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╔═══════════════════╗ ║README for SSOK.ZIP║ ╚═══════════════════╝ 10-Mar-95 ┌────────┐ │Contents│ └────────┘ File List Revision History General Remarks Installation The Modules EXTERNAL.SSM STICKS.SSM TV.SSM HOPOK.SSM RAUPE.SSM Disclaimer Distribution Support Credits Copyrights ┌─────────┐ │File List│ └─────────┘ SSOK.ZIP vs. 1.3a contains - EXTERNAL.SSM (the 'EXTERNAL' module) STICKS .SSM (the 'Sticks' module) TV .SSM (the 'TV' module) HOPOK .SSM (the 'Hop-Pointer' module) RAUPE .SSM (the 'raupe' module) SSOK .DOC (this file) ┌────────────────┐ │Revision History│ └────────────────┘ 1.0 *** 06-Aug-94 *** Initial version of SSOK.ZIP 1.1 *** 16-Aug-94 *** Two modules added: TV.SSM, HOPOK.SSM Improved SSOK.DOC 1.2 *** 03-Sep-94 *** One new module: RAUPE.SSM, utilizing a poem by Ernst Jandl Changed SSOK.DOC 1.3 *** 21-Sep-94 *** Bug fixed: Some module configuration screens didn't fit into a standard VGA desktop 1.3a *** 10-Mar-95 *** New compile with EMX, eliminating use of SSOKDLL.DLL Minor code changes (Thanks to Siegfried Hanisch for 'EMXing' SSOK!) Changed SSOK.DOC ┌───────────────┐ │General Remarks│ └───────────────┘ A. ScreenSaver ────────────── SSOK.ZIP contains modules for "ScreenSaver", a shareware screen saver written by Siegfried Hanisch. You can get "ScreenSaver" from: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/2_x/graphics ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/32bit/graphics Check also the appropriate incoming directories for new versions. "Screen- Saver" is usually obtainable from CIS, OS2USER. Siegfried Hanisch's e-mail internet addresses are: siggih@ibm.net ssaver@ibm.net hanisch@ci.tuwien.ac.at His mail address is Dipl.-Ing. Siegfried Hanisch Einsiedlergasse 6/16 A-1050 Vienna Austria Tel: +43-1-5520514 B. Blanker ────────── Another Austria based author, Peter Wansch, offers another screensaver, called "Blanker". "Blanker" is capable of utilizing "ScreenSaver" modules. You can get "Blanker" from: ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/32bit/graphics and usually from CIS, OS2USER or OS2BVEN. Peter Wansch's e-mail internet address is: p.wansch@ieee.org His mail address is Dipl.-Ing. Peter Wansch Hagenbachgasse 37 A-3423 St. Andrä-Wördern Austria Tel: +43-2242-32124 Fax: +43-2242-31113 C. ScreenSaver/Blanker & SSOK ───────────────────────────── From March 1995 all five mnodules of SSOK are bundled with both screensavers. The included modules are distributed free of charge. ┌────────────┐ │Installation│ └────────────┘ You can substitute most references to "ScreenSaver" with "Blanker" if that is your saver. - IF THE MODULES DIDN'T COME WITH YOUR FAVOURITE SCREENSAVER: Unzip the SSOK.ZIP package into the SSAVER directory. Be sure to overwrite files if you already have a previous version of SSOK.ZIP. - Start ScreenSaver, mark any of my modules in the right listbox, and click once on "Configure module" to see and change the individual settings. Please refer to the module specific explanation below. - You'll find a special profile file, SSAVEROK.INI, in the "ScreenSaver" directory. I use it instead of OS2.INI to store the parameters for all my modules. ┌───────────┐ │The Modules│ └───────────┘ EXTERNAL.SSM ──────────── A. Purpose and Configuration EXTERNAL.SSM is aimed at those people who want to start external programs as screen saver modules. Imagine you have a DOS- or OS/2-fullscreen graphics program which you would like to use as a blanker. Use "Configure module" to fill in - the full path of the program you want to use as external module - any useful parameters your program might expect - and click on the appropriate box to mark the program as a DOS or VIO-OS/2 or WIN-OS/2 or PM application. B. Special considerations Be sure to run ScreenSaver always with "mouse sensing" enabled. EXTERNAL is a somewhat dirty module that posts a mouse movement before shelling out to the external program so that ScreenSaver minimizes itself upon exiting the external program. Please keep in memory that there was no such thing planned by the author of ScreenSaver and so he couldn't provide any means of communication between the external program and the ScreenSaver itself. The communication between the module and ScreenSaver itself wasn't designed for that purpose either. You will encounter the following phenomenon: After testing the external module, that is: after exiting the called external program in testing mode, ScreenSaver will minimize itself as if the EXTERNAL module and the external program would have been invoked by ScreenSaver during normal operation after the usual timeout. C. Revision History EXTERNAL.SSM 1.0 *** 04-Aug-94 *** initial release STICKS.SSM ────────── A. Purpose and Configuration STICKS.SSM is just another screen saver module. It eats up your screen from behind. You can play with the self-explanatory parameters by using the "Configure module" dialog. The different shapes of the sticks "black hole" are quite interesting (IMHO <g>). B. Revision History STICKS.SSM 1.0 *** 06-Aug-94 *** initial release 1.1 *** 21-Sep-94 *** module configuration screen fixed for VGA desktops TV.SSM ────── A. Purpose and Configuration TV.SSM is just another screen saver module. It draws black and white circles on the screen. Just take it as a somewhat primitive imitation of the TV snow you can see when your box gets no signal. There