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Amiga Collections: MegaDisc
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MegaDisc 45 (1996-03)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)(Disk 1 of 2)[WB].zip
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MegaDisc 45 (1996-03)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)(Disk 1 of 2)[WB].adf
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FeedBack
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Readers_Questions
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Readers_Questions
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1996-01-11
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READERS' QUESTIONS
Ed: As usual thanks to various
kind and knowledgeable souls for helping me out when my
limited knowledge got stretched beyond its elastic limit.
By the way, please feel free to send in any answers to the
questions here or anything that relates to them, and please don't
think that our answers are the final word - if you think they're
lacking in accuracy or clarity, or are just plain wrong, please let
us know.
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XT hard drives and the Amiga
Can anyone help Robert fit such a drive from a PC clone to his A500?
Contact him through us or on 042 261700.
- = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = -
Genealogy
what has happened to MVP Software who brought out "Your Family Tree"?
Has anyone got V 3.xx of the program and the GEDCOM files?
Russell Francis
Tel 672 8 23533
(Norfolk Island)
John Barrett is looking for a program called Power Windows. Has anyone
any information on this? Call him on (02) 7504372.
How much is it to buy all the back issues of Megadisc? I'd like to have
them all having seen them from time to time and never bought.
Ian Daveney
Cronulla
Ed: For you, Ian, a special price of $250 for all of them from MD 1 - 44.
- = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = -
1. As mentioned in my last letter, I have enjoyed reading past issues
of MegaDisc. I do however want to know how I have found no problems
with your prevous text-viewers, except for one. How can I de-crunch
Most pictures back into standard IFF files? I am specifically refering
to Galah (from MD9) and Far-Out (from MD10) which are both very nicely
done. I presume PowerPacker will decrunch your Fullview pictures, for
importing into DPaint?
Ed: Unfortunately, there is no way to decompress "Most" files except by
using the "Most" program. The only way to convert these pictures into
standard ILBMs is to display them using Most & then grabbing the screen,
e.g. with the commodity GrabIFF. Also, some graphics applications
(e.g. Personal Paint & ADPro) can grab screens.
Yes, you can use PowerPacker (or the simple shell command, Decrunch)
to decrunch the "Fullview pictures". If you do a lot of file
compression, you should check out the XPK package, which is a PD
automatic file compression / decompression system. Using its xpk
libraries, it supports several types of file compression & encryption.
It will also auto-decompress PowerPacked files. -MS-
2. Does anyone know of any military clipart of any kind? My husband
and I are both in the Army Reserve and wargame with model soldiers, so
pictures from virtually any historical era would be of interest.
3. We have invested in a colour inkjet printer, a Digital one which is
a re-badged Olivetti JP360. Do you know of a printer driver, as I can't
manipulate the graphics printout to a full page. I have no problems (so
far!) with my word processor and DTP documents.
4. Has anyone reviewed the 9-disc 44-animation pack of wedding stuff
that Andy Kavanagh advertised in a previous MD? It sounds like the sort
of thing I could use, but I'd appreciate an impartial opinion before
paying out my $49.95.
5. Where do I get an upgrade of my ancient "Advantage" system to
"Professional Calc"? I rang the number (06) 2386659, as given in an
early MD, but it no longer exists. Or does the program itself no longer
exist?
Hayley Hummerston
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Dear Tim,
I have an interest in "mathematical art": pictures produced using fancy
recursive formulae and terminating conditions - of which the Mandelbrot
set is only a (by now pretty boring) example!
After upgrading from a A500 to a A1200 some time ago, I now have a large
number of 256 colour pictures which I think/hope are nice enough to show
to my friends who possess IBM - type computers. My questions are:
Can I? and How?
Before someone gives me answers which I am too ignorant to understand,
I should spell out what my present understanding is:
I have, as part of Wb 3.0, the 'crossDos' program which allows me to
write text files to IBM readable form. Since pictures are just special
text files, they should also be transferable? - except, of course,
that the Amiga format in which they are written is ILBM(?), whereas IBM
machines read picture files as what? GIF? I presume there is some common
standard, especially now that Internet is so much used.
So my questions are:
1) What is the preferred IBM standard for picture files?
2) Can I, and HOW can I, transform my 256 colour AGA pictures into that
standard, and write them to an IBM compatible floppy via crossDos?
If there is a PD program to do this, where can I find it?
3) I believe IBM machines now use double density floppies - will they
still read the 750k floppies the crossDos program produces?
Many thanks in advance for any information!
Erik Harting.
Phone 419 4135
Ed: Fish 676, 677 contain FBM a full PD image conversion suite. Also
useful is ASDG's Art Department professional.
Michael Stapleton writes:
CrossDos allows you to write any type of file to an IBM formatted disk,
not just text files. This is fortunate, since most picture files are
binary files, not text files, and contain the full range of byte valoes
(from 0 to 255).
On to your questions:
1) What is the preferred IBM standard for picture files?
IBM standard? You've got to be joking! :) I must admit that the
situation is getting better, now that Windows is making a major impact.
Your friends will probably have some way of displaying PCX and GIF
files. PCX files come from the venerable PCPaint program - this is an
ancient and arcane format. GIF was popularized by Compuserve, and it is
probably your best choice for 256 colour images. Personal Paint from
Cloanto can handle GIF. This excellent program is now up to version 6,
you may be able to get an older version for cheap or as a free demo - I
have version 2 from a coverdisk.
However, GIF is under some controversy at the moment, due to their use
of the patented LZW compression algorithm. Commercial software which
uses LZW requires some form of licence from Unisys. (This is really
only an issue to software writers & owners, not users.) The upshot of
all this is that GIF is now being dropped in favour of the new PNG format.
All Windows & OS/2 machines can load BMP files (although OS/2 has it's
own weird variety of BMP as well). In a year or two, PNG will be
everywhere, at the moment, stick with GIF, BMP or JPEG for 24 bit
images.
2) Can I, and HOW can I, transform my 256 colour AGA pictures into that
standard, and write them to an IBM compatible floppy via crossDos?
If there is a PD program to do this, where can I find it?
The FBM programs on Fish 676, 677 can handle PCX & GIF files, as well as
others. Personal Paint can also handle these types. The latest version
handles many types, including the new PNG files.
3) I believe IBM machines now use double density floppies - will they
still read the 750k floppies the crossDos program produces?
The MS-DOS 720k floppies are double density, the 1.44M floppies are
known as high density. High density drives are also available for
Amiga, but are relatively expensive. An HD drive can read, write &
format DD floppies fine. Actual HD floppy disks have a hole in the top
left corner of the disk (opposite the Write Protect hole). If you want
to use these disks as double density disks in a high density drive, just
tape over this hole.
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