Not sure, maybe, probably....

[Bryce]

Hello All,
       while reading some recently written articles I have noticed a new trend of some articles which were "enhanced" with infomation, where the author didn't have all (any) of the facts. These usually resulted in...

I think it does this...... It probably does that...... It possibly....... Mabye......not sure....

I find such statements give a very bad impression of the information offered here. Changing it from a well written factual source to guess-work or as the Germans say "Glänzen mit Halbwissen". Could I make two possible suggestions to remedy this for future similar situations.

1) If you don't know, don't write about it.
Or....
2) If you are missing just a small piece of information, a simple "More information required" sounds a lot more professional than "I think it probably...."

What do you think?

Bryce.

[redbox]

I see your point, but I have found (especially with programming articles) that some information is better than none.

If someone says "It might...", "I think..." etc. at least it gives me somewhere to start my own thought process instead of just banging my head against the wall. 

[Bryce]

Yes, but they then tend to get forgotten and the might/maybes become permanent. Would it not be better to then start a Forum discussion to investigate and collect this "missing" information and add it to the page when the complete information is available. Every page has an associated "Talk" page also, where these details could be discussed.

Bryce.

[MacDeath]

I admit I often do this probably.

Yet I think it's also a way to enhance some aspect of the subjet perhaps.

Maybe it indicates that such claim was seen on the net or somewhere, yet that it is not 100% sure.

Not sure about this, but we may not pretend the seriousness of an official wikipedia, which itself might be somewhat erratic too.


Also on some matters I have seen contradictory informations on the same thing, in different sites.

Yet if someone can actually puut a definite opinion/knowledge to clarify some details, that could be the advantage of a wiki.

Exemple with Tennis cup 2 :

This games is pehaps the only one on Amstrad GX4000/Plus range to enable the use of an  Analog Joystick, for the 2nd player.

That sound more "professionnal" than the "are there any game using analog joy ?" in the analog joy page.

Of course it doesn't sound quite sure about the fact "is Tennis cup the only game using analogjoy on Plus ?" or "which other game do support analog..."
Yet it remains clear that Tennis cup2 actually supports the analog joy.
And this is too an open hope that someone would maybe one day developp another game actually supporting analog too.

[Bryce]

In those situations I can understand using such phrasing, but to give an example I found:

Analogue Jostick Port:
"Not sure if the POTs on the CPCs analog X/Y inputs are to be wired to 5V or GND (or to both)? And, how they are wired on PCs accordingly?"

This is something that can easily be found out, by measuring the Pins on a real device or opening an original CPC Joystick, but as such gives the reader absolutely zero new information. This is just one example, so if you are the person who wrote this (haven't checked who it was), then I'm not picking on you, it was just the first example I found.

Bryce.

Maybe a page for "Missing Information" or something similar would be good, where you could write a quick description of what's missing?

[MacDeath]

I don't remember having written this (perhaps it was me) but this also give us the information that proper research are still to be done, so if a Wikian have the time, the knowledge and the willpower to contribute on this...

yet in the furute i'll try to avoid tis by using cleared expression.

I still did, with thing such as "this has to be verified" or "can someone answer this" skike stuff.

Also the category:stub is here to tell the page is clearly uncomplete or is missing some important points.
It has to be used.

[nocash]

>> "Not sure if the POTs on the CPCs analog X/Y inputs are to be wired to
>> 5V or GND (or to both)? And, how they are wired on PCs accordingly?"
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Connector:Analogue_joystick_(CPC_Plus_only)

That's been me writing that article. And I thinks it's been a good example where it is absolutely -necessary- to point out that there is missing information.

It isn't "Halbwissen". It's a FACT: The cpc+ is 20 years old, but still nobody has documented how the analog port works. I am just the first person who has "discovered" that there is no knowledge on that part.

> This is something that can easily be found out, by measuring the Pins
> on a real device

True. At least for people who do own a cpc+ or gx4000 (which I don't). But I was hoping that somebody sees the notice about missing information, and, like you said, does some measuring, draws a schematic, and so on.

