PsL Monthly 1993 October

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GR-02: General Drawing Programs ---------------------- 3401 AutoCad Utilities Small Programs Disk ---------------------- ACDB 1.2 Newman, Norman $35 maintains a database of drawing files created by AutoCAD. Other CAD programs may be used. Features include sorting records by several fields, viewing stored data and drawing itself on one screen, and launching AutoCAD from within the program. Requires 640K of RAM. ASC-SCR 2.1 HydraWare Software $10-$15 will convert an ASCII text file of x,y, and optionally z, coordinates into an AutoCAD script file. An example data file is included. Draftsman's Companion (DRAFTSM) Blueline Development Inc. $64 makes AutoCAD easier and more efficient to use. For example, you can move, copy or stretch by distances without specifying "from" and "to" points. You can manage layers without having to use AutoCAD's cryptic commands. The program can find the center of any two lines, and more. Requires AutoCAD release 10 or 11. Survey Drafter 2.0 (SURVEY) TDM Software $50 converts raw survey data in the form of a distance, angle, elevation and note into an AutoCAD script file format. Once the script file is created, AutoCAD is used to generated an automatic point plot drawing of the survey data. Tab123 1.3 Mountain Software ASP $20-$30 allows you to import Lotus 123 and Symphony spreadsheet files into an AutoCAD drawing as a table of text entities and an optional cell grid to enclose the table. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #3401 -------------------------------- Ally 2.11 Waskow, Steve ASP $75 #4984 is a programmer's workbench and analyzer for AutoLISP. It is accessible from and interactive with AutoCAD. Ally helps debug AutoLISP source code by error checking, scoping and cross-referencing LISP symbols. 256 Draw Johndrow, David A. $8 #7683/3822 is a 256-color VGA graphics editor. Images created or edited with this program are compatible with Borland's BGI graphics formats. Requires VGA and a Microsoft-compatible mouse. Desktop Paint 256 2.0c Alchemy Mindworks Inc. $35 #7683/3173 is a full-color bitmapped paint program that supports the extended resolution of super VGA cards. Formats supported are PCX, GIF, IFF/LBM, and TIFF. It supports up to 256 colors. It can handle pictures several megabytes in size with adequate EMS memory. A mouse and super-VGA card are required. Finger VGA Poisson Technology $35-$36 #7683/3236 is a color image processing, painting and animation program for VGA that uses standard PCX file format. Pictures can be printed on an HPLJ compatible printer. The program has a lot of professional features, including support for 256 colors, but it also seems to have some problems. Screen prompts were sometimes invisible. We could not get the zoom feature to work properly, and the printout was a one-inch blob. We offer this only for the experimentally inclined who want a first look at a program that has potential. Improces 4.1 Wagner, John $25 #7683/3646 is an excellent SVGA image processor supporting all modes from 320x200x256 through 1024x768x256. Features include an image contrast enhancement, Histograms, sharpening by convolution, custom filters, full control of the VGA palette, Clipboard, five fonts in five sizes, FAT BIT editor, and many drawing tools. It supports Ahead, ATI, Chips & Tech, Everex, Paradise, Trident, Tseng (both 3000 and 4000 chipsets), Video7, and any video card with VESA capability. Other features include support for true color Targa files, 2048x2048 virtual modes, best-fit palette, true color averaging, the ability to set images in motion, clipboard painting, 5 work areas, locking mouse support, and much more. Requires 512K, mouse, DOS 3.0 or higher and a hard disk. AnimateThis 1.0 Williams, Gregory and Patricia Y. $5 #2583 is an easy way to animate graphics. The program allows you to capture a series of graphics screen and show them in succession at high speed. The high speed is accomplished by combining the separate graphics files into one large file. Sample files are included (although they are in colors difficult to view on our system) and the effect is very good. AutoDoc & AutoCom Rexxcom Systems $24-$54 #4688 is an editor and compiler for creating text files embellished with colorful, "animated" ASCII graphics. Although the output is obviously not going to be as impressive as true graphics, the fancy borders and fonts, and even drawings that can be created with text characters, line-drawing characters and blocks are pretty impressive in their own right. AutoRender Control Automation, Inc. $89 #7336/#2812 [2 disks] is a DXF rendering and shading package. The display is divided into two sections, the Command/Status window, and the Screen View