Code: Select all
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MODE 4 MODE 8 MODE 16 MODE 32 MODE 33
(Intel) (Motorola)
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QL yes yes no no no
AURORA yes yes yes no no (QL compatible motherboard)
Q40 yes ? ? no yes (hardware)
Q60 yes ? ? no yes (hardware)
Q68 yes yes yes no yes (FPGA QL board)
QLem yes yes no no no (emulator)
QPC1 yes yes no no no (emulator)
QPC2 yes yes yes yes no (emulator)
SMSQMULATOR yes yes yes yes no (Java based emulator)
QL2K yes yes no no no (emulator)
QLAY yes yes no no no (emulator)
QEMULATOR PC yes yes yes * no yes * (emulator)
QEMULATOR Mac yes yes ? ? ? (emulator)
uQLx yes yes no no no (emulator)
sQLux yes yes no no no (emulator)
QDOS4Amiga yes yes no no no (emulator)
QDOS Classic yes yes no no no (emulator)
ATARI ST-QL yes yes no no no (original plug-in board QL mode 4 and 8 only)
ATARI ST-QL yes no no no no (Extended4 board, QL mode 4,only with 768x280 resolution)
ATARI ST-QL yes no no no no (QVME board, mode 4 only, resolutions up to 1280x900)
QXL yes yes no yes no (ISA card hardware for PC)
MESS emulator yes yes no no no (emulator)
MIST-QL yes yes no no no (emulator - I know little about it)
MISTer yes yes no no no (hardware based emulation system)
ZEsarUX yes yes no no no (emulator)
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*=with relevant version of SMSQ/E on QemuLator
Emulators indicated in the updated table above.
Other questions:
Extended Mode 4 and Mode 8. These modes on more recent hardware and emulators are generally the same bit layout as those modes on an original QL, but often with the option of greater resolutions. On some systems, there are a selection of fixed resolutions. Others can within reason have any display resolution specified. The pixel layout (bit patterns) in those two extended modes will be the same, but obviously with greater numbers of pixels across and down the video screen. The original QL could not vary the number of pixels in these modes. So the number of bytes between the start of one line and the next varies depending on how many pixels across. An exception here is the Aurora card, which uses a fixed line width in QL colour modes 4 and 8, but you had better see Aurora documentation to clearly understand what I mean there.
If a machine runs QDOS operating system, there is usually no support for greater resolutions, with the sole exceptions of uQLx and sQLux emulators and the Atari ST-QL boards (patched QDOS) which offer a small selection of fixed greater resolution displays. XorA on this forum maintains the sQLux and may be able to expand on this. Any support for high colour modes is only possible with the SMSQ/E version of the QL operating system.
Also GD2 describes modes 7, 15, 31 and 64. Are these modes supported by any hardware?
The GD2 (or Graphics Driver 2) documents offered the specifications for what at the time were offered as possible future additional display mode options. In practice, no hardware or emulator yet known supports these display modes. There is the existing possibility of using them purely for graphical sprites via the operating system's ability to adapt sprite colour modes, I think that is the only place where they may be found at present.
It means that your DaDither software need not concern itself with trying to convert those modes, at least until any future hardware or emulator supports modes 7/15/31/64.
I have most available documentation on the display modes and resolutions as documents on my site - if you require help finding a particular one, I may be able to help you find it if the search box on my site does not find it. The other source of valuable information is the publicly available sources of the SMSQ/E operating system from Wolfgang Lenerz's website. You'd need some familiarity with Motorola processor assembly language and a degree of familiarity with the QL operating systems though.