VGA2CGA (c) Copr. 1989 Lawrence Gozum & Marvin Gozum 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� User Manual DISCLAIMER This product is distributed AS IS. The authors specifically disclaim all warranties ,expressed or implied, including ,but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose with respect to defects in the diskette and documentation, and program license granted herein, in particular, and without limiting operation of the program license with respect to any particular application use or purpose. In no event shall the authors be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. LICENSING AGREEMENT You may use this program on a TRIAL BASIS only; this means that you may freely evaluate the usefulness of this program for 10 DAY TRIAL PERIOD. Should you find this program useful, you must register it (see last section of this manual). You will then be provided with the latest releases of applications that will run on your system. You may freely distribute copies of this program in its UNMODIFIED state provided you do not include it in other software packages, with the exception of distributing it as part of a bundle of Public Domain or shareware programs on a single diskette. You may not charge more that $3.50 for copying and/or distributing this program in the absence of recognized Users Group guidelines (e.g., Association of Shareware Professionals or New York Amateur Computer Club) WHAT IS VGA2CGA ? VGA2CGA is a utility that converts/views colored GIF pictures (256 colors and less) and any of the following listed below to [1] error-distributed, 4-color dithered CGA or 16-Color CGA pictures, with a special unsupported mode; CGA users can convert/view up to 405 colors (from 16 color dither patterns). VGA2CGA saves to GIF or .CGX (for the unsupported mode); you can use VGA2CGA as a CGA viewer for use in batch (.BAT) files. 1) ANY colored GIF picture (32 colors and up recommended), with any size (up to 2048 x 2048 x 256). 2) ANY VIEWABLE VGA/MCGA 320x200x256 picture captured with VGACAP; 3) VGACAD pictures; 4) 16-color pictures converted to 320x200x256 with EGA2VGA. VGA2CGA uses a unique error-distribution algorithm; it uses a Floyd- Steinberg matrix with Stucki filter values (8,4,2,2). Users can individually adjust the color and contrast levels and dither density. CGA2VGA supports a "quarter-resolution" mode by direct manipulation of CGA registers. 16 colors can be displayed at any time. The effective pixel resolution is 640x200x16 with 405 color dither combinations. SEE THOSE 256 COLOR GIF PICTURES ON CGA ! WHAT IS VGACAP ? VGACAP is a terminate-stay-resident (TSR) utility that captures 256 color palettes and screens in VGA/MCGA 320x200x256 color mode. VGACAP will capture and "Bsave" the pictures of commercial and other Shareware viewing/painting/graphics/CAD programs. REQUIREMENTS VGA2CGA requires, at the minimum, a 100% IBM Hardware Compatible CGA card. Hercules users with HGCIBM may find that the program works on their system, BUT ONLY WITH OPTION (1) AT THE MAIN MENU. SVGA and EEGA card users must set CGA hardware emulation to see the unsupported 160x100x16 or 80x100x"405" mode (e.g, "SETMODE IBMCGA" on STB VGA cards). About 512KB of memory is required, although it uses about 2/3 of that. You MUST have a VGA or MCGA adaptor (at least BIOS compatible) present and an analog monitor to use VGACAP. VGACAP uses less than 2K of RAM. HOW TO USE VGACAP Run VGACAP before entering your painting/CAD or digitized picture viewer. Press , while viewing your picture in any paint/CAD program and your current screen and palette will be saved in your default drive and directory in the standard Bsave format for all BASIC programs. The first time you run the program it will save your screen and palette to SCREEN00.BLD and SCREEN00.PLT respectively. If there is an existing SCREENxx.BLD or SCREENxx.PLT file, then it will increment to the next higher number. You can use your favorite memory managers to remove this TSR or reboot to release it from memory. Note: When in DOS or using a picture viewer (e.g., PICEM, VPIC, VGAGIF) or application which requires a keypress to continue, it is necessary to hit another key after hitting the 'HOTKEY'. LOADING PICTURES INTO VGA2CGA Two formats are accepted by VGA2CGA: GIF and BLD/PLT files; At the start of the program, you will be prompted to select [G]IF or [B]LD files to to selected or [Q]uit to exit. All pictures are interpolated to a 320x200 size. As such, SuperVGA GIF files (e.g., 640x480x256, 800x600x256 and 1024x768x256) are interpolated to 320x200x256; SQZGIF is recommended for LARGE GIF pictures to retain more color information and better color rendition. 