I think) Unitra Unimor. I used it daily for 22 years before it finally broke. It was a nice device, very sharp display, the only disadvantage being that it was monochrome. They're not produced anymore.

Edited November 6, 2010 by drac030

[José Pereira]

If it's 80x5=400 it almost sure shows all the 80Chars in 384+16 special T.V./Monitor?

 

XEP80 does not need a specjal monitor, it needs a *separate* monitor, because it generates a separate video signal (separate from the normal Atari output, that is).

 

And what in Vertical? 9x25=241.

 

According to Windows calculator, 9x25 = 225.

 

What were the Monitors possible to be used with XL/XE and what were their resolutions (C= for instead, what resolution they have?)?

 

I personally have a Commodore 1085S, but you'd probably prefer 1084S, which accepts composite video signal (1085S is RGB only). There are also Philips monitors similar to 1084S, I don't remember the exact model number now.

 

The Polish green monitor you mention is probably a Neptun M156B, like this one: http://www.ibi.uw.edu.pl/~draco/vbxe/vbxe_overall.jpg The photo shows mine in 2009, it was produced in 1987 by (I think) Unitra Unimor. I used it daily for 22 years before it finally broke. It was a nice device, very sharp display, the only disadvantage being that it was monochrome. They're not produced anymore.

 

 

Yeah, wrong Calculation.

Yes, that was like that, but here in Portugal was only Black Monitors, not the White.

What I never like was that the Store Man says to my mother that I will not want the Sound for nothing and mine was without sound.

Later I went to friend House and it's "sheet" sounds of the Timex2068/Zx type was on the same Monitor but his Model have Sound. I later get an entry to the 800Xl Monitor socket to the Ground and the un-used Sound... to get it Played to an ampifier... as my father don't want me to use T.V., there was on the old the feeling/idea that the Computers did very bad to T.Vs. I had to wait untill all were sleeping and with the sound very,very low to see some colours...)

Great Days...

 

 

José Pereira.

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

If you've never seen a XEP80, why not use Google's ability to search for pictures? It BTW uses the same case as the SX212 modem and the laser printer interface used for one of the printers intended for the Atari ST.

 

If you're looking for information about the XEP80 that is not widely available, try my special stuff page.

 

sincerely

 

Mathy

[MEtalGuy66]

Looks alot better on a hi res monochrome monitor too..

[flashjazzcat]

The Polish green monitor you mention is probably a Neptun M156B, like this one: http://www.ibi.uw.ed...bxe_overall.jpg The photo shows mine in 2009, it was produced in 1987 by (I think) Unitra Unimor. I used it daily for 22 years before it finally broke. It was a nice device, very sharp display, the only disadvantage being that it was monochrome. They're not produced anymore.

A great shame. I liked the look of that monitor - it was a great piece of retro design. I once saw an LCD TV in a round case on eBay which I didn't buy it and I've regretted it ever since. I had a very "70s" look. I think it was made by Nikkai and I've never seen another one like it.