PC still playing Amiga catchup

[jkirk]

There may be move toward USB, but the fact that they left certain ports in while eliminating gameport should indicate they are trying to improve gaming interface.  I.e., they are admitting gameport sucks and user is better off using another interface.  Newer audio cards also aren't using gameport although it was built-in into many audio cards.

actually that port was the easiest to replace because it was relatively unused by most users. those that did use them just went with the flow and upgraded to usb. they were not singling out gameport users. ps2 users resisted the change so they tended to hang around. same with parallel users(until usb printers became common) now they may or may not be there an motherboards. serial ports are sill used for industrial applications even tho outdated so those are usually still on the motherboards.

[jkirk]

I never said API is useless-- it's inferior to hardware level compatibility.  What I stated is:

"Not if hardware is backward compatible. You can have well-behaved applications that go directly to hardware. There's many on PCs as well as Amiga. It's just that now PCs are more API-centered which is worse for them."

i know what you said. but you qualified your statement with "well-behaved."
well-behaved apps could go to the hardware more efficiently BUT this is only if there is no hardware errors in compatibility. the api allows a buffer zone as i said so that if the hw has bugs the manufacturer can work around them. also if an api fails then there is coding that will reset the api so the os does not die. however if you go direct to hardware there is no such coding at present to handle this kind of event which has the potential to lock up the os.

You can have API applications that corrupt things as well.  Amiga applications/games that go directly to hardware are being used and there are thousands of them.  Just because someone abused that advantage doesn't mean you should get rid of that advantage.  Perhaps, they should first worry about getting rid of spyware/viruses which use APIs to attack the system.

yes you can however the api reduces that chance and also can recover from bad coding easier.

You can also cause exceptions by kernel drivers bugs which are using APIs but are at ring 0.  Bugs can exist in both.  And for some applications, you don't want the OS involved.  You can still have I/O protection and memory protection in hardware (as exists now) even when application goes directly to hardware.

by definition direct to hardware is DIRECT there is no floodgates in between for protection. if you do we are back to the api model.

from the direcX wiki

DOS allowed direct access to video cards, keyboards and mice, sound devices, and all other parts of the system, while Windows 95, with its protected memory model, restricted access to all of these, working on a much more standardized model. Microsoft needed a way that would let programmers get what they wanted, and they needed it quickly; the operating system was only months away from being released. Eisler (development lead), St. John, and Engstrom (program manager) worked together to fix this problem, with a solution that they eventually named DirectX.

[jkirk]

Must be a billion gameports out there-- perhaps a few million trashed.  So it's hard to make a statement-- it's unused.

i have seen very few joyports on motherboards and the lack of joyport joysticks are deafening. in the past joyports were mounted on sound cards and not the motherboard. and those ports were most often used as midi ports.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_port

The 15-pin game port is no longer provided on presently manufactured PCs, though adapters exist that allow older joysticks and controllers to connect via USB. However, Microsoft's Vista operating system natively lacks all game port support, even for USB adapters.

Perhaps, you don't use the gameport.  And my motherboard has a parallel port and PS/2 connectors -- no serial port.  So your speculation serial ports are still around is just your experience.  I see more desktops with parallel ports.

a few serial port mobos
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135063
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131288
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130095

and even if they don't have one on board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=serial+port&x=0&y=0

By the way, Microsoft must have done some gaming research to come up with XBOX joysticks.

i would assume so. if they didn't then they are crazy.

[jkirk]

That's worse for APIs.  If there are hardware errors, they are usually published and kept so you know they will be there.  If you fix them in APIs, then you have to worry about whether the user has the erroneous version or newer version.  Sometimes hardware errors are taken as features like enabling 7 bitplanes in OCS to enable a static mask bpldat.

i see you really don't know what an api is do you? hardware errors are fixed in the driver NOT the api. the only reason an api changes if there is new additions to the api. aka the difference between directx 9 and 10.

