Glad there will at least be one enthusiastic user of this stuff! :) I wish there had been more collaboration on these various bits of software technology back then, but sadly the market was by then already a shrinking niche, and there would have been no money in it for either PCSG or Ultrasoft. (MS-DOS apps were already taking over..)
By the way, I previously said this regarding having to drop Write-ROM: > unfortunately, there was just no room in ROM to add the additional support for > Ultrascreen even if it were left as a RAM version of the display driver, so > something had to be removed from ROM regardless. This only held true until I identified a few routines in SuperROM that nobody would even be using anymore: the CALL features supporting the internal modem, the embedded BASIC loader for a TPDD DOS, and the direct cassette support. (Because, honestly, who saves .DO/.CA/.CT files to cassette anymore regardless, much less from within SuperROM??) With those excised, there's now definitely enough space for the adjustments to all of the SuperROM apps to detect and render UI on the larger screen width & lines. I intend to create two option ROMs: #1: SuperROM 2.0 with all apps fully supporting the RAM versions of Ultrascreen #2: UltraROM, with Lucid + Data + Thought + Ultrascreen all in the same ROM, which excludes Write-ROM but now only minimal RAM is required for Ultrascreen to operate I already have an alpha of #2 running that I'm still debugging, and likely will have an alpha of #1 relatively soon. Gary On Sat, Oct 31, 2026, 2:26 PM Greg Swallow <[email protected]> wrote: > All I can say Gary is Wow! > > I had stopped using my DVI because of not being able to use it with the > SuperROM. It may not be a full 80x24 screen, but I -- for one, can put good > use to Ultrascreen on my M100 collection. > > God Bless, > > Greg’s <>< > Sent from my iPhone > > On Oct 31, 2026, at 1:58 PM, Gary Weber <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Also in the works: I'm making the necessary tweaks to the Lucid, > Write-ROM, Data, and Thought apps inside of SuperROM to make them fully > Ultrascreen aware. > > This will eventually result in a new "SuperROM 2.0" release for the M100, > T200 and NEC that will actually take advantage of Ultrascreen's 60x10 > (NEC/M100) & 60x21 (T200) screen modes. This will finally make Ultrascreen > much more useful, and arguably how things would have been back in 1988 had > Ultrasoft & PCSG collaborated. > > Gary > > > On Mon, Oct 26, 2026 at 5:54 PM Gary Weber <[email protected]> wrote: > >> When I set out to build Ultrascreen for the NEC, and later to produce >> full annotated source for SuperROM to support the port to the NEC as well, >> it might have looked like two independent projects. Surprise! They were >> really one. >> >> A binary can be patched, but it can't easily be combined with anything. >> Creating the reassemblable source for Ultrascreen let me carry it to the >> NEC PC-8201, the Tandy 200 and the Olivetti M10. Doing the same for >> SuperROM, with every routine properly labelled, turned PCSG's ROM from >> fixed application images into code that can be relocated, trimmed and, most >> importantly, extended. >> >> So, why go through the effort to do all of that? >> >> The real goal was to combine Ultrascreen's 60x10 small-font display with >> at least a few of the apps from SuperROM (Lucid, Data, & Thought) into one >> single option ROM. The big payoff is that the apps don't just run under >> Ultrascreen and render their original UI correctly (which they did NOT even >> do at the start); they were modified to actually use it properly. For >> instance the spreadsheet can now render six columns (A–F) and eight rows >> instead of four by six, doubling the number of cells on screen. Switch back >> to SCREEN 0 and Lucid still draws the classic 40x8 sheet. >> >> A lot of testing still needs to happen. But, I figured I'd give you all >> a sneak peek. >> >> First, the original Lucid you're used to: >> <image.png> >> >> -- -- -- >> Lucid+Ultrascreen: >> <image.png> >> >> Thought+Ultrascreen: >> <image.png> >> >> >> It's really in the early stages here. I'm currently working on this for >> the NEC, but I fully intend to back-port all of it for the Model 100 and >> Olivetti M-10. (And who knows, maybe also for the T200...) I did have to >> sacrifice *Write* to bring Ultrascreen into the option ROM. And >> unfortunately, there was just no room in ROM to add the additional support >> for Ultrascreen even if it were left as a RAM version of the display >> driver, so something had to be removed from ROM regardless. >> >> Anyway, a new "Lucid / Data / Thought / Ultrascreen" ROM is still in an >> alpha state. I'll let you know when things progress far enough to release >> a beta version. And thanks to B9 for all the help testing Lucid-NEC, >> and to John Hogerhuis for testing Thought-NEC. I'll get as many fixes in >> place as possible before releasing anything. >> >> -- >> Gary Weber >> [email protected] >> >
