ftp.whtech.com/ftp.whtech.com.tar/ftp.whtech.com/articles/archives/limanews.exe/XHITUTOR.TXT

Text File | 2006-10-19 | 10KB | 191 lines

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 1989


     ^^^^^^^ XHi update, and HARDCOPY tutorial
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User Group

     I now have, direct from the author Alexander Hulpke XHi
v3.41, released in late August 1989.  Version 3.2
was reviewed by me in the Sept 89 issue of BB&&P.  Any
interested user group or paid member of the Lima UG can
obtain a copy of v3.41 by sending a disk and paid return
mailer to P.O. Box 647, Venedocia OH 45894.  User groups and
Lima UG members can also obtain from me at cost a video tape
showing the step-by-step operation of XHi's HARDCOPY.  This
video is available by sending a VHS tape and $1 postage, or
by sending $5 to the address above.

      CHANGES TO XHi NEW TO v3.41:
     All of the "complaints" about XHi's LOAD and COLDEF
utilities mentioned in my review of XHi v3.2 have been
corrected to my satisfaction.  Those using XHi on a 99/4A
system will no longer have to hunt for the unusual key codes
that correspond to keys on the geneve keyboard.  However,
some of the changes in LOAD and COLDEF that are new to v3.41
are not mentioned in the v3.41 doc.

     The XHi code has now been attached to LOAD with SysTex,
so XHi now loads very rapidly.

     A new command, CALL LINK("COLRES") is available that
resets all colors to their original values.

      HARDCOPY
     The main changes to v3.41 are to HARDCOPY.  This has
been improved in several ways and prints MYART pictures in
black and white to a printer with different dot densities
assigned to each of the 16 or 256 colors.  The result is
better than MYART's own printer dump.  The new HARDCOPY is
still very confusing to set up and use, and the revised
HARDCOPY doc is difficult to understand although most of the
information is there.  I printed a 4 foot tall MYART picture
with HARDCOPY by printing 30 pixel wide vertical strips of
the picture on fanfold paper and taping the strips together.
This required 24 hours of printer time!! XHi's author
suggests that you might want to use HARDCOPY to make wall
paper for your room.  A $15 commercial program for the 99/4A
allows you to print gigantic posters from TI Artist
instances.  This should give you some indication of the
monitary value of HARDCOPY.

     SETTING UP HARDCOPY PRINTER DEFAULTS--^^There are now
two preconfigured printer defaults available in the v3.41
HCSETUP program.  The Epson FX85 defaults should work with
STAR NX printers, and possible all STAR N series printers
(NL etc).  The SG10 defaults work with the STAR SG10 (in
STAR mode) and with the Gemini 10X.  The following comments
apply to those who must set up their own printer defaults
using HCSETUP.  For those of you using the original HARDCOPY
that came with XHi v3.2, I will list here the FX85 and SG10
printer defaults.
     -The prompt requesting high res graphic mode works best
with with the code for quadruple density graphics followed
by an upper case L, a space, and an upper case H.  The
correct responses to this prompt are 27^122^L^H for the SG10
and 27^42^3^L^H for the Epson FX85.
     -The prompts for a carraige return followed by 23/216
or 1/216 inch line feed require the code for a "one time
only" n/216 line feed.  If the printer's minimum line feed
is greater than 1/216 inch, than an approximation of 23/216
needs to be made.  On the SG10, this would be the code for
15/144 inch line feed.  For the 23/216 line feed prompt the
response for the SG10 is 13^27^74^15 and for the FX85 it is
13^27^74^23.  For the 1/216 line feed prompt input for both
the SG10 and FX85 is 13^27^74^1.
     -For the "backspace" prompt the SG10 uses 8 and the
FX85 uses 27^106^24.

     You can now boot HARDCOPY as EA5 or from its own Xbasic
HCLOAD program.  Even those who are using a 99/4A that does
not have a 9938 video chip (no AVPC card or Mechatronics 80
column peripheral) can use HARDCOPY to print MYART graphics.
Unfortunately the screen display is slightly distorted on
such a "no 9938 chip" 99/4A system, so data input is more or
less blind.  Since the screen display is only slightly
distorted, I expect the XHi author should have little
trouble creating a HARDCOPY that works ok on "ordinary"
99/4A systems.

