World Federation of Mad Hackers is proud to present you T H E ## ##### ##### ##### ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##### ##### ##### ##### ## ## ##### ##### ##### ##### ##### ## ## ##### ## ## ##### #### ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##### ##### #### #### #### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## version 1.1 by Thorgal/W.F.M.H. Released on 91-06-26. This is the shareware program. If you use it, a contribution of $5 should be paid. If you send $10 (or more) you will receive, when available, the next version of "Logos Maker". Please state the version of the software that you currently have. Send money order to: Milek Smyk Orawska 22/34 70-131 Szczecin POLAND And if you're a miser, greet me in your programs at least. If you've any notes about the "Logos Maker", you've found a bug, you got an idea to improve this program or you just need some help with using it, write at address above. The folowing document is a standard ATASCII text file without any control characters, therefore it can be printed with any text-editor on every printer. Forget and forgive me all the fatal bugs in my english, I know it isn't the best. Hope all is clear now, so... INTRODUCTION. It often happens that you want to show some graphics in your program. Somebody can say the easiest way to do it is to set graphics mode and to use standard picture data created with any painting program. But is it the best way? Antic does its DMA data fetch much faster when a text mode is being used. Also, a picture stored in the text format usually needs less memory than in graphics one. And even if you use very complex image and it takes nearly the same amount of bytes as before converting, you have to know that these bytes are located in the charset data and not in the screen data. Thus, moving such picture around the screen takes much shorter time (either you're using DL's Load Memory Scan instruction or transferring data in memory). The only reason for which text-pictures aren't so popular on ATARI as on Commodore 64 is lack of programs to transform from one format to other...yeah, I know some funny freaks that do converting with using sheet of paper, but...errr... it's really uncomfortable. Since the "Logos Maker" has been introduced it isn't the problem anymore! LOADING. TAPE - I'm not absolutely sure, whether the "LM" works with tape at all. But if so, it needs to be loaded after any disk-file-loader (like that, which displays "!" in the lower-right corner of a screen). Next set the "Drive" selector in menu "Prefs" to position "CAS" and...I hope it will work. DISK - the "LM" should work properly with nearly all DOSes - I personally tested it with ATARI DOS 2.0, 2.5, SuperDos 2.9, 4.3E, DOS XL 2.35 - no troubles at all. Anyway, I know that the "LM" causes a shit with SPARTADOS (I haven't foreseen subdirectories and DOS screen initializer which doesn't open an "E:" handler). Also, the "LM" can be loaded from any microdos but then it cannot communicate with the drive of course. FIRST SIGHT. In the upper part of the screen you can see a single line with names of menus and bright cursor on the left. You can move it with + and * keys (usual cursor keys, but no need to use CONTROL). At the bottom there are two lines. The upper one describes an actual mode the "LM" is in and displays error messages, the lower line informs you about colors. Here's also a cursor which can be moved by pressing START key. An empty space between the upper line and the lower ones is destined to show you a converted picture. GETTING STARTED. Since you can move the main cursor around MENU-line, set it on the "files" and press the RETURN key. A single window opens below. The cursor is in it, and this time you can move it by pressing - and = keys. Press ESC key to quit - window closes and you're back in the MENU-line. There is the general way the "LM" handles a keyboard: - = + * keys move the cursor, RETURN confirms choice, ESC aborts work with actually selected option and/or closes a window. The exception is in using the "color" cursor. It moves when you press START, and changes an amount of selected color register when you press SELECT (hue) or OPTION (luminance). WORKING. One can say that you already got a little experience with using menus and submenus, so let's start with doing something really interesting. First let's check up what's going on the "LM" master disk. Pull down the "Files" menu and then select "Directory" gadget. After few seconds a window filled up with names of files stored on disk appears in the front of you. Below you can see the number of free sectors. As usually, you can move through by pressing - and = keys. Find a "SPACE.FWA" file. Got it? The extension tells you that this picture has been made with using "Fun With