Sorry, but application API access is protected by OS but drivers using APIs aren't.  So they are likely to cause OS lockups just as well as one going direct to hardware. But you can also protect applications going direct to hardware using IOPM.

http://www.grahamwideman.com/gw/tech/Delphi/iopm/index.htm

Under NT, "user-mode" code (ie: applications written by mere mortals) is not allowed to access hardware directly, hence when your application attempts to execute an I/O instruction you get an exception.  The idea is, of course, that hardware resources are things that no application should just take over at will, instead it should be up to the operating system (and its drivers) to arbitrate between different apps requests to use those resources.

That's the theory.  Turns out that the NT kernel maintains a map of I/O port addresses that each process is allowed to access, and for your apps that's normally set to "none". But we can tell NT to use a different I/O Permissions Map (IOPM) for our process and thereby gain access to the ports.  This approach is of course very naughty from a disciplined OS standpoint, so not recommended for widely distributed commercial apps. But for those times when you just need to hack on some hardware, who has time to write a proper NT device driver?

Sorry, that's not how IOPM works and there's no API model involved.  If you wanted to protect your hard drive I/O ports, you can protect them via OS and application can go direct to hardware and only OS will get control if application accesses those I/O ports you protected.  Application does not have to use API.  My application (MPDOS Pro) is an example that goes direct to hardware on I/O ports and does not use any API calls and keeps OS stable.

see above.

[jkirk]

Your original argument was they all went toward USB.  But from your own links-- they have parallel port, PS/2 ports, etc.  They did make machines w/o gameports from same companies that also offered models w/gameports.  Yeah, you had to get a sound card for those machines that didn't have a gameport in order to get one.

uh? do you not understand what moving toward is? i mean if they were eliminated you wouldn't need to move toward anything. i said there was resistance to eliminating ps2, that there is still industrial apps for serial and to a lesser extent parallel. i did say the transition from joyport to usb was an easier switch since joysticks in general are not super popular and in particular joyport versions.

That link shows parallel port as well.

yes i know i put one in there on purpose. there are so few :roflmao:

this is the model they are going for(without the ps2 ports(stillto much resistance to completely get rid of em yet.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387

You can also buy gameport cards as well.  

and yet i didn't say they were not available just being actively phased out.
btw AT adapters are available for keyboards too. but are they mainstream?

Yeah, so someone was giving a hoot about gaming interfaces.

For a GAMING CONSOLE for them to ignore the gamepad would be stupid.

[jkirk]

Just as you avoid erroneous API calls or work around them, you can deal with hardware bugs and work around them.  It's the same for both--

in an api you program to a standard codeset which the os can trap and kill if it goes awry.
in direct hardware you have a set of commands(loose wording) that directly control the hardware that has the potential to let multiple programs access this hardware simultaneously. this creates the possibility of causing a hardware lockup killing the system.

but I would say worse for APIs as too many versions confuse things.  

uh nope if a piece of software requires directx 10 or higher it is cut and dry. directx 10 even has backwards compatibility with previous versions. also this piece of software installs the version it needs on install.

I know how IOPM works.  You have a very shallow understanding of it.  You can go direct to hardware and still have IOPM.

yea i do have a shallow understanding of it. but what i understand is that it is a gate system. and the port is open or closed. that it is very simplistic in operation. but closing the barn door after a lockup is not of any use.
In order for the os to really control the flow you will have to adopt some form of api this way the os can refuse to pass on something that is not properly executed. this is the point of an api.

[jkirk]

The part about serial being more significant than parallel:  I have dealt with hundreds of machines including laptops and parallel port is there but serial is not.  

lol i think you should look again. nearly every machine i have seen that has parallel has at least one serial port.

Some companies never had a gameport on the motherboard to begin with-- they were targetting businesses.  So audio cards w/gameports were used and still available along with corresponding joysticks.  So I think not supporting gameport would be dropping quite a few users out there.

let it go this was old tech.

The gameport support is more recent phenomena than AT keyboards.  I bought a surround-sound souped up audio card w/game port just 3 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_port

Since about 1990, the game port has usually been integrated with a PC I/O or sound card, either ISA or PCI, or as an on-board feature of some motherboards; before that, it was usually on a dedicated ISA card. Microsoft has discontinued game port support with Windows Vista,[1]  

http://www.computer-engineering.org/ps2keyboard/

IBM AT Keyboard (1984)

eh only 6 years apart.