NB, if somebody actually does, post analog joystick related stuff here:
http://cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php/topic,546.0.html

> Maybe a page for "Missing Information" or something similar would
> be good, where you could write a quick description of what's missing?

Would do it, too. Though it should be pointed out in the articles, too. Otherwise people just see the joystick pinouts - think "hey, cool, the information is all there" - and never realize that it isn't complete. The result would be that nobody adds the missing info not in another 20 years. And THAT would be "Halbwissen" :-)

> Also the category:stub is here to tell the page is clearly
> uncomplete or is missing some important points. It has to be used.

Good thing, too. But are there many people checking that? And the stub is just a list of incomplete articles, without details on which parts missing.

[Bryce]

Yes, it's good to point out the that information is missing, I'm just questioning how sensible it is to place it scattered throughout the Wiki. Say you happen to know this information and would be happy to share it, but you would only notice it is missing if you visit that particular page. That's why I was suggesting that we have a "Information being sought" page, where you could simply write:

Does anybody know which voltages were connected to the Analogue Joystick Pots - If so please add this information to "Page X" or let me (Forum Name) know so that I can add it.

This way, you could browse this page and realise which of your personal knowledge needs to be added to the Wiki, without having to read the entire site.

Or am I being over-organised?

Bryce.

[arnoldemu]

I am just the first person who has "discovered" that there is no knowledge on that part.

I disagree with this statement.

We all know there is little information about it and there has been little information for a long time. The only source being the official Amstrad document on the asic.

I started to look at some of this a long time ago.

http://www.kjthacker.f2s.com/docs/cpcplus.html
http://www.kjthacker.f2s.com/docs/cpcpdiff.html

I didn't know that Tennis  Cup used analogue joystick and this is exactly the information we find out when having this great forum and wiki. Others can offer their help and we can build a better picture.

As we have discovered with the speech synthesiser thread.. by talking about it in the forum, lots of people can help to "join the dots" and "build the picture" and then we can really document some of this.

I agree with Bryce that we should stamp some docs with "More information is required." or "This information is incomplete".

But also I think that even when we think we have the full information there can often be something we did not check or something new to discover.


BTW, I plan to update the Aleste 520EX documentation soon. I have almost finished implementing it in Arnold,  and have read the datasheets and looked at the rom contents a lot, so I will be happy to write up the information I read there.
(port decoding, clock frequencies, rom contents and what they are used for it). But as always please feel free to make corrections and add information I missed.

Long live the cpc, wiki and the forum!

EDIT: Please can we have a clean version of the Aleste schematics and then a document which describes the operation of the parts?
The aleste520.narod.ru has a document describing how the hardware works and describes the ICs used for that part.
One part of the annotated schematic describes the "Gate Array 3". This is actually the Aleste's "extport" located at #FABF (actual decoding is incomplete). This i/o port is used for:

bit 0 controls the addressing of the video ram and is used primarly in 32k mode.

bit 1 changes the frequencies inside the aleste (uses 13.333Mhz base clock) but also increases the clock to the crtc to approx 1.5Mhz.
Enabling the video hardware to clock pixels out faster and allow high resolution modes. (e.g. 320x200 16 colours).

bit 2 turns on the msx style mapper.

bit 3 forces the video hardware to output black

bit 4 is used to enable the 8253 timer. then any write to any port goes to the 8253 in addition to the hardware which decodes the port

bit 5 is used to enable either the AY or the real time clock, so that writes to 8255 port A and port C go to either the AY or the real time clock.

The hardware of the aleste is a beast because it performs lots of lookups through roms.

[redbox]

Yes, it's good to point out the that information is missing, I'm just questioning how sensible it is to place it scattered throughout the Wiki. Say you happen to know this information and would be happy to share it, but you would only notice it is missing if you visit that particular page. That's why I was suggesting that we have a "Information being sought" page, where you could simply write:

Maybe the middle ground here would be to have this as a section on each page, so that people know that this part of the information is being sought, worked on or is unconfirmed.