Window. There are ten basic command including turning, zooming, coloring, redrawing, and various printing options. The documentation walks you through each process, so getting started is easy. There is also a section describing the concepts of 3-D rendering. The program accepts mouse input and other CAD oriented devices. Requires a hard drive and 640K of RAM. Cadet 4.03 Waskow, Steve ASP $50 #7502/3307 [2 disks] allows users to create and edit text and attributes in AutoCAD drawings. This full-screen text editor includes such features as search-and-replace, cut-and-paste, and the ability to change text style, height, and case. It allows you to create both notes and text tables, and import and export text. It has word wrap and an integrated spelling checker with a 112,000+ word dictionary. DirecTREE BGASoft ASP $59 #7414/2715 allows you to access and maintain all of your AutoCAD drawing files quickly and easily. It also features a full range of file and hard disk management functions. LoadIt! Genusa, Stephen V. $43 #7414/2055 is a front end menu for AutoCAD. It includes utilities to make it easy to perform the following functions: create new drawings, create new drawings by prototype, edit existing drawings, pick drawings from a ZIP file, insert Blocks, erase drawings, erase BAK files, DXFin multiple drawings, DXFout multiple drawings (ASCII & Binary), printer plot drawings, plot drawings, and view drawings. Create, Edit, Erase, Execute, List, Load, View (etc...) Lisp files, Script files, Font-Shape files, Menu files, Slides, and standard dos files. LoadIt! is all menu driven. It also has Mouse support and on-line help. The author can no longer be reached at the address listed in the documentation. Nuts and Things R & I Enterprise $13 #7414/1881 contains 98 drawing files for use with AutoCad 2.6. Most of the files are drawings of various pieces of hardware which are frequently used by designers and drafting personnel. They drawings consist of nuts, flat washers, split lock washers and pan head and flat head screws (both phillips and slotted heads). Each drawing is an individual "block" and can be called up and positioned by the user to satisfy the requirements of the drawing being developed. ToolMaster Miller, Leonard R. $? #7414/1975 provides a vehicle for Tool and Machine Designers and Draftsmen to "drive" AutoCAD 9.0+ to maximum performance. It incorporates an 11" X 11" overlay for a digitizing tablet. This overlay drawing of fourteen logically grouped modules is populated by one-half inch squares. Each of the more than 350 squares performs some AutoCAD macro or customized AutoLISP programmed routine. Hard disk and AutoCAD 9+ required. ELF Extended Lisp Function Library 1.1 Mountain Software ASP $39-$56 #12289 is a library of commands and functions to enhance AutoCAD and AutoLISP. It includes an ASCII file browse and editor, DOS file management, video, window, menus, math, entity creation, keyboard, file, directory, list handling, string handling, sound, and debugging functions. LaunchCAD Mountain Software ASP $20-$30 #4182 is a replacement for the AutoCAD opening menu. This utility makes AutoCAD's opening menu functions, such as a drawing file or subdirectory, easier to select. Quick Command 3.0 Jincks, Dan $20 #12162 is a group of AutoLISP enhancements for AutoCAD. They provide faster command entry, a screen interactive transparent calculator, 3D zooms without regens, and extended and improved block and layer commands. You can also explode multiple entities in a window. This set is fully documented with unprotected source code. Also included is BUZ ($5) a self-indexing text file viewer. Curve Digitizer West Coast Consultants $149 #7186/1286 [2 disks] is a powerful two-dimensional CAD system. This major upgrade has had the digitizer calibration phase simplified, scaling and rotation added to the symbol command, and a user-defined plotter driver routine made available. The authors sent us a separate version of the program for Hercules compatible monographics cards. For this version, order disk #1880 [2 disks]. Custom#Menu Mountain Software ASP $20-$30 #4222 allows you to easily modify an AutoCAD menu. It runs from within the drawing editor. You choose the location of menu items with a mouse or digitizer pointer and assistance is provided in constructing the menu command. Buttons, tablet boxes, and main screen menu items can be added, inserted, or deleted. DanCad3D 2.5h Hudgins, Daniel H. $1 #7188/1215 [5 disks] provides powerful wire frame 3D graphics with rotation and animation. Advanced editing features include the ability to measure angles and distances between any two points in a drawing, automatic macro file generation, magnification, windowing, clipping, curve fitting in two, three, or more