|AÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ»ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» |Aº |6Picture This|A ºÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ ^1Abstract Art |AÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͺ |6Picture This|A º |AÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ ^Cby ^CTerry Wilk INTRODUCTION TO ABART --------------------- ABART is an abstract art program that can operate with CGA, EGA or VGA video modes. ABART draws graphic displays on your video monitor. You just sit back and watch the movement, patterns, and colors as they are drawn on your screen. ABART provides many classes of graphic images for you to choose from, such as COMETS, CRYSTALS, and WEB. From each class, an unlimited number of images are drawn at random. Normally, an image is drawn, then a few seconds pause lets you view the completed image. After the pause, the screen is cleared and a new image of that class is drawn. ABART uses simple menus to select the options or images. When you first start the program default modes will be chosen for you. All you need to do is press a key to watch the graphic images as they are generated. However, the initial default program values may be altered to produce different display effects. HOW TO USE THE MENUS -------------------- When you start ABART the main menu is displayed. The main menu contains a list of display control functions as well as a list of the graphic images that can be generated. The display control list, located on the left side of the main menu, provides the controls for the graphic image effects as well as the help and exit functions. The right side of the main menu contains a list of the graphic images that can be displayed. ABART's menus are simply a list of options. You choose from the list what you want to do by pressing the key that is associated with that option. You may also use the point and shoot method by pressing the [ARROW keys] to move the flashing marker to that option, then press [ENTER]. From the main menu, the [A] through [M] keys select a graphic image to display. For example, to run the WEB image, press the [G] key. The display will continue running until you press any key on your keyboard (such as the [SPACE BAR]). Once the display has stopped you will see the display menu on the very top of the screen. To get back to the main menu, press [M] or [ESC]. NOTE: There may be a few seconds delay before display of a graphic image halts. The [F1] key is always a help key. You may press [F1] from any of the menus to display help information about that menu's options. ABART is set up so that if you want to exit any area of the program, you need only press the [ESC] key. The [ESC] key will also let you exit a user prompt. For example, if you press the [F4] key from the main menu, for the "Display Hold Time", you will be prompted to enter a number. If you do not want to enter a number, just press [ESC]. HELP, I'M LOST IN A SEA OF MENUS -------------------------------- ABART has many menus. If you happen to get yourself lost, just keep pressing the [ESC] key. Doing this will eventually put you back to the main menu or out of ABART completely. THE CASE OF THE MISSING OPTIONS ------------------------------- You may notice that some of your menus are missing options that you read about here or see on the help screens. This is normal. Not all options are valid for all video types. For example, an EGA video card does not support a 256 color mode. So you will not see any 256 color mode options on your menus. MAIN MENU OPTIONS ----------------- This is the very first menu that you will see in ABART. A-M Runs a graphic display. While any display is running, press any key to stop (such as the [SPACE BAR]). This will bring up the DISPLAY MENU. F2 Lets you enter a display value. This value changes ABART so that you will get a new set of patterns drawn for the displays. F3 Lets you change the video mode that graphic displays are run in. Pressing this key will bring up the SET VIDEO MODE MENU. F4 Lets you set the number of seconds that a completed display will be held before continuing with a new display. F5 Lets you slow down the speed at which displays are drawn. The higher the value you set, the slower the displays are drawn. F6 EGA/VGA only. Will toggle ABART between leaving the display background black or setting it to a random color during palette changes. See DISPLAY MENU for more. F7 VGA 256 color mode only. Will toggle ABART's cycle color mode ON or OFF. When ON, will yield a color rainbow effect to displays. See SET CYCLE COLOR RANGE for more. F8 Continuous display mode. You choose what displays to run and for how long each one will run. See SET CONTINUOUS DISPLAY MENU for more. F10 Reset ABART to initial default settings. ALT-S Save to a disk file the current settings of ABART. ALT-L Load from a disk file the saved settings. SAVING AND LOADING SETTINGS --------------------------- Through the main menu, ALT-S will allow you to save the current ABART settings to a disk file. ALT-L will allow you to load these saved settings at any time. Thus, if you have worked out a favorite set up, it can easily be saved. For both load and save, you will be asked to enter a file name. Type in the name you want to use and press [ENTER]. To see a directory listing of the existing files on disk, enter nothing at the file name prompt, just press [ENTER]. You will be prompted for a directory to list. Type in the directory you want and press [ENTER]. For the current directory, press [ENTER]. Once the directory list is shown, use the [LEFT ARROW], [RIGHT ARROW], [HOME], [END], [PGUP], and [PGDN] to point to a file. Press [ENTER] to save/load under that file name. As a safeguard, you will always be