80column, Sprite cursor???

[stiggity]

I have seriously been getting some excellent advice/examples from "Lokalhorst", hats off!!
And i kind of dont wanna post this question, as im afraid ill get linked to a book, but here goes..

Where would i look, or could someone give an example of a "Sprite Cursor".. doesnt have to be fancy, just something i can see while navigating the input routines in my current project program. ANY help is, as always, much appreciated..

-Steve

[LokalHorst]

Sadly the VDC doesn't know the concept of sprites - the nearest comparable would be a customised charset from where the 'sprite'-pattern is drawn.
But for your task (cursor for input) it has a feature which is superior to the VIC - a hardware cursor which can be defined (slow, fast, non-blinking, start raster, end raster) and doesn't require an interrupt which inverts the char at cursor-position. The VDC holds separate regs which define the cursor location & shape.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

Sadly the VDC doesn't know the concept of sprites - the nearest comparable would be a customised charset from where the 'sprite'-pattern is drawn.
But for your task (cursor for input) it has a feature which is superior to the VIC - a hardware cursor which can be defined (slow, fast, non-blinking, start raster, end raster) and doesn't require an interrupt which inverts the char at cursor-position. The VDC holds separate regs which define the cursor location & shape.

Yep, and all of that is thoroughly discussed in Mapping the Commodore 128.

[stiggity]

Dino:
U'da'man!!


what would i look for in mapping the 128, i have the .pdf (very nice)?

-Steve'

[BigDumbDinosaur]

what would i look for in mapping the 128, i have the .pdf (very nice)?

You could try doing a search on $D600, which is the address of the VDC's register/control port.    Or you could search on words such as 80 column, VDC, etc.  Geesh!

If all else fails, go to page 428 and start reading.  Continue to read to page 459.  Also, do some reading on pages 322-326 so as to avoid reinventing the wheel.

[stiggity]

Dino:
I tried not reinventing the wheel (could I really do that?? :-/ and i saw the 128 and 64 equivalents. I sort of want to ask this question anywayz.. during an input routine, using $FFE4, i have that working great, but i dont see anything on enabling any kind of cursor. I saw cursor blink, column pos, line pos, etc.. maybe you could paste a small snippet that shows how to use the built in cursor routines... please?

-Steve

[stiggity]

I figured it out.. very simple.. thanks for the tips on reading mapping the 128, Dino..

[marquisor]

so what is it now?

[LokalHorst]

I guess it was JSR $CB21 to enable cursor blinking (either 40 or 80 column).
To turn it off again, use JSR $CB0B