SymbOS MSX multitasking operating system - help needed!

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By PingPong

Prophet (4093)

PingPong's picture

28-05-2006, 12:40

Now... SymbOS

Ease use a lot logical operation even when not necessary, this slows down the perceived speed.

Charater printing is more fast in SymbOS

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10088)

wolf_'s picture

28-05-2006, 12:44

and there's also Easy, tho I never used it.. iirc it was a scandinavian product, any comparisions one can make? (I haven't used it, only seen a screenshot in MCM once)

By karloch

Prophet (2159)

karloch's picture

28-05-2006, 12:50

How does Symbos compare with Ease, regarding screenbuildups, flex, features, use etc.? I only saw the vid and I haven't touched Ease for about 15 years orso..I have been always a big fan of EASE as the only daily-usable and fast GUI for MSX2. But SymbOS is still way better. That's because:

  • EASE was fast, SymbOS is even way faster. It's faster than anything that you could see on MSX.
  • The screen resolution is used in a more efficient way in SymbOS than in EASE, simply the workspace is much bigger, so you can work with multiple applications at same time.
  • EASE was just a GUI based on MSX-DOS. SymbOS is a full fledged, powerful multitasking operanting system with a nice hardware abstraction layer. SymbOS apps can be executed in both, MSX and Amstrad CPC as long as they don't access the hardware directly.
  • Resources management is awesome, and you can see that by using the multitasking capabilities on your MSX, it work like a charm.
  • There is no documentation about how to code new applications for EASE, even when is though that EASE had an API for codding apps. SymbOS has a tool for Windows called SymStudio that it's a true RAD like Delphi. Codding apps for 8 bits systems has never been easier.

Even so, I still do like EASE ;)

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10088)

wolf_'s picture

28-05-2006, 12:55

There's also Hybrid from Sony.. somehow it would be nice to make a good overview of all the graphical os'es and shells on MSX.. somewhere ..

By Algorythms

Champion (288)

Algorythms's picture

28-05-2006, 13:16

... why did noone mention MSX-View? It has some nice apps, and is kind of an ok gui too. Still slower than SymbOS.
Easy was made in KUN-basic (with some mc-routines i.e. to print chars on the screen), and was just a GUI. It was in screen 6 too. I ported it to GFX9000 PowerBasic with 16 colors. Was nice and fast. Then my harddrive crashed and I lost everything. Anyway, it was just a gui from Basic.
Now SymbOS is a different league to all the old gui's!

By scratch_disk

Expert (72)

scratch_disk's picture

28-05-2006, 16:56

Wolf_ , Ease is great (looks like GEM and is fast and it has great native apps, but it doesn't support subdirectories, hard disk or multitasking, for example and it doesn't have a open api) but I am totally impressed with Symbos and except from the Office Suite, everything is SymbOS is greater than EASE or MSX-DOS. Also SymbOS is a totally complete Operating System, so it doesn't depend from MSX-DOS or MSX-BASIC. I' ve never thought to see such a fast operating system. Now I've tried in under BlueMSX and wow, for example SymCommander is far better than any file commander I've used under MSX and as someone has told here, is faster than using command! Now we are watching the born of a new and modern OS for our system ^^ Remember: it's not MSX-DOS...

Definitly not MSX-DOS
I see now. We were confined to the MSX-DOS1 or 2, BASIC environment. Applications (especially, duh!, games) are built around them as if they are irreplaceable OS. People just grew up using what they have in hand.
I'm happy that there's fresh blood has pured to the MSX community with a different thinking and perspective, people who can help in broadening our horizons, and who also showed an appreciation to the 'old slow' VDP and squeezed it hard enough to yield what it has to yield Tongue.

Maybe it is early to post it here but I would like to share with you the summary of a story I once read in Reader's Digest:
There was a rock that protruded from the surface of earth in somebody's yard. Many people thought that it ran deep into the ground. They said that it's like an iceberg; only the tip of it is what you can see. The myth has gone that way for a long period of time. Nobody ever thought of really trying to dig that rock up until a day arrived. A person said let me see if this rock is really rooted deep into the ground. Prepared by what is necessary (which is a freedom from being falling a prey of old convictions), he began to dig around the rock. To his surprise the rock was just half a meter under the soil. And of course eventually people realized that they should try things and figure it out by themselves, not just being stereotyped to believe others tales.

I hope that my message is clear.
Good luck

By Algorythms

Champion (288)

Algorythms's picture

28-05-2006, 16:59

Good analogy!

By Prodatron

Paragon (1836)

Prodatron's picture

28-05-2006, 17:33

@scratch_disk: Thank you for the nice compliment! Wink

I found a bug in the memory detection (it always detected 64K more), and today I also want to shorten the "busy" time after booting, when no IDE is connected, so another update should be available in the evening.

Some things/questions:
- could someone help me with the stripes in the border? What I am doing wrong here? I can't see it in the emulator, so I just can guess here. Sonic_aka_T mentioned something with colour 3, but I didn't understand correctly. Which register/colour/etc. do I set in the wrong way? I think it should be VDP register 7, but bit4 is already 0.
- so if I only support the biggest memory mapper available, I don't need to do anything, as DOS1 and DOS2 always uses it as the default? So if you have a MSX2 with 128K ram + an external memory mapper with 512K, DOS will use the 512K?
- regarding the screen corruptions in R800 mode: I am already waiting for the "ready for next command" state. Do I also have to wait, when I just write bytes directly into the VRAM? What I don't do is to wait for a "ready for next byte" state for CPU->VRAM commands.

Starting from this week I will go on with the FDD routines. I hope to receive my second MSX2 soon, this time with a working disc drive Smile
Can someone tell me, what type of FDC is included in the Philips VG8235?

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6428)

mars2000you's picture

28-05-2006, 17:49

Can someone tell me, what type of FDC is included in the Philips VG8235?

WD2793

By Edwin

Paragon (1182)

Edwin's picture

28-05-2006, 18:45

Which register/colour/etc. do I set in the wrong way?
IIRC, you should repeat bit 0&1 in bit 2&3 to get a solid colour in screen 6.
- so if I only support the biggest memory mapper available, I don't need to do anything, as DOS1 and DOS2 always uses it as the default? So if you have a MSX2 with 128K ram + an external memory mapper with 512K, DOS will use the 512K?
Mostly correct. There are some weird things that can happen on a turboR, but forget about those for now.
- regarding the screen corruptions in R800 mode: I am already waiting for the "ready for next command" state. Do I also have to wait, when I just write bytes directly into the VRAM? What I don't do is to wait for a "ready for next byte" state for CPU->VRAM commands.
You should just make sure that any commands have ended before writing bytes to vram. Waiting for next byte is not necessary.

I've been playing around a bit and noticed a few lock ups. They always happen on disk access and are more frequent in R800 mode.

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