     When first booted, you are prompted for the MYART file
name.  You can now have trailing spaces to the left of the
cursor after this name without causing an I/O error.  Type
the file name, complete with drive number, and press
<enter>.  After entering the picture file name, HARDCOPY
displays the number of colors it thinks are possible in the
picture, 16 for G6 mode and 256 for G7 mode.  Press <enter>
to move on.  If the initial test printout looks totally
black, like a black cat in a coal bin, HARDCOPY probably
guessed wrong about G6 or G7 mode.  Try restarting HARDCOPY
and when the number of colors appears (either 16 or 256)
press "1" or "2" to change to the alternate number of colors
and then press <enter>.

     Now you see the two boxes and are given the opportunity
to change the printer dot density of any colors you wish.
Usually this is an exercise in frustration and you should
just press <enter> to go to the main menu.  The
box on the left shows a color and the box on the right shows
the dot density.  The first number immediately below the
color box is the color number (0-15 for G6 graphics, and
0-255 for G7 grpahics).  The three digit number immediately
under the color number shows the red, green, and blue
intensities of the displayed color.  Each of these RGB color
numbers can be from 0-7.  A 7^7^7 is black.  If you want to
see the various colors you can cycle through them with the
up/down arrow keys (FCTN/EX).  You can also directly display
a color by pressing any letter key, then type the color
number (0-15 or 0-255), then <enter>.  When a color is
displayed its dot density can be altered by using the
left/right arrow keys (FCTN/SD) or by typing numbers, and
then pressing <enter>.  Pressing <enter> a second time
immediately after <enter>ing a dot density leaves the dot
density alteration part of HARDCOPY and goes to the main
menu.  At the bottom of the screen display it says "First
color" followed by a number.  The XHi author suggests that
this is probably the background color and that changing this
color number to a minimum or zero dot density will improve
the printout by making the foreground easier to see.  I have
almost always found that lightening the density of this
"First color" has little effect on the final printout of the
picture.

     If you want to save your altered set of color dot
densities, or to load a previously created custom set of
color dot densities this can be done with options "5" and
"6" of the main menu.

     Pressing "2" in the main menu allows you to enlarge the
printout H(orizontally) and V(ertically) as much as 999
times larger than the minimum size.  A small cursor appears
below where you are entering data.  First type the
horizontal enlargement (1-999) and then press <enter>.  Just
pressing <enter> uses the already displayed number as the
default.  Next type the Vertical enlargement (1-999) and
press <enter>.  Next set the S(tretch) flag by pressing "1"
(extra picture elongation horizontally) or "0" (no extra
picture stretching beyond what you just set with the H and V
prompts).  G7 pictures (256 colors) usually benefit from
setting the S flag to "1".  You are now back to the main
selection menu.

     Pressing "3" from the main menu allows you to crop the
printout and only print part of a picture.  Again, a little
cursor appears immediately beneath where input is expected.
To enter data type a number and press <enter> to move on to
the next input area.  Just pressing <enter> at any input
field accepts the already displayed number as the default.
                      "H" and "V" are the horizontal and
vertical coordinates of the lower left corner of where you
want the printout to begin.  0,0 are the lower left
coordinates of the original picture. "H" left to right is
0-512 for 16 color pictures and 0-255 for 256 color
pictures.  "V" from bottom to top is 0-211 for both kinds of
pictures.  "dH" and "dV" designate the size in pixels of the
rectangular part of the picture to be printed horizontally
and vertically from the just designated starting
coordinates.  If your picture is set up to print off the
right edge of the paper this causes no problems.

     After configuring "2" and "3" from the main menu, as
described above, you are now ready to press "4" and start
printing the picture.  Any printer output directed off the
right side of the paper is ignored and printing of the next
line proceeds correctly.  Small pictures only take a few
seconds to print.  Very large pictures may take hours.  I
printed my 4 foot tall G6 picture by setting H and V
magnification to 35 with option "2" of the main menu.  I
then printed strips of the picture by advancing the
H(orizontal) starting coordinate 30 pixels with each new
strip and leaving the V(ertical) starting coordinate always
set for 0.  I did this by changing "H" (and only the "H") of
option "3" from the main menu to 0, 30, 60, 90, 120, etc
every time I printed a new strip.

     I hope you find these HARDCOPY operating instructions
an improvement on the original HARDCOPY doc.  I think
HARDCOPY has alot of potential and by itself is worthy of a
fairware dontaion to the XHi author.
     .PL 1