dimensions,automatic backup, and lots more. The animation section can display up to 999 drawing frames. This is a very polished and professional package, but is easy to use. A comprehensive demo shows you the features of the program, including 2D and 3D wire-frame animation. The program supports CGA, EGA, and Hercules mono- graphics and requires a hard disk or other type of drive with at least 720k capacity. It also supports a mouse or FastTRAP 3D trackball. Printers supported include LQ-1500, LX-80, MX-80, NEC-P6, IBM 5152 and Proprinter, Star Gemini 15x, and PostScript laser printers and pen plotters. DanCAM and DanPlot 2.52 Hudgins, Daniel H. $1 #3016 controls manufacturing devices with stepper motors to automatically manufacture parts of any size or type. The program will read drawing files, such as those created by DanCAD (disk #7188) and control devices through your computer's parallel port. Examples of the tasks it can help perform include engraving signs, cutting foam with hot wires, routing of wood or plastic, cutting of sheet metal and drilling printed circuit boards. DeltaView 1.0 Delta Technology $39 #4619 is a 3D drawing program that lets you see your drawing from the front, top and side - all at the same time in different windows. As you draw, the line appears in all three windows at once. In addition, you can rotate the drawing about any axis while drawing. DeltaView is designed primarily for wireframe type drawings; it's drawing tools are few and simple, but effective for that purpose. (In other words, you will not find tools like spray paint, flood fill, etc., which are not required for wireframe work.) Desktop Paint 3.0h Alchemy Mindworks Inc. $40 #2963 is an excellent drawing program that supports many popular file formats, including PCX, WPG, IMG, TIFF, MAC, Ventura GEM/IMG, GIF, MSP, IFF/LBM, BMP, PIC, TGA, and Halo CUT. It works with dot matrix or HPLJ-compatible or PostScript printers. The program does not support color because it is aimed at the B&W desktop publishing crowd. It requires Hercules compatible monochrome graphics (most EGA/VGA cards have Hercules emulation modes). It has many powerful features, such as gradient fills, EMS support for very large pictures, on-line help, quick font size selction, and more. It has a versatile selection of graphics tools as well. Other features include drawing support for two-button mice, filled ellipse and rectangle tools, smudging, a copy count to the Print box, and Trace Edges function. A mouse is required. Desktop Paint 16 1.0d Alchemy Mindworks Inc. $40 #4777 is a paint program for 16-color images. Formats supported are MacPaint, GEM/IMG, PCX files, GIF, TIFF, WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, BMP and PIC. It has EMS and XMS support to handle images of several megabytes in size, and a wide selection of image creation and manipulation tools. It can utilize fonts from many other sources, including Ventura Publisher, Macintosh FONT and NFNT resources and Windows FNT files. A mouse, VGA, and 640K are required. Draft Choice 2.0c [DRAFT_CH] Trius, Inc. ASP $55 #7189/1630 is a unique object-oriented drawing program. It uses floating point mathematics to record the size, shape and position of objects you design. An object is a basic element like a line, a circle, a box, or even more complex shapes like many sided Polygons (triangles, pentagons, etc) and Bezier Curves. By choosing a mixture of these elements you can create amazingly detailed drawings, impressive graphics, or conceptual schematics. A built in formula calculator is included. Bit-mapped and vector based fill patterns are available. Supported output devices include those compatible with the HPGL pen plotters, HP LaserJet, Epson dot matrix printers, the Epson LQ2500 or compatible 24 pin printers, and Okidata dot matrix printers. The program supports VGA graphics, and provides EEMS and Virtual Disk memory support. Multiple fonts are allowed in the same drawing. A special feature allows semi-automatic dimensioning of drawing boundaries. Additional features include a powerful CLIP command which allows you to print any portion of your drawing while maintaining the original scale, automatic mouse detection, and many color options. Although the documentation referred to the program as "blazingly fast", we thought that the cursor movement was very sluggish. Nevertheless, this is an interesting approach to a drawing program. Requires 384K, graphics card, 500K of disk space, and DOS 2.0 or later. EDraw Emark Systems $50 #7189/1054 is a general purpose drawing program designed for engineers, teachers and students. Besides drawing lines, boxes, circles and symbols, Edraw includes logic/electronic symbols enabling a user to draw electronic circuits. The program is ideal for drawing