********************************** * * * The Sinclair Picture Converter * * * ********************************** Introduction As you may well know know by now, people are witnessing the 16-bit boom. Everyone is buying the latest hip, fab and trendy machines that are popping up on the market, the most superior in many respects being the Amiga. Of course, before the Amiga was even a twinkle in the eye of Jay Miner the ZX Spectrum ruled. It was the first computer I had ever used, and I was 6 at the time. I remember having to explain to people what graphics were, but people are more computer literate nowadays. But you didn't get this software for a lecture on 8-bit computers, did you ? I thought not, well read on... Speccy pix So you may either have a nice collection of Spectrum format pictures, or you have a modem of somesort. Additionally, you may have some kind of datalink cable in which you ported some pictures. Perhaps you may have used the horrendously slow SPECTRUM EMULATOR that is currently in the PD, but is not written by me! The advantage which my program has over the emulator is that that picture quality is more enhanced. What I mean is that it caters for all 16 of the Spectrum's colours (not flashing!), and not just BRIGHT, like the emulator does. Also my program allows you to save them in IFF foramt, the emulator doesn't. So therefore the pictures developed on a Spectrum take up very little memory, just 6.75K, in actual fact. If you are a Deluxe Paint fan than you will no doubt know that this is a very small amount compared to a standard Amiga picture of the same depth. This is because the Speccy holds it's screen data differently to the Amiga. I won't go into the details of the screen composition, but I'll just say that this difference accounts for why the Spectrum is cursed with `colour clash'. You can do worse than pick up `Spectrum Machine Code' (Stewart/Jones, Shiva 1983) and have a butchers at the way the screen is built up (you can view the converting process for a better idea of how it works!). Boot-up and go! Before I start boring you with the intricacies of the program some of you may find the boot-up and go method more appropriate. I have left some examples in a drawer of the same name. Inside the Examples drawer you'll find two more directories: Sinclair, and Amiga. Sinclair holds the Sinclair format pictures, ready for conversion, and Amiga holds the same pictures that have already been converted with the program in IFF format. Simply load the program from either Workbench (memory permitting), or boot the disc, and select F1 from the menu. Click on Load ZX once you've entered the program, and find the Examples, and then the Sinclair drawers. Find the picture called "Wally", and double click on it. After a short pause the file will be loaded. Click on Convert, and wait for the bell. Click the mouse button when you hear it, and goto Save IFF, and enter any name, to save it out. Phew! How about the program ? Ah, finally the program documentation. For those of you who would like a more detailed description of the functions, then read on. After loading the program it will attempt to close the workbench, after doing so you can see seven icons. These are labelled like so: REPORT CONVERT LOAD ZX SAVE IFF ON OFF QUIT I'll start from the top, then... REPORT ------ If you click on this icon, then it simply displays the standard INFO message on many utilities, ie. the author. CONVERT ------- By clicking on this icon the converter is kicked into action. If you have loaded a Speccy picture via the LOAD ZX option then conversion will commence. Notice that it creates the picture just like a Spectrum does. You may only use this function if you have loaded a Spectrum picture first. Whilst the conversion is taking place you can click the left mouse button to abort. In doing so, the converter does not discard what it has done already, just in case you are converting a picture which is smaller than a Speccy screen (256x192) allowing you to save its contents, but allows you to start converting again (which it doesn't do unless you've either loaded another picture, or stopped it in the middle of conversion). If you have closed the Workbench, then the converter will halt all interrupts, and task-switching (which, in essence eliminates multi-tasking). This means that the system has been completely killed allowing more processor time to be devoted to converting your pictures. This function is disabled when the Workbench is active, just in case you wish to run several programs at once. It is possible to have programs which themselves close Workbench, so if you intend to use the system kill, then make sure that this program is the only one running. LOAD ZX ------- This will generate a requester which works just like many others. You can hold the right mouse button to obtain a list of devices, should the computer start reading a different volume. Note that Sinclair format pictures don't have a specific format, or header like IFF pictures have so there is no way of testing that the picture is actually the correct one. The only way I can think of explaining how to differenciate a picture file is the length. A Speccy pic is always 6912 bytes long. If you load anything longer than that into it, then it will allocate a buffer to the size of the file you wish to load, and then take the first 6912 bytes for conversion, and discard the rest. Some picture files may save the system variables as well, as a form of protection, this doesn't affect the conversion in any way. SAVE IFF -------- This saves a converted, or even semi-converted picture in compressed IFF format ready for loading into most paint programs including Photon Paint, Deluxe Paint, Spritz Paint, Graphics Workshop and many others. Note that a picture has to have been loaded, and at least commenced convertion before it will give you the thumbs up to save. QUIT ---- This simply exits the program, and wipes all pictures currently in the memory, so there is no turning back. I have given my program a more Workbench like interface. If you have ever stretched Workbench to the limit and have ever held a mouse button after clicking on an icon, and then shifted the mouse away from the icon, you'll find that it isn't activated, a sort of safety net, if you like. I found this quite useful, and so I have incorporated it into the program (in my own algorythms). So after half clicking on an icon, and thinking that you want to opt out, simply move the mouse away from the icon, or even onto another icon and let go of the buttton. On the subject of Workbench, the programs on the disc are runnable from either Workbench, or CLI. The only drawback to them being Workbench compatible is that the CLI isn't freed when it's run -a small price to pay for this compatibility because you can use the RUN command from your Workbench's C directory. Well, I hope that you like the program, and find it extremely useful. Speccy pictures, believe it or not make very good icons, as they are already dithered in many places. If you see the last `snowing' screen on the titles this is actually a Spectrum picture, converted with this program, and edited with Deluxe Paint. Actually, the alien came from a loading screen from a ame called HIGHWAY ENCOUNTER on the Speccy. I used my Multiface 128 to rip it and put it into OCP Art Studio. Colin Troy, a friend of mine, took one of the heads on the pic, and turned it into a Santa Claus by adding the appropraite clothing. I added then rest, and then I ported it. So, there you have it! I hope that you will write to me with comments, bug reports (bugs ? what bugs ?) contributions and other goodies. Don't forget that the program is shareware, so a 5 quid contribution wouldn't go amiss. I'll just plug some more great RAMAGE software: CODER V2.0- A program that will happily encrypt ANY format of file with a key code of your choice, and make it illegible to others. MUSIC MANIA V2.0- A very deluxe music package for playing all your favourite compositions with many functions, VU meters, prefs etc. BOOT UTILITIES- A great utility for editing bootblocks from discs. You can make executable bootblocks, compare and even extract them. COLOURSCROLL- A neat demo which has swirling colours in a scrolly, bouncy copper bars, nice music and more, what more can you ask ? ZIP- Grab sprites from any IFF picture in an interstingly user-friendly manner. If you want more details then you can get the RAMAGE demo which gives you more details about the latest programs. You can reach me at: 178 Carterhatch Road, Enfield, Middlesex England EN3 5LY See ya!