are no parameters you can play with. B. Revision History TV.SSM 1.0 *** 11-Aug-94 *** initial release 1.1 *** 21-Sep-94 *** module configuration screen fixed for VGA desktops HOPOK.SSM ───────── A. Purpose and Configuration HOPOK.SSM is NOT just another screen saver module. It's called "Hop-Pointer", because it should make you aware of "HOP", a fractal image generator utilizing the so-called "Hopalong" algorithms. HOP is written by Michael Peters and located on CompuServe, forum GRAPHDEV, lib 4, 'Fractal Sources' (HOPZIP.EXE), and on the Internet. Please check HOP if you're interested in fractal images. HOP itself includes a screensaver for DOS and Windows and you can use it as OS/2 screensaver along with my EXTERNAL module. HOP contains way more features than this very small module. Here is a quote from Michael's documentation to give us an impression what HOP is: " ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ WHAT DOES "HOP" MEAN ANYWAY ? │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Barry Martin from Aston University (Birmingham/England) discovered a new fractal in the mid-80's. A. K. Dewdney presented Martin's first images and the algorithm in his 'Computer Recreations' column in Scientific American (Sept.1986). He called the new fractal HOPALONG, referring to the unique way it grows on the screen. Unlike the famous Mandelbrot fractals, here the pixels 'hop from one point to another'. The fractal doesn't grow line by line, but rather emerges from the whole of the screen. The character of the resulting images is quite different from what most people associate with 'fractals'. Many Hopalongs have some mysterious similarity to some biological forms such as diatoms, radiolarians, or other unicellular microorganisms. (I strongly recommend to take a look at Ernst Haeckel's famous 'Art Forms in Nature' drawings.) If you find that the complexity and symmetry of such things fascinates you, you will also like HOP's creations. Maybe they will even make you wonder what the real connection is between nature, fractals, mind, and beauty. Hopalong fractals lack the deep complexity of the M-Set - it isn't possible to infinitely zoom into the images without losing some of their complexity. On the other hand, the way they are created is far more interesting to watch in real-time than the (usually boring) line-by-line growth of Mandelbrot fractals which results in utterly amazing, but static images (unless your computer is extremely fast). Appendix C contains a short Pascal program which shows how the Hopalong algorithm works. ──────────────────────── HOP is based on HOPALONG algorithms, but it introduces a lot of new and unusual features: Martin's formula is accompanied by more than two dozen newly developed formulas, all similar in structure, but different in detail. The result is a wide variety of new fractals. Several new mathematical 'special effects' modify the shapes of the 'pure' fractals and introduce movement and 'Fractals in Motion'. A wide variety of graphic effects is available to manipulate the images. Some of these effects are standard (VGA color scrolling is done by most graphic programs), but many others are unique and were designed for HOP. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ THE BASIC CONCEPT │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ HOP runs like an slideshow. While some of the images in the show are more or less static, others contain wild or gentle movements and animations, depending on dozens of interacting parameters all of which you can control. Each of the slides runs endlessly or for a predetermined number of pixels. The slides are either 'composed', stored in a file, and can be exactly reproduced, or they are designed on-the-fly (improvised) by HOP's random algorithms or by you, or both. When you run the demo, HOP plays back a parameter file containing a series of 'composed' images and animations. (If you like HOP and learn how to use it, you will very soon also come up with interesting 'compositions' which you can exchange with other HOP users or run with the screensaver.) If HOP doesn't playback a file, it runs in an 'improvising' mode. Each of the images will run for a certain number of pixels, then a new image will come up, and so on. You have full control over all parameters, but unless you want to explore a specific image, you don't have to enter any numbers - everything will happen by itself! (Actually I started writing HOP because I'm so lazy.) While some of the images might blow your mind, others might be boring. The program juggles many variables, producing images that are based on controlled randomness - unfortunately, the program can't watch the images and decide if they are beautiful or not. The algorithms are blind. (Maybe this will be different in a future version of HOP). It is as if you took a snapshot of a random area of the Mandelbrot set - the chance to get a boring image is quite high even if the M-set contains loads of incredible sights. You have control over the decisions the program makes to some extent though - this happens on the 'Tune' page of the user interface. Take the randomly generated images as suggestions. Throw them away, or modify a nice image until you really like it. Then store it in your 'favorites' collection, and please exchange it with others. When you play with HOP's suggestions and learn to master all the different