schematics, block diagrams, flowcharts and features automatic panning. EDRAW requires 320k of memory, a CGA or EGA graphic monitor, supports most mice, and prints on Epson or compatible printers. An extensive demo takes you through the program the first time, though you have to clear any resident utilities out of memory first and you have to reboot to exit the demo. NOTE: Requires color graphics adapter and an Epson/IBM-compatible graphics printer. EEDraw Elber, Gershon $0 #7189/3308 is a full-featured, mouse-driven parametric drawing program specifically designed for drawing electronic schematics. You can create libraries of integrated circuits and parts; several are included. Epson-compatible and PostScript printers are supported. Also included on this disk is LOGIC.LIB by Dan Bodoh ($0), a library of general purpose logic gates and MOS transistor symbols for use with EEDraw. Easy Draft 1.6 Andrews, Scott $0 #12226 is a drafting program. Features include zooming, panning, parallel lines, circles, painting, object/symbol libraries and adding text to your drawing. Objects can be created, moved, copied, rotated and hidden without any effect on the main drawing. This freeware version does not allows drawings to be saved to disk. Finger Paint Poisson Technology $32 #1112 is an excellent graphics program along the lines of PC Paintbrush. We had to turn down a previous version because the critical function of printing the graphics had been disabled and was provided only for registered users. The only printer now supported in the unregistered version is the HPLJ at 150 dpi. HiDraw and HiDraw2 Singleton, F. Dail Jr., PhD $25 #1221 These programs simulate an 8"x10" pen-type plotter on your 24-pin Epson or Toshiba printer. A drawing is created first in a buffer and is visible in reduced resolution form through a window on your graphics monitor screen. The print command sends the full-resolution drawing to your printer in 180 by 180 dots per inch mode. The program produces printer graphics resolutions several times higher than standard programs which are designed to work with 9-pin printers. HomePlan 2.51 Herndon, Chuch ASP $24 #4489 draws and prints house plans. Features include automatic dimensioning, adjustable scale, showing studs and joists, rectangles and circles, predrawn furniture and appliances, undo, selectable line styles, and an on-screen odometer for displaying horizontal and vertical measurements. Support for 24 and 9-pin dot matrix and HP LaserJet printers is provided. Requires VGA. LayOut Waldman, Martin L. ASP $20-$35 #3489 is a drawing program optimized for floorplans, maps, circuit boards, quilts and other spaces of known dimensions. It features many elementary drafting elements and a free-form customizable database of objects usable for inventories, parts lists, etc. Object databases can be converted to comma delimited files for inclusion in DBMS systems, spreadsheets, and word processors. CGA or better is required, and mouse support is provided. Magic Brush Nassar, Nassib ASP $25 #7684/1575 offers a "slide presentation" program and a pop-up (85k) graphics screen dump program for saving a graphics screen to a picture file. It allows freehand drawing with different pen colors and thicknesses and has cut and paste ability. It supports medium resolution CGA. The ability to center a figure to be pasted and diagonal flipping of cut has been included It features a script language and vertical slides and wipes. MegaPaint II TommySoftware $30 #7684/3823 is a powerful, multi-featured drawing program. You can load scripts, fonts, and symbol libraries; import HP-GL line art and PCX and other bit-mapped graphics, as well as exporting in those formats; print a page or selected items; draw freehand or with dozens of different objects/tools, including Bezier curves; zoom in and out; do pattern fills; and much more. The program does not support color on-screen, but it will print colors. This is an excellent program at a modest price. Requires 510K, EGA/VGA or Hercules, a mouse, and a hard disk. Painter's Apprentice Naughton, Patrick and Nelson, Russell $35 #7684/1686 is a graphics drawing program for EGA/VGA. It is similar to the styles of MacPaint, PC Paintbrush, Dr. Halo, etc. This appears to be a superbly done program. The screen is a window on a much larger drawing pad. MS-compatible mouse is required. Over 20 printer definition files are included, including those for Epson FX/MX, Gemini, IBM printers, Okidata's, Prowriter, Thinkjet and more. The author decided at the last minute not to use the .IMG extension for this program because the files would not be compatible with other .IMG files (eg: Ventura's). But a small bug causes ".IMG" to still be the default extension if you do not specify one. The