16-color EGA/EEGA/VGA pictures will also be interpolated; use EGA2VGA to process such pictures before loading into VGA2CGA. You can select any filename by moving a highlighted bar (with the arrow keys) and pressing the key. Pressing allows you to select a different PATH, while exits. When selecting a *.BLD file, be sure it has a corresponding *.PLT file or a error message will result. PATHs MUST end with a backslash character "\" or your specified PATH will be rejected (an error beep will result). The following are legal PATH examples: "A:\" "B:\" "C:\GIF\" "D:\GIF\VGA\LARGE\" Every captured picture, VGACAD picture, converted EGA2VGA or SQZGIF or MAC2GIF picture will have two files:screen and palette. The extension .BLD stands for BLoaD and .PLT for PaLetTe. THE MAIN MENU After successful loading of your picture you will see these options: (1) Red-Grn-Yel Plane Dithering 320 x 200 x 4 (IBM-STD w/ GIF save) (2) EGA Low Contrast Emulation 160 x 100 x 16 (NON-STD w/ CGX save) (3) EGA Med Contrast Emulation 160 x 100 x 16 (NON-STD w/ CGX save) (4) EGA Hi Contrast Emulation 160 x 100 x 16 (NON-STD w/ CGX save) (5) EGA Monochrome Emulation 160 x 100 x 16 (NON-STD w/ CGX save) (6) HI Color Averaged Dithering 80 x 100 x 405 (NON-STD w/ CGX save) (7) LO Color Averaged Dithering 80 x 100 x 405 (NON-STD w/ CGX save) (8) Grey Averaged Dithering 80 x 100 x 13 (NON-STD w/ CGX save) (F)ine Tuning (N)ew Picture (Q)uit Select the letter or the number to initiate that function or option. VIEWING & SAVING Whenever you select a viewing mode you will have the option change the path and file names for saving. Pathname : C:\GIF\ Filename : NONAME.GIF While viewing the picture in CGA 320x200x4 mode you can change the palette to alter the tone of the picture by pressing numbers 0-9. With unsupproted modes 2 to 8, only saves to a CGX file are allowed since it is a weird text screen format; the .CGX extension is provided to avoid confusion with your other .BIN files. To use VGA2CGA as a viewer type "VGA2CGA [picname]" without the extension. Pressing while viweing saves your converted picture; pressing aborts processing and saving. FINE TUNING To get the BEST color dithering or color matching, interactively adjust the color levels, contrast levels and dither density levels. When you select (F)ine Tuning, you can adjust the global amounts of Red, Green and Blue in you picture. At default it is 100%; this can be increased up to 200% The CGA 320x200x4 color mode uses only red and Green; Blue is disregarded. While "fine tuning", you can adjust the contrast levels for each of the RGB planes; this has no effect on color-averaging and is limited to the red-green-yellow dithering 320x200x4 mode. Increasing the contrast will increase the amount of "black" in the picture by making a sharp cutoff (i.e., no color will be plotted). Dither Density is how closely packed neighboring pixel will be; at default this is set to 1 - the highest density possible. If you want to "spread the dots" you can increase this level up to 200. REGISTRATION BONUS: Registered users of VGACAD v1.4-1.5, VGA2EGA v1-2, SQZGIF v1.0-v1.3, GIFDOT v1.0-1.3, MAC2GIF v1-2 and/or EGA2VGA v1-3 and/or GIFPUB v1.0-v1.4 are registered. Copy your REGISTER.OVL file into the directory of VGA2CGA and it will operate as a registered version. IF YOU HAVE NOT REGISTERED ANY OF THESE PROGRAMS, DO SO NOW; when VGACAD v1.60 is released, all new releases will require REGISTER.V16 to operate as a non-shareware version. For 19.95 (outside of U.S.A. add USD $15.00) you will be entitled to the latest update of VGA2CGA and REGISTER.V16 file (when released). The following programs listed below are provided (latest copy or update) to registered users. As much as possible, we are changing all utilities to work with ANY video card; programs that, at present, work with ANY video card are: GIFPUB, GIFDOT, EGA2VGA, MAC2GIF and SQZGIF. We intend to release as many utilities to with device-independent capabilities. If you upgrade to EGA or VGA, please inform us as soon as possible so that we may send you EGA-dependent and VGA-dependent releases too. * Device-independent utilities GIFPUB - converts 256 color GIFs to B&W images of varying sizes for desktop publishing/printing as .PCX (ZSoft format for Ventura Desk Top Publisher, First Publisher, Publisher's Paintbrush, PC Paintbrush+) or rename files to .PCC for importing in Aldus Pagemaker. GIFDOT - converts 256 color GIFs to B&W images of varying sizes for printing on IBM and Epson compatible printers (separate drivers). Several print sizes with perfect aspect ratios. Variable Brightness and Contrast Stretching. Single or Double pass printing. Histogram Analysis SQZGIF - converts LARGE GIF pictures (up to 2048x2048x256) to 320x200x256 using interpolation and "color averaging" techniques to blend/smooth "jaggies" inherent in reducing LARGE GIFS while retaining a maximum of color information. MAC2GIF - converts .MAC ("readmac") pictures to 5-16 grey shades or color and saves results as .GIF or BLD/PLT file, and other formats; graphics are viewable in VGA, MCGA or EGA - no video card is required for direct Black & White conversion to GIF. EGA2VGA (v3.0) - converts GIFs (16 colors and below) or ANY VIEWABLE 2-16 color EGA/EEGA picture to 320x200x256; creates 256 new colors; outputs directly to GIFPUB, GIFDOT, VGACAD, VGA2CGA or VGA2EGA. * Device-dependent utilities/applications VGA2EGA - Conversion program for displaying 256 color pictures on EGA-bound systems. Features extensive control of RGBCMY color, contrast, dithering levels. Variable Sizing. Extended EGA support. Saves to GIF. Optional PCX save to 4 RGBI planes for Desktop Color Separation. VGACAD - extensive paint/image processing program for VGA/MCGA users; v1.50 features extensive paintingcapabilities, an integrated GIF interface, Airbrushes, color and grey image processing functions (smoothing, noise removal, shading, contrast stertching, edge detection, high frequency-boosting, ... more), Bezier/spline curves, multi-featured Cut&Paste, variable sizing, multi-directiona 256-color gradient fills, 256 color 16x16 pattern fills, and a LOT of other 256-color capabilities. Whats next ? SYNPCX is utility to convert dithered, monochrome .PCX (Zsoft) files to smooth grey shades. This utility is primarily designed to convert scanned (e.g., Logitech & DFI hand scanners) Black & White images, saved to a .PCX file, for use and image processing with VGACAD, redithering with GIFPUB, printing with GIFDOT, or EGA conversion with VGA2EGA. SYNPCX will be graphics device independent (No Video Required). We are also, developing VGASHW (a 256-color presentation system), VGACBT (the PROGRAMMABLE Computer-Based Training counterpart of VGASHW) AND MANNEQUIN (what "Weird Science" tried to do in the movie it will do on the computer screen with potential applications for Advertising and Fashion Design, aside from creating your own artistic nudes). If you support maverick authors like us, we will continue to develop innovative products like nothing seen commercially - otherwise they will, as many (sigh!) good Shareware programs, simply "DIE" from lack of support ! Compare the cost/benefit ratio of any of our products with commercial products; we want to continue supporting and developing these products. Please support the User-Supported (Shareware) concept; you, and you alone, determine whether it will be worthwhile to continue developing. To register, send in the registration form and check payable to Dr. Marvin Gozum 2 Independence Place Apt. 303-2 6th & Locust Street Philadelphia, PA 19106 NEW! 3.5" disk users: We are now supporting this format. If you want your updates in this format, add $10.00. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� Graphics Interchange Format and GIF are trademarks (tm) of CompuServe Inc. an H&R Block Company.