Art". Since it's immposible for the "LM" to distinguish all the image formats, I've made a submenu "Prefs/Pic's standard". Pull it down and then select "Fun With Art" gadget. Done? A little ball indicates actually selected format. Then go to "Files/Load pic" and type in the name of the picture to load (SPACE.FWA), press RETURN and wait a minute. If everything is all right, the window with filename disappears and you can leave "Files" by pressing ESC. The screen is empty!?! Don't worry, the screen shows you converted picture and because you haven't made it yet - it's empty. Now select the "Works/Start convert" gadget. See? Converted picture appears on the screen. Set "Prefs/Int. indicator" on to see where the DLI interrupts change CHBASE register. Detailed information about charsets and chars used in each of them can be found in "Data" window. Also, here is the number of the last occured error. Now you can use invers to add another (5th) color to the picture. Select "Works/Set invers". A blinking cursor appears in upper-left corner. As usually, you can move it by + * - = keys. RETURN inverses the character under the cursor. Refer to the "ATARI HARDWARE MANUAL" if you don't know how invers works in text mode (I mean three color text mode). Yeah! I would forgot! The "LM" works also in hi-res mode. Simply, set the "Prefs/Graphics mode" to $08 and everything is sharp, perfect and without colors. Is your image correctly converted? If so,... SAVING. There are three "Save" options in "Files" menu: "Save data" saves the data for the screen memory. They are always $3C0 (960 dec) bytes long. "Save font" saves contens of charset(s) which was (were) used to hold the picture data. If there wasn't any converting at all, or if you have just used the "Works/Clear all" function, nothing will be stored on disk. File length equals to $400*(number of used charsets). "Save DL" saves the Display List needed to display the image. It's an ASCII file, so it can be modified/assembled with any assember. For example you can read it with MAC/65 command "ENTER#D:FILENAME.EXT". The "SCREEN.DATA" label should point to your data saved with "Files/Save data". This file is always $183 (387 dec) bytes long. GOOD BYE. If you want to quit "LM", simply select "Files/Quit" and after few moments you're back in a DOS. OTHER USEFUL COMMANDS. When the directory appears and you move through the list of files you can press the RETURN key. The actually indicated name is transferred to the "filename window" of "Load" and "Save" options. The name stays there till you change it either directly by operating in this window or by the next use of the "Directory" function. "Prefs/Optymizing" gives you ability of controlling the conversion process. When it's set to "Off" the "LM" simply takes the picture data and converts them into the text mode (Hi Frankenstein!). When the "Normal" position is selected, the "LM" checks if just converted character is "empty" and if so, replaces it with "space" code (0). It could be useful sometimes. And if the "Full" option is selected, the "LM" checks if just converted character has appeared before in actually converted charset. If so, the "LM" simply places code of "twin" byte apart of the new one. It really shrinks the picture data and sometimes ables you to have the picture which looks like four kilobytes long, and only has one. "Prefs/Drive" lets you select a storage device to use with "Directory", "Load" and "Save" commands. "Prefs/Directory sort" controls the way which a list of files is sorted in. It provides sorting in the alphabetical order by the names or by the extensions. When it's set to "Off", no sorting is done, and files appear successively as they are in the directory sectors. APPENDIX A - PICTURE FORMATS SUPPORTED. "Raw screen" - raw screen data without header and color info. "Ilustrator" - a program by Zbigniew Trepka. "Fun With Art" - a program by EPYX. "Micropainter" - commonly used picture format - "Blazing Paddles", "XL-Art" and "The Micropainter" of course. APPENDIX B - COMMANDS SUMMARY. Files/ Directory Load pic Save data Save fonts Save DL Quit Works/ Start convert Set invers Clear all Prefs/ Graphics mode Pic's standard Int. indicator Optymizing Directory sort Drive APPENDIX C - FILES ON THE MASTER DISK DOS.SYS DUP.SYS - two DOS 2.5 files. LOGOS.COM - the "Logos Maker" v1.1 INT.ASM - VBL and DL interrupt routines prepared to use with Display List created by "Files/Save DL". EXAMPLE.ASM - shows how to use INT.ASM and Display List. SPACE.FWA - a picture in "Fun With Art" format. COMMY.RAW - a raw picture of font (hi-res). LOGOS.DOC - this nice document. LAST WORD. Author wishes to thank Magnus for his constructive criticism and for packing the "Logos Maker", and "small" ATARI for being. Thorgal/World Federation of Mad Hackers