work-around is to do a SAVE AS... and specify an extension of ".IPA". Sprite Master Sexton, Fred Jr. $30 #7684/3648 is an easy-to-use, VGA (320x200 x 256 colors) drawing program. Features include mirror, rotate, darken/lighten, swap groups of colors, automatic 3-D shading, text, undo, and more. On the down side, the program uses a proprietary file format, so you cannot edit existing files in GIF, PCX, or other popular formats. The program's opening screen deserves some kind of award. Several sample graphics files are included, including one that is a scanned color photo. Requires VGA, mouse, and 400k. NeoPaint 2.1 [NEOPAINT] 09-93 CD OSCS Software Development, Inc. $52 #20062 [2 disks] is an image editing program. It reads and writes PCX, GIF, and TIFF formats and converts between differing formats and resolutions. Adjustable on-screen windows allow you to load and work on multiple files. NeoPaint provides such effects as fade, blur, pixelize, streak, image rotation, invert, flip, and image scaling. Other features include multiple brush shapes and sizes, airbrush, multi-color highlighter pen, fill options, polygons, 80 predefined patterns, clip art stamps, multiple fonts and font effects, ability to create and import palettes, and creation and rotation of 3D cubes and pyramids. Requires DOS 3.1+, 640K, hard disk, mouse, and EGA/VGA. PC-Art Stone, P. Michael $20-$25 #1423 is a general color graphics drawing program for the CGA. Features include freehand drawing with varying line boldness and shape, Paint function with any of 15 different patterns, spray paint function, line, box and circle functions, two fonts with 10 character sizes each, and cut-and-paste. PC-Art supports a mouse or joystick, but can be used with just the keyboard. We tested it with an MS mouse and everything worked smoothly and as it should. It is not as powerful as something like PC-Key-Draw, but it is not as complicated either. It is a good, basic, drawing program for the CGA. IBM/Epson compatible printers supported. When setting up the program, it asks for a directory name for storage. You must put a backslash (\) at the end of the path name you give it. Example: C:\MYSTUFF\. Picture Editing Package 1.3 Trionum Inc. $45-$75 #4952 is a drawing and layout program. It can be used to create diagrams, drawings, labels, logos, banners, forms, certificates, presentations, slide shows, flow charts, floor plans, and more. PEP supports LaserJet, DeskJet, PostScript, and dot matrix printers. It can save in PCX and EPS formats. Features include arbitrary zoom, WYSIWYG display, background printing, infinite undelete, scalable fonts, decorative ornaments, rulers, grids, snapping, and more. BG-ART-1 Grubbs, Bob $15 #7413/2013 is a large set of religious and holiday pictures drawn by the author with PC-Draft (below). The files on this disk can only be read by PC-Draft. For the same pictures in a format usable by other graphics programs, see section DP-01 #2014-1&2. PC-Draft II Natural Software ASP $50 #7413/1020 [2 disks] is a high resolution pixel oriented drawing and graphing utility, which is designed to facilitate a variety of drawing and drafting needs. It has the ability to capture text or graphic screens. Drawing functions include curves, arcs, ellipse, spray paint; and objects can be expanded, contracted and rotated. The PIX slide show presentation language is included as are the screen capture programs. PC-Draft-CAD Natural Software ASP $65 #7413/1685 is an object oriented CAD utility; that is, it stores your drawing as a database of basic drawing elements such as points and lines. Built-in functions allow you to draw circles, lines, boxes, arcs, ellipses. You can record graphic keyboard macros saved in files for later playback and for animation effects. You can add text to your drawing with a variety of fonts. Objects can be rotated, stretched in any direction and duplicated. You can print your drawings in portrait or landscape on a variety of printers and plotters including those compatible with IBM and Epson Dot matrix, HP Laserjet+, HP DeskJet printers and plotters that support the HPGL plotter language. Support for VGA (640x480), EGA (640x350), Super VGA (800x600x16) and Hercules (720x350) is included. You can export your drawings in GEM and WPG file format. These can then be directly imported into such Desk Top Publishing programs as Ventura Publisher and WordPerfect. You can exchange vector-based drawings via text-based messages, such as on BBS's. All dimension are expressed in decimal. PC-Key-Draw OED $100 #7040/121 [4 disks] is a powerful graphics program, a bargain even at its relatively high (for shareware) price. PC-Key-Draw has "HyperDraw" capability. The program can be used as a graphical database and is very similar to the HyperCard