For example, if you have a wiki page about a subject, the bottom section could be 'Missing Information' (or maybe a better title) where the odd bits or stuff people aren't sure about can be added.  If we agree on a format such as this, then editors can re-arrange current pages as they see them and we know what to do if we want to add information but aren't sure if it's correct or not.

Doing it on the actual Wiki page for the subject makes more sense because everyone can then see the information in the relevant place and also everyone can update it, including the casual browser who may not know about/be a member of the forums etc.

[Bryce]

There's already a box at the bottom of the Main Page (Searching for autors) where badly needed (ie:missing) information is listed (currently only one item). I just thought expanding this to it's own editable page would mean that there would be a central place where a more detailed list of missing info could be compiled and browsed. This might ignite Forum discussions like the Speech-synth discussions of late.

Bryce.

[nocash]

> BTW, I plan to update the Aleste 520EX documentation soon.
Was planning that, too. Maybe we can discuss stuff here,
http://cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php/topic,551.new.html

> There's already a box at the bottom of the Main Page
> (Searching for autors) where badly needed (ie:missing)
> information is listed (currently only one item).
Great. Another place :-)

So, the correct approach would be to list missing info as category=stub AND in search-for-authors AND as section entitled missing-information.

> (currently only one item)
Doesn't look as if it is popular then. There should be dozens of items, though it'd be terrible work to list all incomplete articles, not to mention to remove them from the list when they are completed.

> This might ignite Forum discussions like the Speech-synth discussions of late.
That's been great, especially gerald found out a lot of info.

It didn't worked for the MHT speech synthesizer though, apparently nobody in the forum owns one, so its cpcwiki article still contains a lot of things marked as "unknown", and even these nasty eye-catching "NoPicture" symbols. I admit that it doesn't look nice, but everybody should see what info is still missing/searched.

[nocash]

> There's already a box at the bottom of the Main Page (Searching for autors)
I think I have found what you meant,

  Become an Author!
  We are searching for authors of the following articles:
  PDW (page does not exist)

Is that a joke? What the hell is a PDW? :-) Do you need an article about... a Public Domain Who-is list? Personal Digital Whatever things? Just say, maybe me or somebody else can write one :-)

[Bryce]

I believe PDW was a German group of programmers who wrote CPC Demos. Not sure what the PDW stood for though.... Pretty Damn Wicked? Painstaking Demo Work? who knows....

Bryce.

[Devilmarkus]

I really must laugh out loudly when I read things like this in WIKI:

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Digital_Joysticks

Using the Keyboard as Joystick Replacement
Most games (should) also support keyboard controls for users who don't own joysticks. Most commonly used keys are:

Cursor keys & SPACE - This is not good for CPC 464 and 664 (which have uncomfortably arranged cursor keys) (only the 6128 and CPC+ do have modern cursor keys; as do emulators with PC keyboards)
Q,A,O,P,SPACE - This is a good solution, and it's sorts of standard (used by many games)
Best would be to implement both of the above solutions. Q-A-O-P is of course for english QWERTY keyboards, on french AZERTY it'd be A-Q-O-P (either way, the bits in the keyboard matrix are the same).

This means, I can always use my keyboard instead of joystick?
Then:
A) Why does the joystick return different keycodes than keyboard?
B) Why does my hag in Cauldron 1 deny to fly when I use this replacement?

Sorry, in my opinion this text is really on wrong place.

It "could" sound like:
"Some games also offer the keys Q,A,O,P and space as fire"

but as it's actually written, a reader will think he can use his keyboard as full replacement.
This is absolutely wrong!

Edit:
Of course most games offer this.
But the wiki page is about digital joysticks and not about replacements.

[nocash]

Hello? I said "most games should", not all games do.
"Most commonly used keys" means what it says.