prompted when overwriting any existing file. DISPLAY MENU OPTIONS -------------------- While you are viewing a graphic display, you can press any key to stop the display and bring up the graphic display menu. NOTE: There may be a small delay before the display stops (fraction of a second to a few seconds). If you have a large speed delay, or a slow computer, then expect a longer delay before the display stops. M Go back to main menu. C Clear the screen and continue with the graphic display. G Go, continue with graphic display. P With each press of this key, ABART will randomly change the colors you see. When you like a particular set of colors, then stop pressing this key. Note, only the first 16 colors for the VGA 256 color mode will be changed. For CGA, the next palette, if any, will appear. Note that for option [P], the background will always be black unless the main menu [F6] key is used to toggle on background color change. Note that if video mode '640x200 2 color CGA' is set than option [P] will not be active. SET VIDEO MENU OPTIONS ---------------------- You can change the setting of the display video mode. Changing the video mode will change the resolution and number of colors displayed. This gives different effects for the displays. If your video card does not support a given video mode, then those modes will not be shown on this menu. ABART supports 2 modes for CGA, 5 modes for EGA, and 8 modes for VGA. After you have chosen a video mode, you will be shown the colors it supports. Most displays will react differently depending on the mode you set. For example, if you choose a low resolution mode such as one of the 320 by 200 modes, ABART will tighten up pixel gaps between lines so that they do not look too open. In the VGA 256 color mode, this also gives a better rainbow effect. SET PALETTE MENU OPTIONS ------------------------ V Lets you change the video display mode. X Active only for CGA video type, low res 4 color mode. Set to next palette. S EGA/VGA only. Allows you to change the colors displayed. Pressing this key will bring up the USER SET PALETTE MENU. R EGA/VGA only. Lets ABART randomly set the colors for you with each press of this key. Note for VGA 256 color mode, only sets the first 16 colors. N EGA/VGA only. Set palette colors back to normal. I VGA 256 color mode only. lets you set a range of colors to cycle through. Pressing this key will bring up the SET CYCLE COLOR RANGE MENU. USER SET PALETTE OPTIONS ------------------------ For the EGA and VGA card, you can change (remap) the color palettes yourself. You may remap all 16 colors for the EGA and only the first 16 colors for the VGA. Use the [LEFT] and [RIGHT] arrow keys to choose one of the 16 colors to be remapped. The first color bar is the background color. The small up arrow on your screen points to the color to be changed. For EGA: Use the [UP] and [DOWN] arrow keys to set the color value. There are 64 (0-63) values you may assign to each of the 16 colors. For VGA: You can remap the 1st 16 colors to any of 262,144 colors. You do this by changing the intensity of the Red, Green, or Blue components that make up the VGA color spectrum. Each component has a range of 64 (0-63) intensities. The [R] key will increase, [T] key decrease the Red component. The [G] key will increase, [H] key decrease the Green component. The [B] key will increase, [N] key decrease the Blue component. SET CYCLE COLOR RANGE OPTIONS ----------------------------- Cycle color mode is only effective in VGA 256 color video mode. When the cycle colors switch is ON ([F7] from main menu), ABART uses the range of colors you choose for displays. When this switch is OFF, ABART picks colors at random. The cycle colors mode gives the displays a rainbow effect. ABART starts with the low value (color) of the range, doing (roughly) a line of the drawing, then picks the next value in the range and draws another line, and so on. When the end of the range is reached (high value), ABART starts back at the low value. You can see this best this by running the cylinders display in this mode. Use the [RIGHT] & [LEFT] arrow keys to increase or decrease the low value. Use the [HOME] and [PGUP] keys to increase or decrease the high value. SET CONTINUOUS DISPLAY MENU OPTIONS ----------------------------------- Here you tell ABART which displays to run and how long to run each. Once you have made your choices, ABART will cycle through each display and run it for the time you set. To stop the continuous display, press any key to bring up the display menu, then press [ESC] or [M] to get back to the main menu. To select an image, move the flashing marker to the graphic you want to run, press [ENTER], you will then be prompted for a length of time to run that image. Keep repeating this process until you have all the graphic images you want to run. Press the [TAB] key to start. To reset all the display times to 0, press [ALT-C]. HOW TO FIX PROBLEMS ------------------- Due to the variety of video cards and different system configurations, I cannot guarantee that ABART will run on them all. If you have problems, try the following: 1. Read your video card manual for any help it may give on running software. 2. If your video card has auto video mode switching, turn this feature off. 3. Do not run TSR bios accelerator programs. 4. Do not run TSR programs that keep setting the color palettes. CLOSING COMMENTS ---------------- I started writing ABART because I had seen many graphic programs, found them most interesting to watch, and wanted to try it. I hope you will enjoy watching ABART as much as I do. ^C^1ABART requires a color graphics video card.^0 To run this program outside the ^1BIG BLUE DISK^0 menu, type ^1ABART^0. DISK FILES USED BY ABSTRACT ART: ^FABART.EXE