used in the the MacIntosh. This is accompanied by an interactive tutorial that can lead the beginner through all the basic functions of the program. PC-Key-Draw's HyperDraw provides a means to link related screens of information together in a database structure that is ideal for a variety of tasks such as teaching aids, interactive slide shows, cataloging information, creating family trees, organizational charts, and more. Each screen can have up to eight links, each of which can run a macro, load a screen, or load a partial screen. Each link is able to have eight additional links, and so on, for branching to an unlimited number of screens. Edward tells us that he has wanted to add this kind of feature for a long time, but had problems coming up with a good way to implement it until he was inspired by the interactive comic book in the movie "Big". Included is a set of files named MAZE, which uses Key-Draw's HyperDraw feature to "run". MAZE is a 3-D maze game which allows you to move through various levels by moving the cursor via the keyboard, mouse or joystick. Although MAZE takes up over 800k of disk space with un-ARC'ed, it is compressed into a 72k arc file on disk 3 (the tutorial disk) of the 3-disk PC-Key-Draw set. ARCE or equivalent is required to un-ARC the files. With HyperShell this program could be used as a DOS menu program. It can be used to create a graphics-based menu for all your favorite programs, which can be run simply by clicking on the desired program icon. In addition, HyperShell uses only 100 bytes of RAM while running other programs, making it one of the most efficient menu programs around. Robert S. Gary, Charlotte, NC: "I am unable to get the software to install without receiving the error message "out of environment space". PsL: Your PATH string could be too long. Try rebooting from a plain DOS disk. Also, check your DOS manual's Index for "environment". Donald Otis, Salina, KS: "Attempts to run the program results in the following: a small white square appears on the screen then a series of numbers appear going down the left edge of the screen ending with the message "out of memory" I'm running the program on a Gateway 2000 386-25, with 80 meg and 1 meg dedicated to VGA and DOS 4.01." PsL: Author Edward Kidera says that the problem apparently is caused by an anomaly in DOS 4.x and can easily be corrected by running SHARE. (See your DOS manual for more information about using SHARE.) Picture Graphics #122 is a very easy to use program with many pictures stored on disk so that you don't have to draw at all. You can still do freehand drawing and automatically draw circles and boxes. It also has 5 different types of fonts available for adding fancy text to the screen. Picture-This Williams, P. Y. and Williams, G. $80 #7080/1312 [3 disks] is a vector-mapped (as opposed to bit-mapped) Postscript drawing program intended for output on laser printers. Being vector mapped means that pictures can be scaled up and down in size without creating the jaggedness common to resized bit-mapped drawings. Curved lines are created by specifying the two end points and two intermediate points which control the amount and location of the curve. A utility for capturing screens is included for importing CGA screens into the program. The output files can be imported to and manipulated by major desktop publishing programs or printed independently. A "quickshow" screen provides a fast preview of the Postscript output, accurately showing layering, thicknesses shading and more, which saves printing out innumerable test copies. Other features include sophisticated typesetting features, dotting-and-dashing of curves, automatic two-dimensional data plots, mouse support, a fun Kartoons mode, and much more. CGA-compatible video is required. This program also runs on 8088-based laptops, so you can draw or typeset on-the-go. PrintCADD 3-D Birdseye Software Ltd. ASP $75 #7576/3824 [3 disks] is a 3-D drafting, design and modelling program for EGA/VGA. Features include up to 255 named layers, multiple windows, a large number of tools and shapes, automatic surfaces, extruded surfaces, revolved and joined surfaces. PrintCADD lets you keep libraries of parts. You can work in perspective or parallel projections. Other features include elimination of hidden lines, rotation, copy and delete, zooms, pans, redraws, snap-to-grid, and more. Printers supported include HPLJ, Epson, IBM. NorthCad-3D The Quest Company $80 #7576/1209 (formerly Quest 3D) is a three-dimensional wire-frame drawing program that enables you to create, view, and edit three-dimensional objects. Using a menu-driven interface, commands can be quickly chosen to perform a large variety of design and viewing tasks. You can move, scale, rotate, and tip your