They ended up using those controllers on PCs as well.

things developed for one market can often be used in other markets. the xbox controller was made for xbox. people wanted to use it on a pc so when the market speaks things happen (well sometimes, it sure made them think about it then.)

[jkirk]

You are thinking doing multitasking while someone is accessing directly the hardware and trying to avoid conflicts, but I am talking about just allowing an application to use hardware directly.  You can do that with IOPM or Amiga does it by the application not allowing other applications to run at the same time.

locking up the hw so only one program can access at a time is not my idea of an efficient way of doing things. furthermore in this environment of multitasking this is not feasable.

But they also fixed bugs in higher and higher versions of DirectX; so you need to know whether to avoid the bugs or not.  

bugs? what bugs? srry but if a bug exists the only person that has to deal with it is the programmer and driver writer. the end user don't see the issue typically.

No, you don't need an API.  Windows for each task keeps track of an IOPM and it can set IOPM to enable hardware ports needed by that application and application directly accesses that port without any API/drivers involved.

you are missing my point. iopm to my knowledge has no error correcting built in. it opens the ports for one app then if that app crashes iopm don't immediately close the ports and reset the hardware. then the next app comes in but either can't open the port or open it then crash. an api can detect and correct as well as make programming more uniform.

[jkirk]

Sorry, 10 of the 12 machines I have do not have serial ports but have parallel ports.

and all 5 of mine and the 6 computers i have worked on did have serial and parallel. as well as the 3 computers i have at work.

Sorry, gameport is more recent than you think.  

sorry but 1990 is not recent. also if it was that recent microsoft wouldn't have dropped support for it.

You miscomputed.  Game ports were on motherboards in 1990s as well as on audio cards.  I bought an audio card w/gameport just a few years ago.

are you sure? i coulda sworn 1990 - 1984 = 6
birth year of both are only 6 years apart.

Original point was that someone is giving a hoot about gaming interface.

no your point as stated was that you believe someone created the hardware because they cared about the poor performance of the joyport. the hardware transition was more about eliminating old standards to reduce cost. even if the usb interface had no performance increase they still would have eliminated the joyport(among other ports) since they would not have to license the use of many ports and could focus on one style of input port.

[jkirk]

Did you mean: environment

you right i don't spel wel when i an in a hurry.

[jkirk]

That doesn't prove that serials are preferred over parallel.  They did have both and then they dropped serial before parallel.

roflmao so my machines don't prove anything nor does the the motherboards i linked but your 10-12 do? seriously your idea of proof is lost somewhere.

Hello, AT DIN5 connectors went a long time ago before gameports.

yea because someone cared about keyboard interfaces more. besides ps2 ports were still compatible with AT ports(with a pin adapter) so really all that changed was the packaging.

Sorry, but they made newer joysticks for USB-- they had to substitute with something.

what is that supposed to mean??

[jkirk]

It is efficient-- that's what I meant by taking over the hardware.  So some critical application can write the most optimal game or application.  OS still exists and can do it's own multitasking.  See Amiga computer as an example.

i see so efficiency = hogging the hardware. sorry but in the world of multitasking this don't have a place. the os determines what software gets priority but does not let anything hog the hardware.

We are talking about programmer.

the programmers chose the version of the api they are going to program to. as such if they decide to progran to 9.0c then that is what they state as the required version. microsoft also includes compatibility for all versions in the latest version. well except windows 7. windows 7 comes with directx 11 but dx9 is not included that i can tell but it can be installed seperately tho.

No, IOPM will only protect disk i/o or other things it doesn't want accessed and allow application to go directly to hardware and leave it to application if it wants to crash itself since it won't hurt the OS.

look if the app directly controls the hw. This when this app crashes an os friendly app will try to access the same hw it might lock the os. or if two programs attempt to access the same hw they may cause a crash. instability abounds in this situation.

