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1992-10-15
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UPDATES LISTING FOR
VERSION 7.32 (October 15th, 1992)
OF
P11
A GRAPHICS PROGRAM WRITTEN BY:
RUSSELL D. HOFFMAN
P.O. Box 188006
CARLSBAD, CA 92009
(800) 551-2726
(619) 720-7261
America Online:RUSSELL DH
CompuServe:70743,1226
THE AUTHOR ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITIES AS TO THE
APPLICABILITY OF THIS PROGRAM TO YOUR NEEDS OR THE
ACCURACY OF ITS FUNCTIONS. PLEASE NOTIFY THE AUTHOR OF
ANY INACCURACIES FOUND AND OF ANY DESIRED NEW FEATURES.
CONCEIVED, DESIGNED, WRITTEN AND PRODUCED
BY RUSSELL D. HOFFMAN IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
PROGRAM COPYRIGHT (c) 1984 to 1992,
DOCUMENTATION COPYRIGHT (c) 1985 to 1992 by RUSSELL D.
HOFFMAN.
ALL WORLDWIDE RIGHTS RESERVED.
Differences From Earlier P11 Versions
RUSSELL'S ANIMATION MACHINE, also known as P11, has
been available since about 1986 and in development since
1984. It has had many releases since that time, as any good
program would. Sometimes the overriding reason for a new
release is to offer a major enhancement to the program.
Other times, it's to fix a bug. Usually, it's a little of
both.
The current release of P11 is 7.32, released Oct. 15th,
1992. Prior to that was 7.30, released Oct. 9th, 1992.
Prior to that was version 7.26, released August 14th, 1992.
The release prior to 7.26 was 7.22, released a few days
earlier. Prior to that was 6.40 which was released in the
summer of 1990. Prior to 6.40 was 4.80, spring of 1989.
Prior to that was 3.50, spring of 1988. Prior to that,
there was 3.12. And there were others even before that!
The current release contains many improvements.
Sometimes an improvement also results in some degree of
incompatibility. When this occurs it is noted below.
The following changes are between 4.80 and prior
releases. These are followed by a list of 6.00 changes.
That in turn is followed by each successive release's
changes.
1) The ROUNDS option of \MOUSE will execute zero (0)
cycles if R=0. Previously it executed at least one
cycle.
2) \DOS AT END has been removed. Previously caused the
EDITOR version to exit to DOS when a file ended.
3) \SHOW has been greatly enhanced. The new syntax uses
keyword parameters and has a number of new options.
The old syntax can still be used but options set with
the new format by a previous \SHOW command will still
be in effect, for example WINDOW= and PATH=.
4) Picture and font file formats have been changed.
First, compression can be done if it will save space.
Second, a larger header area for each frame has been
added. Old files can still be used but new format
picture files cannot be read with old versions of the
program. More information about file formats is
available elsewhere in this document.
5) Several bugs in vector string display have been fixed,
so you might get an incompatibility during \RUN.
Usually this will mean nothing more than a few dots put
on or removed that previously were vice-versa.
6) \SPRINT can no longer use characters to indicate frame
values. Only numbers, with or without brackets.
7) The default number of rounds at the start of the
program is -1 (infinite), not 200. (Set with \ROUNDS.)
8) \SCREEN previously cleared the screen. It only changes
the background or palette in Version 4.80.
9) The default keys for making animation run backward and
forward with \SHOW, the plus and minus keys (+ and -)
now correspond to those on the numeric keypad only, not
those on the regular QWERTY portion of the keyboard.
These key assignments can be changed with \KEYS.
10) Text lines that are too long are now word-wrapped in
\SCROLL and \OVERLAY modes.
11) A mouse round is now 1/20 of a second (adjustable with
the SPEED= option of \MOUSE), or a new location, rather
than 100 cycles looking for keypresses.
12) The following commands are all new: \BUTTON, \CRAWL,
\ERROR, \KEY, \ON ERROR, \PASSWORD, \ROTATE and \SET.
13) Significant changes were made to \BEEP, \FRAME, \MOUSE,
\SHOW, \SPRITE, \RUN and \WIDTH.
Version 6.00 has many additional enhancements, fixes,
and some incompatibilities:
1) New screen resolutions have been added, all bitmapped.
2) \SCROLL scrolled one line less than it should have
prior to version 6.00.
3) \BEEP did not recognize long beeps prior to version
6.00.
4) If a critical error occurred during the \EXECUTE
command the program went into a locked condition.
Fixed.
5) Maximum frames is 8000. EMM may be used.
6) Picture editor keys have been switched around a little
because the vector and raster picture editors have been
combined.
7) \PEN AIRBRUSH=#,#... used to be ON or OFF, YES or NO.
Now it can have up to ten numbers, or NO to turn if
off. Color cycle option of \PEN is new.
8) Additional variables ("N","O") are used during
initialization, to provide EMM data.
9) Disk-based editing has been added. (Removed again for
version 7.26.)
10) Several parameters can be set with the DOS environment
string P11FLAGS=.