image anyway you choose, making the program suited for a variety of creative design and illustration applications. This program is extremely fascinating if you have any interest in graphics at all. A half-dozen sample drawings come on the disk and even if you don't draw, it's a lot of fun just playing with them, rotating them, scaling them up and down, etc. Other features include Pan and Zoom commands that can be used simultaneously while drawing, a full screen cross hair cursor option (like in AutoCAD), a relative coordinate display option, an on-line keyboard reference, and a snap to the nearest endpoint command. DOS 3+ and 512K are required, and EGA is supported, along with VGA 16-color 640x480 resolution. Note: When entering a drive for the drawings, if you put A:\ it will cause an error. Just enter A: with no backslash. Rad CAD Ratcliff, Matthew J.W. $0 #7576/2815 is a 3D graphics design program that allows rotating, scaling, animation, axis rotation and more. PC-Schematics Mattern, John $25 #7190/2232 allows the user to create, save, and print electrical schematics. The program contains 170 elementary graphic characters which are used to create component patterns and full schematic diagrams. The graphic characters have been chosen for drawing analog circuits, digital circuits, and clock diagrams. Text can also be keyed in. Patterns can be transferred between drawings. Many other features make the program easy and efficient to use. The program appears to require DOS 3+. Features include the ability to have up to eight simultaneous drawings, one-pixel scale resolution, 2x4096 graphics character file size, tracking markers for all scales, a second print driver with high scale accuracy, BITMAP mode for drawing and creating characters, circle, arc, rectangle, and line routines in bitmap, a rotate routine for window sized patterns, fill routine for closed objects, an "oops" key to restore the prior bitmap image, multiple strike printing for darker artwork, the ability to produce both positive and negative artwork, the ability to transfers pads from layout to artwork drawing, a zoom feature, 2X magnification of quarter screen objects, automatic corners when drawing schematics, the ability to preview the complete drawing, and more. Schematic Filer Cutcher, Jeff $25 #7190/1974 allows you to draw schematics. It is actually a general drawing program, but it comes with a set of libraries and special functions pertaining to schematics. SF stores graphics as vectors, rather than bit-mapped data, which is faster and requires less memory and disk space. Requires 512k RAM, some form of graphics video, and a mouse. Features include rubberbanding; circles, boxes, arc, lines and text; fill patterns and line styles, two-color on CGA and 16 colors on EGA/VGA; a measuring function and more. GIFHex Gozum, Lawrence & Marvin $28 #2716 is a utility to convert GIF or PCX or BLD/PLT images, with 256-colors, to variable, error-distributed, dithered, 16-color pictures (up to 1024x768x16). It supports four different algorithms to maximize your 16-color modes. Requires EGA and 512K of memory. MVP Paint MVP Software ASP $35-$53 #12196 is a VGA graphics workshop. Features include animation, sunbursting, interpolation, trending, and palette manipulation permitting use of 262,144 colors. It supports EMS, XMS, diskcache and PCX, GIF and VGA file formats. Requires 640K, VGA/SVGA, and a mouse. PCX-ToolBox 2.1 PC West, Inc. $40 #4490 is a set of PCX imaging tools. Functions include crop, scale, view, print, dither, convert palettes, move, copy, delete, and more. Mouse support is included. Requires 512k RAM. PrintCAD 1.3 Ravitz Software Inc. ASP $49 #20121/4391 is a printer driver for CAD packages. It prints directly from CAD software using either AutoCAD's ADI pen plotter driver or an HP-GL driver. It supports a wide variety of printers, from Epson 9-pin to PostScript. Other specific printers supported include HP DeskJet 500C, PaintJet XL 300, LaserJet 4 at 600 dpi, Canon BJC880 and BJC800 native mode, Canon LBP 8 Mk4, and IBM 4029 LaserPrinter 600 dpi. Requires 368K of EMS or XMS memory. PrintGL 1.3 Ravitz Software Inc. ASP $50 #20121/3142 will print an HP pen plotter file on a printer. HP-GL is HP's pen plotter control language that is widely supported by graphics programs including AutoCAD, GenCAD, MathCAD, SAS, MICROCADAM, Schema, and GEM's IMG output format. PrintGL supports Epson compatible 9 and 24 pin dot matrix printers, HP LaserJet, HP 7475, DeskJet, and PaintJet, and IBM 9 and 24 pin Proprinters, Toshiba 24 pin, Quietwriter 2 and 3, LaserPrinter and NEC 24 pin printers print in 360x360 dpi mode. It also supports HP-GL, PostScript, Canon LBP, Canon BJ, IBM ExecJet output and HP 7550 polygon commands. Proportional fonts are supported