As far as I know, Q-A-O-P was the closest to a standard convention, the text is there so programmers know which keys would be best to be used for CPC games.

> Edit: Of course most games offer this.
> But the wiki page is about digital joysticks and not about replacements.
Yeah, when implementing joystick support, one shouldn't forget to add keyboard, too. Just a reminder, suggesting that not all cpc-users have joysticks/joypads (as opposed to console owners).

[MacDeath]

Concerning the analog joy topic, as it is actually being searched at the moment (sort of), we know thing will soon change and we may get more proper responses if thing go well.


So as a hot-topic of this moment, we can afford some perhaps as the forum (hereby) is developing it.

Also, well...
Are there that many peoples surfing the CPC wiki ?

Most of those are CPC fanboys (me first), who have one or used too.

So let's say we will try to write more some kind of formulae such as "this is unknown and need a more proper/deep research..."

[arnoldemu]

Hello? I said "most games should", not all games do.
"Most commonly used keys" means what it says.

As far as I know, Q-A-O-P was the closest to a standard convention, the text is there so programmers know which keys would be best to be used for CPC games.

> Edit: Of course most games offer this.
> But the wiki page is about digital joysticks and not about replacements.
Yeah, when implementing joystick support, one shouldn't forget to add keyboard, too. Just a reminder, suggesting that not all cpc-users have joysticks/joypads (as opposed to console owners).

Ok I understand. I have re-worded the text to explain this better. Also I added it to the keyboard programming section.
Finally I added some info about the "keyboard" clash in the keyboard programming section too.

[MacDeath]

I added category:internal components because i felt the keyboard programming page included some internal hardware usefull informations.

[nocash]

Thanks for uploading the photos at http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Dk'tronics_memory_expansion they are great. Almost a bit too many :-) I've moved most of them to a separate gallery, is that okay? And kept only a selection on the 'main' page.

Now, that was about the dk'tronics memory expansion. But, what is the dk'tronics silicon disc?
http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Dk'tronics_Silicon_Disc

The "silicon disk OS version" probably contains an additional BIOS, aside from that, is there a difference between "memory expansion" and "silicon disk"?

[Gryzor]

I may be late, but I totally agree with the opening comment of this thread. I've changed a few articles myself, but there are so many these days it's impossible to catch them all...

The problem is, indeed it's better to have some not 100% verified info than not having it at all. But, it's also very important to watch the phrasing. The articles are NOT discussions, so there shouldn't be first-person sentences, questions etc.

Therefore:

"I think no games support 4096 colors simultaneously on the CPC" should become "It's not certain if any games supported 4096 colours".

Or, "Are there any known games taking advantage of the 64MB VRAM on the Plus2 models" would become "There are no games known that support....".

Very easy, very simple, still the same meaning, much more 'professional'.

[ChaRleyTroniC]

I believe PDW was a German group of programmers who wrote CPC Demos. Not sure what the PDW stood for though

Public Domain Wuppertal. It was the precursor to the infamous BENTG!.

[TFM]

It isn't "Halbwissen". It's a FACT: The cpc+ is 20 years old, but still nobody has documented how the analog port works. I am just the first person who has "discovered" that there is no knowledge on that part.

Well following my agenda "Eigenlob stinkt ;-)" I have to say that there was an article of the CPC Plus in the CPC Amstrad International magazine 1992, where everything about the Plus is documented, but not the Sound-DMA (Couldn't find out how the copper code works in that time). Means the documentation is there, it was published, it seems to be lost. Thats fact ;-)

[TFM]

The "silicon disk OS version" probably contains an additional BIOS, aside from that, is there a difference between "memory expansion" and "silicon disk"?

Yes, you're right literally. The Silicon Disc and the Memory expansion both contain one of two 256 KB RAM blocks. Together they provide 512 KB.

[Executioner]

Q, A, O, P and SPACE should be banned. No human can seriously use their thumb sideways for FIRE!