11 The maximum size of a font file is now 63K and the
minimum is 8k.
12) The joystick and mouse may be used together.
13) New commands for version 6.00 are \DATA, \HUE, and
\ACTIVATE.
14) Significant changes occurred to \SCREEN, \SHOW, \OPEN
and \CLOSE, because of the new screen resolutions,
masks, disk-based animation, hue files and data files.
15) The error display keycode <ALT>-123 has been added.
16) \EXECUTE does not require any minimal amount of memory
to execute, however, if enough memory does not exist it
will still fail, of course, but P11 does not try to
guess how much is needed for the command to function.
17) Raster frame masks have been added for smooth animation
over backgrounds.
18) Button 0 will let the user set the input device
button's correspondence to none, one, and two buttons,
and both one and two.
19) Joystick has numerous enhancements.
20) A graphics interface with icons has been added to the
drawing editor.
21) Frames larger than screen size (up to about 64K) are
permitted.
22) To convert screen resolutions, first bring the image up
to the current by reading the image and writing it out
again. Then, using Disk Based Editing, you can change
the screen resolution.
Version 7.22 has many additional enhancements, fixes,
and some incompatibilities:
1) New screen resolutions have been added, all are
bitplane modes.
2) \AUTHORITY, \IN, \LOAD, \OUT, and \TEXT commands added.
3) Joystick can scale and rotate a cursor in the picture
editor.
4) Digitizer has X- and Y-offset values.
5) Bottom line of screen is now accessible in all
commands. Some screen text commands could not display
the bottom line.
6) Onion skin added for creating animation sequences.
7) Paint All does not turn off automatically in the
picture editor.
8) Tab characters are permitted in text files, however,
they do not yet display as text properly so don't use
them in text lines to be displayed.
9) Long lines (>about 80 characters) with a backslash (\)
in them would try to execute what followed the
backslash as a command! Fixed.
10) \OPEN LPT ? will open ANY printer (1, 2, or 3.)
11) P11 keeps track of paths on drive A through I, not E as
it did previously.
12) No longer do you need to confirm exiting with both Y
and then C. Now, just Y after <ESC>.
13) <CTRL>+K is a keyboard recorder in the picture editor.
14) Macros can be viewed much easier. They still can't be
edited, though.
15) MOUSE ACCURACY and RESOLUTION values are calculated
correctly.
Version 7.26 fixes some bugs and adds some
enhancements.
1) Fonts and Aux files had the wrong version number built
into the program (they had 7.20 and 7.21, which were
internal numbers and never released.)
2) Rectangles saved with <F2> in the drawing editor and
then redisplayed while an <F2> rectangle was still
active would not be drawn quite properly.
3) If the graphical icons were missing and you started by
reading in a picture file in the editor, then read a
text file, the text file would be stored in the wrong
area, possibly locking the system.
4) The blinking text cursor now has two shapes, a vertical
line on the left edge of the current position when in
insert mode and a horizontal line along the bottom when
in overlay mode. The <INS> key toggles the mode, as
before.
5) Disk based editing, added in version 6.40, has been
removed. It proved difficult to work with and by
rewriting the screen mode conversion routine, it's
major need was eliminated. Over 7K was saved in the
editor by removing this "feature".
6) Reversible animation was accidentally inhibited in
7.22.
7) You can specify the environment variables on the
command line, in brackets ([,]).
Version 7.30 fixes some bugs and adds some
enhancements.
1) HUE command did not SET the red value properly in some
cases.
2) When converting images from one screen resolution to
another (and changing it's size to a larger one) is was
possible for the program to mistake an image that won't
fit in the assigned area for one that will, causing a
number of potential problems including machine lockup
or loss of that image.
3) You can now do an \EXECUTE command with DAT, PRN, or
PIC files open. It is recommended that you only do
this if necessary since the user could remove the
media, or do something else that might damage the file.
4) When Caps Lock is On, depressing one of the Shift keys
will decapitalize a letter.
5) In the drawing editor, scaling a full-screen or nearly
full-screen image needed TWO overwrite messages; if you
only answered the first one affirmatively the bottom
area of the image would be damaged.
6) In the text editor, top-of-file display and handling
has been improved.
7) SCRNSAVE.COM and SHOW.PCX.EXE can both handle larger
images, though they take more RAM to do so.
Version 7.32 fixes some bugs and adds some
enhancements.
1) \DATA statement fixed. Prior to 7.32, depending on
data record sizes, a read might end between the CR and
the LF in the CR/LF end-of-record format. Then the
next record would appear to be empty. This was fixed
in the runtime version of 7.31 but not the editor
version, 7.30.
2) HPRASTER.EXE now can flip images on the X-axis and/or
the Y-axis.
3) \OPEN of a printer now will wait up to about 12 seconds
for the printer to return a good (not busy) code. Some
printers take several seconds to perform a reset and
this allows them to be properly opened.
4) If 3 above does not work, the IGNORE option has been
added to the \OPEN command. We recommend using this
only after advising the user that the system may lock
up if you try to write to a printer that is not
available.