ROBOVID Programs - Copyright 1992 by Microdex Corporation
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Designed by Chris Fara. Simple BASIC "robot" programs for
Mod-III or Mod-4 to "paint" a screen with any text layout
and save it as a BASIC subroutine with PRINT@ commands,
without any leading or trailing blanks. The subroutine can
be later MERGEd with any BASIC program. It's a sort of
"WYSIWYG" screen layout technique ("What You See Is What
You'll Get"). It sure beats the manual figuring of all those
PRINT@ commands, and saves much memory and disk space in
comparison with dumping an entire screen image.

Program files are in ASCII format for easy portability.

       ROBOVID3/BAS   for Model III TRSDOS 1.3 and LDOS 5.x
       ROBOVID4/BAS   for Model 4   LS-DOS 6.3 or higher

Note: Mod-4 version requires LS-DOS 6.3 BASIC.
It won't work with TRSDOS 6.1 or 6.2 BASIC.

Usage: The programs consist of 2 parts:
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Lines 20-44:  A blank screen appears. Use arrows to move
cursor around the screen and type anything anywhere. Under
LDOS and LS-DOS graphic characters can be also typed with
CLEAR+KEY combinations. To erase characters overtype them
with blank spaces. Admittedly this "full screen editor" is
rather quick-and-dirty, but it works. You can expand its
editing capabilities, if you feel like it.

Lines 50-82:  Press SHIFT+CLEAR to terminate screen editing.
The program scans the screen row-by-row, trims leading and
trailing blanks, creates one PRINT@ program line for each
non-blank row, and saves the subroutine in an ASCII file.
When there are many blank rows or rows with many leading and
trailing spaces, then the scan may take a few seconds:
hundreds of MID$ comparisons are made. But it's time well
spent: tons of useless blanks are eliminated.

The resulting file looks just like any BASIC program saved
with the "A" option. MERGE "SCREEN/SUB" into any BASIC
program and then simply GOSUB 10000 to display the screen.
The default file name "SCREEN/SUB" can be changed in line
51. The default line numbers 10000-10029 of the resulting
subroutine can be changed in program lines 52, 70 and 81.

The string A$ in line 16 of Mod-4 version must be "literal"
with exactly 80 characters between quotes and must be
written in one of the initial program lines. It serves as a
transfer "buffer" to the "hidden" video memory of Mod-4.

Questions?

Write Chris, c/o Microdex, 1212 N. Sawtelle, Tucson AZ 85716

