The Sinclair QL Forum

QSTAR 1 - final version Tested on QDOS with JS ROM and Minerva ROM, 128 k and up to 4Mb and on SMSQE Updates: 1. fixed a major bug / memory leak that could crash the QL on game exit 2. fixed the SMSQE stipple issue 3. fixed misspelling in spanish text 4. now speaker icon changes when sound is on / o...

Actually, both QDOS and Minerva have stipple patterns 2 and 3 reversed compared to the figures shown in the QL Manual (and QPC Concepts guide) under 'colour'. In stipples 1 and 2, the white pixels are background colour and grey pixels are contrast colour. But in stipples 2 and 3 they are reversed. ...

Derek_Stewart wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2024 3:39 pm Hi,

The SMSQ/E writers seem to just change and us poor users have figure out what they have done.

They did an amazing job with SMSQE.
The stipple issue is a minor bug that affects almost no one, and that is why it took so long to surface.

Derek_Stewart wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2024 2:08 pm Hi,

Could the problem be with QDOS having th Stipples in the wrong order and GD2 corrected the problem.

Could be. But in the end SMSQE should maintain compatibility with QDOS, not the other way round.

The issue is much easier to spot when using stipple=2 (vertical bars)

Have you tried older versions of smsq/e as it is astounding that this has not been spotted before, the GD2 colour drivers have been around for at least 20 years and smsq/e itself longer? Cheers No, I have not tried older versions. I have installed SMSQE on my SGC QL only last year - and I use v3.39...

Do you see the same swapped colour effect in other stipple patterns? Maybe SMSQ/E just uses a different 'chequerboard' stipple pattern, which would not effect the colour seen by the eye. Yes, I see the swapped colour effect in all stipple patterns. I played with all stipple patterns in QEmulator, Q...

Hi Andrew, I am running Q68 FPGA v1.05, SMSQ/E v3.39 in DISP_MODE 1: 512x256 Mode 4/8 See photos, on 23" monitor: IMG_20240504_132350519.jpg IMG_20240504_132356875.jpg IMG_20240504_132402780.jpg The game does not work in the Q68 Hi Colour modes. But I only use DISP_MODE 6: 512x384 Mode 33 Than...

Derek_Stewart wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2024 12:36 pm Dump the emulators and use a Q68...

I see the same issue when I run QSTAR on a real QL, in QDOS vs SMSQ/E - see above image

It seems that SMSQ/E is not defining the colour correctly. The color is defined as colour, contrast, stipple - in this example (see attached image) the background colour is defined as PAPER 5,4,3 It seems that SMSQ/E is reversing the colour and contrast, so on SMSQ/E systems the paper is actually 4,...