TV Guide Channel Emulation Working!

[LocalH]

What I find funny is - the disk is FastFileSystem. This means that it requires a 2.0 or newer Kickstart ROM to even boot or read from the disk at all. Yet, inside :s/uv-ver, they still check to see if the user has a 1.3 ROM and bail out with an ER005. Apparently someone didn't realize that a 2.1 Install disk would be FFS. I bet they didn't get a lot of ER005 reports

Something else I found out. Pressing Scroll will pause the scroll, however, it's still running in the system. When you click Scroll again, it will jump to where it is.

I don't think that's anything to do with Prevue, as the Amiga does not have a key for Scroll Lock. If I remember from back in the old DosUAE days, Scroll Lock toggles the screen updating. Try booting with any standard Workbench disk and doing the same thing.

[AriX]

What I find funny is - the disk is FastFileSystem. This means that it requires a 2.0 or newer Kickstart ROM to even boot or read from the disk at all. Yet, inside :s/uv-ver, they still check to see if the user has a 1.3 ROM and bail out with an ER005. Apparently someone didn't realize that a 2.1 Install disk would be FFS. I bet they didn't get a lot of ER005 reports

Well, the software itself doesn't even run on a 1.3 ROM even when extracted onto something that Workbench 1.3 can read... I don't understand though, what do you mean about the 2.1 install disk? Sorry for my Amiga n00bishness lol

EDIT: Oh, I see now, it wouldn't have even booted on 1.3, so ER005 would never have come up, lol

[LocalH]

The disk had previously had several icons that were on the original 2.1 Install disks (of which I actually have an original set of ). They had been deleted, of course, but it shows that the first step they took when building the master distribution disk was to take a 2.1 Install disk and make a copy of it to use as a base.

Also, I think we can officially call GA24005 a "select code". Why? There is a command in :C called sel. It serves one of two purposes. It can either set the select code, or if you pass it CHECK, you see the current setting.

Code: Select all

1> sel
Select Code Utility -- Author C.K.C.  VERSION 1.4
USAGE: sel SELECTCODE
Use CHECK as select code to see current setting
1> sel check
Select Code Utility -- Author C.K.C.  VERSION 1.4
The existing SELECT CODE is "GA24005"

No copy and paste here, I manually transcribed that from my shell session

[AriX]

The disk had previously had several icons that were on the original 2.1 Install disks (of which I actually have an original set of ). They had been deleted, of course, but it shows that the first step they took when building the master distribution disk was to take a 2.1 Install disk and make a copy of it to use as a base.

Right, I saw those when I ran DiskSalv... Too bad there isn't anything else on there I would have loved the Prevue "BRUSHES" background and the Prevue "BANNER".

[LocalH]

:C/UVEd seems awfully close to Commodore's standard Ed command provided with the system. Not identical, but I'm wondering if they licensed source from Commodore and extended it (it uses the same keyboard commands, but will open files containing binary, and will give you hints in the window titlebar when you press ESC to enter an editor command).

Edit: The disk also contains just enough files to successfully boot Workbench, although it's useless to do so as none of the files on the disk have an icon. Hold both mouse buttons when booting, go to Advanced Options, and there's a disable startup-sequence cycle gadget present. Click it, hit the Use button, then pick DF0 to boot from to get shell access while still booting from this disk. If you type loadwb at the shell prompt, you'll get a requester asking you to "Please insert volume ENV in any drive" - this can be cancelled, as ENV: is normally assigned during a regular startup-sequence to RAM: As I said, though, there is absolutely nothing to do except quit Workbench

[LocalH]

Double-posting to notify - I have located a program called Fony that will import Amiga bitmap fonts and save as Windows bitmap fonts. Not really gonna try to make a TrueType font out of this right now, but there are three fonts on the disk, with some different internal names that appeared when I imported them into Fony.

h26f is called FinalH26f internally, and is the ad font. Nothing weird about it, except the dire lack of international glyphs.
Prevue is called Logos internally, and contains the larger logos used on the top half of the screen for networks.
PrevueC is called PrevueC internally, and is the listings font, with some glyphs for ratings, a few smaller network logos, and a "SPECIAL OFFER" glyph near the end. This is the one that someone (AriX?) posted an image of way early on.

Gimme a little time and I'll get Windows .FON files prepared and uploaded.

Edit: Ok, fonts are prepared and uploaded. Get them here. As for any other OS, I haven't investigated options for making bitmap fonts for any other platforms. I'll also try to find a good bitmap-to-TrueType converter for those who would rather use a TrueType font. This should be good for a quick and dirty release, though.

Edit 2: Also, for the record, I tried booting the software up in the WinUAE configuration I have save for it, except for one minor detail - I disabled the "Genlock connected" option. It still boots, meaning that (I think) Jeff was wrong when he posted here and stated it would not boot without the genlock installed. I'm going to experiment later and determine the absolute minimum fast RAM needed before getting an ER011 (Jeff says 2MB, and I want to confirm/deny).