parameters, you will find that there are a number of effects that are almost never used in HOP's improvisations. They have to be used like the special effects in a movie or in rock music: Overusing them won't do any good, but using them thoughtfully can add spice and interesting variations. Also, some of the effects slow down performance or could easily make a boring picture if applied by a blind random algorithm. Another thing you should be aware of is that when running in random mode, HOP will try to automatically center and size the fractals. The reason this is done is that without this automatic optimization (just taking the naked random numbers and formulas and generating the images as they come), many fractal images would be too small, or you would be shown less interesting details, or the screen would be mostly blank because the fractal would develop right outside of it. The positive effect of this optimizing is that most images will be more or less interesting. You can sit and watch HOP design a neverending series of fractals, like the shells you find whilst walking along an ocean beach. But this is only one way of looking at them! Anyone interested in shells would stop from time to time and pick one up to look at its microstructure which - as we have learned from fractal theory - is just as complex as the view from above. HOP cannot do this for you automatically. It doesn't know where interesting details are located. The incredible microstructure of HOP fractals has to be studied manually. Try zooming in to interesting details and playing with the many program features and parameters to manipulate your view. HOP will reward you with an infinite world of complexity and beauty. " There are several settings you can play with, manipulating the size and shape of the drawn pels, the size and shape of the fractal image and so on. They are easy to understand by learning-by-doing. B. Revision History HOPOK.SSM 1.0 *** 16-Aug-94 *** initial release 1.1 *** 21-Sep-94 *** module configuration screen fixed for VGA desktops RAUPE.SSM ───────── A. Purpose and Configuration RAUPE.SSM is a very special screen saver module. The German word 'raupe' ('caterpillar') moves across the screen and blanks it subsequently. Be aware that "raupe" is a poem by the famous Austrian writer Ernst Jandl. Please check the copyright section of this file below! B. Revision History RAUPE.SSM 1.0 *** 03-Sep-94 *** initial release 1.1 *** 21-Sep-94 *** module configuration screen fixed for VGA desktops ┌──────────┐ │Disclaimer│ └──────────┘ The authors assume no responsibility for any damage or loss caused by the use of this program. THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ┌────────────┐ │Distribution│ └────────────┘ As the sole copyright holders of these modules, Olaf Koch and Michael Peters, reserve all rights to the program. However, this freeware version may be freely distributed by commercial vendors, user groups, BBS operators, or individuals, with the following restrictions: - SSOK.ZIP must be distributed in unmodified form in its entirety, including all files that are listed in the 'File List' chapter of this documentation. No other programs or files may be included. The files may be distributed in a compressed or library format. - SSOK.ZIP may not be included in combination with any other software or hardware product as an enticement or for any other reason, without special permission from the authors. [Permission granted to Siegfried Hanisch (ScreenSaver), Peter Wansch (Blanker).] - No fee or payment may be charged or accepted for SSOK.ZIP, other than a small disk distribution fee. This is especially true for the module RAUPE.SSM which is based on a copyrighted poem. It is a contractual obligation to publish the poem 'raupe' without charging. - SSOK.ZIP cannot be rented or leased. - SSOK.ZIP may not be packaged or distributed with any of its supporting documentation pre-printed for the end-user. ┌───────┐ │Support│ └───────┘ If you have any suggestions or questions please drop me a mail: 100010.2732@compuserve.com olafk@ibm.net Anyway, I provide the ScreenSaver modules "as is" and just for fun, so there's no "guaranteed support". I'll answer mail and may look into bugs. But that it is. ┌───────┐ │Credits│ └───────┘ Siegfried Hanisch - for giving us "ScreenSaver", "porting" my modules to EMX, and distributing them. Michael Peters - for giving us "Hop". Luchterhand Literaturverlag - for allowing me to use Ernst Jandl's poem 'raupe'. (At least it's not quite usual that publishers allow someone to place commercial and copyrighted material in the net!) Peter Wansch - for distributing my modules. ┌──────────┐ │Copyrights│ └──────────┘ All modules except HOPOK.SSM are Copyright (C) by Olaf Koch. All rights reserved. * HOPOK.SSM is Copyright (C) by Michael Peters and Olaf Koch. All rights reserved. * The poem 'raupe' on which the module RAUPE.SSM is based is Copyright (C) 1985, 1990 by Luchterhand Literaturverlag. All rights reserved. Quelle: Ernst Jandl "raupe" aus: ders. "der künstliche baum" in: "Gesammelte Werke in 3 Bänden" Bd. 1 (hrsg. von Klaus Siblewski) Source: Ernst Jandl "raupe" ('caterpillar') from: the same "der kuenstliche baum" ('the artficial tree') in: "Gesammelte Werke in 3 Bänden" ('Complete Works') Bd. 1 (hrsg. von/edited by Klaus Siblewski) RAUPE.SSM as a software module it still copyrighted by Olaf Koch.