Vintage Palmtops Tips & Tricks

Programming graphics on Portfolio, part 2

Go to part 1

Portfolio's display is controlled by a Hitachi HD61830 chip. As I previously said, this makes it incompatible with the PC and more difficult to program. However, the only way to use dynamic graphics in your programs is to access the controller directly.

If you'd like to update the graphics in real time (e.g. in a game), the best idea would be to redraw the screen at once, so that you don't need to bother drawing each pixel separately. It is possible thanks to the routine by Milan and Martin Hrdlička:

refresh:
	cld
	push ax
	push cx
	push dx
        push bx
	push si
	push di
	push ds
	mov si, 0
	mov ax, 0b000h
	mov ds, ax
	mov di, 64
ref2:	mov cx, 30
	mov bx, si
	mov al, 0ah
	mov dx, 8011h
	cli
	out dx, al
	mov al, bl
	dec dx
	out dx, al
	sti
	mov al, 0bh
	inc dx
	cli
	out dx, al
	dec dx
	mov al, bh
	and al, 7
	out dx, al
	sti
ref1:	lodsb
	ror al, 1
	mov ah, al
	and ah, 136
	ror al, 1
	ror al, 1
	mov bl, al
	and bl, 68
	or ah, bl
	ror al, 1
	ror al, 1
	mov bl, al
	and bl, 34
	or ah, bl
	ror al, 1
	ror al, 1
	and al, 17
	or al, ah
	mov ah, al
	inc dx
	mov al, 0ch
	cli
	out dx, al
	mov al, ah
	dec dx
	out dx, al
	sti
	loop ref1
	dec di
	jnz ref2
	pop ds
	pop di
	pop si
	pop bx
	pop dx
	pop cx
	pop ax
	ret

 
Now, all you need to do is to update the graphics at B000:0000 each time before refreshing the screen. One pixel is one bit, so there are 64 lines by 240/8=30 bytes. That makes 1920 bytes and the actual position of a pixel in memory may be calculated using this formula:

byte = y * 30 + x / 8

bit = x mod 8

so, for example to draw the point at x=50, y=17 (0,0 is the top-left corner, 239,63 is the bottom-right) you need to set the bit number 2 at B000:0204 (that is 516 decimal). Obviously, clearing the bit clears the pixel.

More tips on programming graphics:

• Portfolio News #4
• An article by Martin Řehák (in Czech)