Edit 3: One more key function to report. On the listing screen, Y will cycle through two palette's worth of colors (so you have to press it 32 times, or switch to another graphic ad with G, to get the default palette back). This only applies to the top half of the screen and does also apply with the text ads (and probably anything else that appears up there that's not live video).

Edit 4: Ok, the disk will boot with 1MB of fast RAM. If I disable fast RAM and use just the 1MB chip RAM, I get an 81000005 Guru. One more test on this front - 2MB chip and no fast.

Edit 5: Damn, I edit a lot. Maybe we need a wiki to organize these things a bit better, for both the EPG Jr. and the Prevue Guide? Anyway, the system requires at least 1MB fast RAM - got the same guru with 2MB chip only. Good to know.

Now to try to tackle config.dat - if we don't yet know how to feed new clock data to the system live, maybe we can hack it on-disk.

[rudyvalencia]

Maybe we need a wiki to organize these things a bit better

I have a server and would be willing to host it.

[AriX]

Double-posting to notify - I have located a program called Fony that will import Amiga bitmap fonts and save as Windows bitmap fonts. Not really gonna try to make a TrueType font out of this right now, but there are three fonts on the disk, with some different internal names that appeared when I imported them into Fony.

Yes, Fony is how I extracted the PrevueC font that I posted a while ago Also, Rudy is already making TrueType fonts out of these, he's finished the letters and numbers of the PrevueC font but not the symbols yet.

Edit 2: Also, for the record, I tried booting the software up in the WinUAE configuration I have save for it, except for one minor detail - I disabled the "Genlock connected" option. It still boots, meaning that (I think) Jeff was wrong when he posted here and stated it would not boot without the genlock installed. I'm going to experiment later and determine the absolute minimum fast RAM needed before getting an ER011 (Jeff says 2MB, and I want to confirm/deny).

Jeff was talking about the Prevue-specific genlock, not any old genlock. Most of us here assumed before today that the only way to get the Amiga software working was to have an actual custom-UVSG genlock card, and possibly the satellite and audio cards too. He seemed to be saying that when he removed the genlock board from his Prevue Amiga 2000, it would no longer boot... Odd.

Edit 5: Damn, I edit a lot. Maybe we need a wiki to organize these things a bit better, for both the EPG Jr. and the Prevue Guide? Anyway, the system requires at least 1MB fast RAM - got the same guru with 2MB chip only. Good to know.

Yes, I'm going to be putting up a MediaWiki at http://prevueguide.com/ tomorrow or Saturday in order to organize all of the information we have on these forums

Now to try to tackle config.dat - if we don't yet know how to feed new clock data to the system live, maybe we can hack it on-disk.

I would assume it won't load anything from the cache files unless you tell it to via satellite commands somehow, or something, but I don't know.

I have a server and would be willing to host it.

I've got it covered, but thanks. I've been planning on doing this for a while.

[curtjr4]

Here... I am a little off topic, but setting the serial is quite fun indeed. Apparently using sel from the system shell will let you set your own serial number... example (Sorry for the crappy resolution)

[LocalH]

It's even easier to get random screenshots like that without having to actually change the select code - just boot with no startup-sequence (as I gave instructions for earlier) and do esq <new select code>. Unsure as to the length, but I did a typical esq ? (on the Amiga, it is a common but not guaranteed thing to use a question mark as an argument to get more information on commandline arguments) and it gave me that screen but with a ? where the select code is supposed to go. I have no idea what the length limit is on such a "select code", but might be fun for a few screenshots. Shouldn't be useful in terms of actually using Prevue, however.

For the record, I have decided that I will "officially" call this version of the software "Prevue", since the only difference after TV Guide Channel were the graphic assets. So, we have EPG Jr., EPG Sr. (still lost in the wild), and at least two major revisions of Prevue (the old, EPG Sr. style software, and what we have here).

I wonder if the local cable company still has any of their old hardware. My uncle works there as a field technician, next time I talk to him I'll ask him if he knows anyone there he could ask about it. Unless they have really old disks, they're liable to be the same version we have here, as they used the system on-air with this version of the software up until they switched to NT boxes. Still, might gather further information if we were to get another independent copy of the later Prevue.

I really want the older, Sr-style Prevue though. I'd be really stoked if someone found a copy of EPG Sr itself (which I think is actually more likely, relatively speaking, as I don't think it was updated in the same manner as Prevue).

Edit: Oh, and just for the record, none of our screenshots are the proper aspect ratio, although they are pixel-perfect. NTSC Amigas have pixels that are thinner than square pixels. Give me about 15 minutes and I'll take my existing screenshot and reupload it with roughly proper aspect ratio (I'm sure some of you are thinking "these letters look fatter than I remember").

Edit 2: Here we go. I won't be doing this for every screenshot, but this is much closer to what we're used to seeing on YouTube and the like. Pixel-perfect screenshot reposted (yet again) after for comparison's sake.

Correct aspect


Pixel-perfect, wrong aspect


It's also possible to make WinUAE display with the proper aspect ratio, although it requires a bit of setup to do so. Give me a day or two and I'll try to write up a guide explaining how to do it (for example, I have two configurations, once for pixel-perfect windowed mode and another for full-window proper aspect goodness).