[jkirk]

especially when there is any hard drive activity, there is a delay-albeit slight-

double check to make sure dma is on on your hard drives. barring that make sure you are using manufacturer drivers and not default ones from microsoft(they suck)

What I'm talking about are definately digital compression artifacts. I see the same thing with display TV's at retailers, and Pay TV booths in shopping centres, even with the newest panels with 1080i. Its due to the way that fast moving objects like football players
are displayed in front of the background grass: there's a lot of quick variation in color between where the outline of the player ends and the background begins, and the system has to interpolate an in-between color or two, resulting in a fringe. If you also look at the crowd moving past in the background as the camera follows a player, its basically shown as blocky incomprehensible mess, again due to compression interpolation of fast moving regions. This is also visible on DVD IF you have fast moving action like watching sport.This has been especially noticeable in the Confederations Cup in Sth Africa at the moment. Initially I thought it was my TV doing the scaling but it happens on all the TV's I've watched on display

yea this is normal behavior for an lcd tv. it has to do with the responsiveness in color changing. the tv can't keep up with the changes. they are getting better but have not beaten the responsiveness of a crt yet. i personally still use a hdtv crt atm. and just as the leander said upscaling plays it's part in this issue too.

[jkirk]

Oooh, I always wanted a HD CRT! What model is it??

phillips 32pw9100d it is hard to find info on it since it was a model produced for wal-mart stores(and a dang sight cheaper than the lcd models at the time.)

Could only find one on sale in Ireland when I went looking, and it wasn't great. I'm still gutted the whole world went with LCD seemingly to do with fashion rather than quality.

i tink it was more about convenience. my crt hdtv weighs in the neighborhood of 150 pounds(us)

As for the artifacts, it's not just the responsiveness of LCD panels, a large part of it is simply the compression used by the digital broadcaster. It's like what you see when you watch a YouTube video for example, fast changing lines don't survive the compression particularly well. This will also show up on a full 1080p panel with a 1080p source if it's to do with compression. And HDTV signals tend to be compressed like that, so even with a full-HD decoder and a full-HD TV, you'll get more artifacts on channels which use more compression.

yea garbage in garbage out. that was why i was focusing on the hardware itself. another thing is signal loss causes pixelation(glitches) up to and including loss of picture too.

[jkirk]

I look at the drivers for the hard drive, thanks, I am using MS ones.

check all your drivers particularly your sound, chipset, processor(if available), and vid card. i think the hd will always show up as an ms driver.

the problem with the default drivers(ones on the vista disk) is though they are written by the manufacturer (in some cases) they have to make the driver very generic due to space constraints on the cd(or dvd) as such much of the hardware acceleration is missing(or not working efficiently) so the inital install drivers are just to get you going till you can aquire the real drivers.

HDTV CRT: Geez you would've paid a packet for that new.  I've read the best CRT can still outdo the best plasma/LCD for responsiveness, color balance and sharpness.  Do tell: what model is it?

it's been a while since i bought it but i think i paid $700 for it new wile lcd panels were still $1500 to $2000.

[jkirk]

Okay, great they may have gone back to serial ports, but they did produce machines with parallel ports w/o serial ports.

so what? i never claimed that serial or paralel ports didn't exist anymore-you said serial didn't. what i did say was that the joyport was the easiest to replace and as such is not included in the vast majority on motherboards available. there are some people who like you believe the joyport is the ultimat interface for the pc so they will pay for an adapter to use the joysticks they currently have. despite this the joyport is a dead technology and has been for a loooooong time.(aka i bought a microsoft sidewinder2 force feedback joystick USB circa late 90's and 3 gamepads USB)

AT keyboards with DIN5 are gone for good and they went a long time before joysticks for gameports or gameports.  Joysticks for gameports are still being sold.

you give joyports too much credit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000123&Description=joystick&name=PC%20Game%20Controllers
yep joyports are really dominating.

They got rid of the gameport knowing people can still use USB so they had some thought about it but still playing catch-up to Amiga with its superior joystick interface.

/facepalm