This program provides a reasonably complete method for all you T.V. Engineer
types out there to set up your EGA/VGA/SVGA/XGA/Multisync screens. It provides
a number of different screens ranging from Colour Bars to a barrel distortion
circle. For a detailed list of the screens available, see below.
Installation
------------
Simply copy the file testcard.exe to your favourite tools & utils subdirectory
and then run the program using any of the usual Windows methods.
Using Testcard
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When the program first starts, a Black/White, RGB, CMY ColourBar is displayed
To switch to any of the other screens simply hit the spacebar, or click the
right mouse button, when a floating menu will appear with a checkmark against
the currently displayed option.
Menu Options
------------
ColourBars - The ColourBar pattern checks for purity and colour bleed.
Crosshatch - This Pattern forms a 16 x 12 grid of squares (good for convergence).
Checkerboard - A Crosshatch with alternate Black/White Filled squares.
Circle - A simple circle with which to check for barrel distortion.
Purity - Spawns a submenu allowing a full screen of either R G or B.
Composite - A General composite testcard encompassing all of the above
About... - The usual ego dialog
Exit - The obvious (but with a charity-nag: please give!)
Notes & Warnings
----------------
I have tried to code this little gem to be as device independant as possible and as far as I can test (on a 14" multisync) it works perfectly well on VGA and above. (slight barrel on 1280 x 1024 - but I think that is down to my screen)
At EGA, the aspect ratio gives up on the barral circle, but the crosshatch and colourbars still appear properly, but when I tried to run my system down to CGA the whole lot fell apart :-(
The table below gives a brief summary of the test results:
1280 x 1024 (16 colours) - Slight barrel distortion (see note above)
1024 x 768 (256 colours) - All tests ok
800 x 600 (256 colours) - All tests ok
640 x 480 (256 colours) - All tests ok
640 x 480 (2 colours) - All tests ok (but greyshades got dithered)
640 x 400 (256 colours) - Barrel Circle & Composite vertically distorted
640 x 350 (16 colours) - Barrel Circle & Composite worse
320 x 200 (4 colours) - Complete wipeout - DON'T USE at this resolution
Disclaimer
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All the usual legal stuff, especially the bit about not being held responsible if the screen you're testing goes off bang while the program is running.
Please don't send any cash to me personally, but as the nag says - send it to Cancer Research (my wife's father died of cancer, so that's our favourite charity).
