ConvertHAM v1.2 --------------- ©1992-93 David Kinder --------------------- Introduction ------------ ConvertHAM is a little utility to convert HAM (Hold-And-Modify) IFF pictures into ordinary IFF ILBM pictures. On an ordinary Amiga the converted pictures can have between 2 and 32 colours; on an AGA equiped machine the maximum number of colours is 256. I quite often want to use a piece of a HAM picture in DPaint for my own work, and getting at the data proved very difficult. Okay, so I could have bought one of the commercial conversion programs available, but I don't have that sort of money to spend and anyway I don't really need the complexity they offer, so I wrote this. Running ConvertHAM ------------------ Just type 'ConvertHAM' at the CLI or click on it's icon. Note that both 'reqtools.library' v38+ and 'iff.library' v23+ must be in the current LIBS: directory for ConvertHAM to be able to run. Using ConvertHAM ---------------- ConvertHAM is controlled using the gadgets and the menu. Looking at the window, the layout is: Loaded Gives the name of the HAM picture currently loaded into memory. Colours Use the slider to select how many colours you wish the converted picture to use. Obviously the best results are obtained by using the most colours. 'Load' gadget The file requester to allow you to select a HAM picture to load in, erasing the HAM picture currently in memory. 'Save' gadget When active, allows you to save a converted picture. 'Free' gadget Frees memory by closing the screen (if active) and flushing any HAM picture out of memory. 'Screen' gadget If active brings the screen to the front of the display. 'Convert HAM picture' Initiates the conversion routine. The currently loaded HAM picture is analyzed. After a short pause the program will then open a screen and draw the converted picture into the screen. While the program is working you can press the 'ESC' key to stop. 'About' gadget Some information about the program. Status Tells you what the program is currently doing. The options in the menu are: Load HAM Same as 'Load' gadget. Save IFF Same as 'Save' gadget. Free Mem Same as 'Free' gadget. About Same as 'About' gadget. Quit Quits ConvertHAM. A quick example --------------- When the program has started, click on the 'Load' gadget. Find a disk with some HAM pictures on it then use the file requester to select a HAM file. ConvertHAM will load the picture. Click on the 'Convert HAM Picture' gadget and wait until the program has finished drawing the converted picture on the screen. Go back to the ConvertHAM window and click on the Save gadget, then use the requester to select the name of the file to save to, e.g. 'RAM:Test.pic'. Now you can load 'Test.pic' into DPaint or whatever you wish. Finally ------- This program was written in with HiSoft's Devpac assembler. Thanks to Niço Francois Author of 'reqtools.library' Christian Weber Author of 'iff.library' History ------- v1.0 First release. v1.1 Improved appearance when running under AmigaDOS2. v1.2 ConvertHAM now behaves if the system font is not topaz/8. Menus have new look for AmigaDOS3. Redesigned main window; new 'About' gadget; slider gadget to select colours. Changed from 'req.library' to 'reqtools.library'. Now requires 'iff.library' v23 or higher to avoid a bug that crashes ConvertHAM while saving a picture on 68000 machines. On AGA machines converted pictures can have up to 256 colours.