Virtual HP-IL 40 col. video interface simulation

[Christoph Giesselink]

The Virtual HP-IL family got a new member. I'm proud to announce a simulation of the HP-82163A 40 column Video Interface at http://hp.giesselink.com/hpil.htm. In difference to ILPer it's not a generic simulation, it tries to simulate the Video interface very close to the original. I want to thank especially Sylvain Cote for his beta testing and even more for comparing my simulation with the real device. Without him it wouldn't have been possible for me to create this simulation so close to the original.

Also a big thank to Jean-François Garnier, the IL interface engine was copied from his generic printer inside ILPer. Because of this his (c) notice inside the About dialog.

I also updated ILPer, ILScope and ILPilbox. During the development of ILVideo I made a redesign of the C++ classes to have a better reuse ability of them. So the TCP/IP class code is now identical between ILper, ILScope and ILVideo. They got only some minor improvements. So the ILScope window can now be cleared over the context menu like in ILPer and in ILPer a disk change is now possible without Stop and Start the interface.

All programs are compiled with MSVC6 so they use the MFC42 runtime but still limited to the IPv4 TCP stack. All sources are compatible with VS2005 and later. Compiled with these compilers you get a IPv4/IPv6 TCP dual stack which is already implemented in Emu71/Win v1.01.

Cheers

Christoph

[Geir Isene]

Linux?

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Wine?

[Egan Ford]

OS/X? Whine...... :-)

[Christoph Giesselink]

Any development for other OS then Windows I must deny.

Most time of the HP82163A development I didn't spent on the video command set implementation, most time I spend on the GUI, especially on the terminal window. First time I realized that implementing the insert cursor would be tricky, but the implementation of the inverse characters set in combination with normal characters would be hairy. By default a text window under Windows has exact two colors, the text color and the background color. So my first realization was one window per character so I was able to choose the colors for each window/character separately. The window redraw was very slow!

Then I made a 2nd attempt in the WM_PAINT message handler, with no success. My 3rd attempt worked only with VS2005 and was flickering badly as cursor blinking. But this was the right way and I solved these problems. But overall I spend much more time only on this topic than on everything else on this project.

Of course it's possible to make it, editors with syntax highlight prove this, but companies spend a lot of money to get this knowledge. Perhaps you're using a toolkit like GTK+ or Qt, but sorry IMHO they don't look like a windows program and need additional hundreds? of Megabytes for development and runtime. And 2nd they don't solve the entire problem also, you still have to find out how this could be done.

And there's another important point, my motivation. I personally make these programs for myself and they must run on the systems I have. I have no interests to sell them, but I'm glad that other may find them useful. This is in tradition of the freeware and open source community.

Regards

Christoph

[Ángel Martin]

Not meaning to sound critical but it amazes me how promptly the requests for more OS support come - it'd appear even before the due acknowledgement of appreciation. Thanks for the enhancements Christoph, you keep enhancing and improving your trade. I'll sure give it a try as soon as I have a chance.

Cheers,
AM

[Geir Isene]

Wanted to see it in action on a computer near me before I started blasting with praise ;)

[Sylvain Cote]

All the tests has been done on Windows XP (Pro with VS6) and Windows 7 (Pro32 with VS6&VS2005) running on VMware Fusion (VirtualBox also works) & OSX Lion on my MacBook Pro.

I could have used Linux instead of OSX and the result would have been the same.

Also with the Unity feature of VMware or Seamless windows of VirtualBox you can use those products integrated with the native interface.

Although it is not perfect, it is a good alternative solution.



I also want to congratulate Christoph for the quality of the ILDevices he is creating.

It takes time, patience and dedication to successfully deliver those projects.



Those virtual devices combined with the PIL-Box of Jean-Francois Garnier allow me, as a user, to greatly extends the functionalities of my HP IL enabled devices.



Sylvain

[Richard Wagoner]

Christoph - I'm getting 404 errors for all of your files.

:-(

Rick

[Sylvain Cote]

Richard,



Just tested all the links and they works as expected.



Using the Christoph page link in it's first message, I was able to go to the Virtual HP-IL page.



From that page I was able to download all the files.



Sylvain

[Richard Wagoner]

Cleared the cache and all is well.

;-)