Configuring the Spectrum Shift Screen Saver

We sequentially animate the images that you select for the Image File List. We can only animate .bmx files that have been prepared by the Spectrum Shift Designer program (spectdes.exe). The Designer can read any ordinary 256 color .bmp file, so you can customize all sorts of images for animation, such as scanned photographs, etc. Note that removing a file from the Image File List doesn't cause the file to be deleted from your disk drive, it simply prevents it from being animated by the screen saver.

You can also set a password for your screen saver. If you set a password, then users must type in this password to stop the screen saver once it has taken over the screen.

We are using a feature supported by the hardware in 256 color display adapters called palette animation. This feature allows us to virtually instantaneously change the color of every pixel on the screen. We can easily update an entire 1000X1000 pixel display 30 times a second using an ordinary 486 based personal computer. Unfortunately, palette animation is not supported when display adapters are configured to display more than 256 colors at a time. However, most display adapters that support displaying more than 256 colors can be reconfigured to display only 256 colors and to support palette animation. Note also that when we are in 256 color mode, we have about 16 million colors to choose from when we are selecting which 256 colors to display.

If you have questions about this software, please refer to our Web page at http://www.teleport.com/~elliotl/ or send e-mail to elliotl@teleport.com .