along with clipping window handling, line dash patterns and margin precision. It will also display plots with a CGA, EGA, VGA, enhanced VGA, 720x540 and 800x600 VGA, or HGC and output a bit map. Even if your graphics program supports your printer, you may find that PrintGL gives better print quality. PrintGL uses the best graphics modes available for each printer that it supports. If you need printed graphics output from personal software, you can output HP-GL and use PrintGL to do the printing. This gives immediate support to a wide range of printers. Other features include clarification of Canon BJ/IBM ExecJet drivers, and compression mode drivers for 24 pin printers. Output formats are provided for HP QuietJet, ZSoft PCX, and Kodak Color 4. ProtoCAD 3D 1.1 TRIUS, Inc. ASP $65 #12031 is a fast 3D CAD/rendering program with 3D drawings and editing tools. It turns 2D drawings into 3D models. Visual aids simplify modeling and make adjusting the viewpoint easy. Perspective, isometric, oblique, and plane views are included. There is realistic light source and surface shading. It supports most popular dot matrix and laserjet printers. It also has multiple layers, HPGL and DXF import capabilities, PCX output, and more. Requires 512K RAM. TurboPaint Leinecker, Richard C. $20 #3525 is an easy to use paint program. It supports a wide variety of monitor combinations including CGA 2-color, CGA 4-color, EGA 320x200 16-color, EGA 640x200 16-color, EGA 640x350 16-color, MCGA, Hercules, and Tandy 16-color. It saves and loads PCX, IFF (LBM), and GIF graphic files. Mouse support and pull-down menus are included. Requires 512K RAM. VGA Paint Evans, David $? #1351 produces screen images in up to 248 colors at once on a VGA system. Fourteen brush shapes and four automatic shapes such as boxes and circles are provided. Image handling capabilities include: sizing, flipping, moving, copying and saving images to disk. Although the resolution of the screen is only moderate (320 X 200), the careful use of color mixing can produce images with near-photographic realism. VGA PAINT was written for a three-button mouse, but will work with just the keyboard or the keys plus a two-button mouse. We could not get the text function to work properly. Text evidently came out black on a black background no matter what color we selected. Like VGACAD, this program is designed for working on screen images and no provision is made for printing. Given that few printers support 248 colors, lack of printing support is a natural limitation. VGACad Gozum, Lawrence & Gozum, Marvin $30 #7041/1266 [2 disks] is a graphics program for pictures of up to 256 colors. VGACAD's documentation suggest that its main benefit is in coloring in black and white digitized graphics. VGACAD did not work properly on our AST 286 with Vega-7 VGA card. The authors acknowledge the incompatibility, and claim that the program will work on IBM PS machines. Support is included for Chips and Technologies' 452/453 and 451/455/456 versions; Chips and Technologies' 1024x768x256 mode; Genoa GVGA 6100, 6200, 6300, 6400, 6600 Chipset support; Headlands/V7VGA4 support; BMP 256-color support; and transparent cut and paste for full screen SVGA/MVGA image processing. 512K free RAM, and VGA/MCGA and analog or MF monitor is required. VGACad Utilities Gozum, Lawrence & Gozum, Marvin #7041/1567 contains the following programs to be used with VGACAD: VGA2EGA ($20) converts a 320x200x256-color picture or GIF 320x200x256 picture to and EGA 640x350x16 or SuperEGA 640x480x16 format. VGA2EGA features a unique method for generating over 3800 colors from 42,875 possible colors using only the 64 color universe of EGA colors in a 16 color palette. Outputs are saved as a GIF file. EGA users can now convert and view 320x200x256 GIFs with the closest possible rendition of the original 256 color pic. VGA users can convert their 320x200x256 creations and present them with the closest possible rendition on systems that are EGA-bound. VGAFIX ($0) is designed to rectify problems associated with palette reading and updating functions in Tseng Labs chip based VGA cards (primarily, the Orchid Designer). VGAPRN ($15) converts a 320x200x256-color VGA picture or VGACAD picture to seven dithering shades for EPSON and IBM compatible printers and prints graphic images with corrected aspect ratios. VGACAD Utilities #2 Gozum, Lawrence & Gozum, Marvin $various #7041/1794 [2 disks] contains several utilities to be used with VGACAD: VGA2CGA converts/views colored GIF pictures (256 colors and less) dithered, 4-color CGA or 16-Color EGA (emulated) pictures. CGA users can convert/view up to 405 colors. You can view GIF pictures in CGA 320x200x14, and XCGA: 160x100x16 and 80x100x"405" modes. GIFPUB will print any colored GIF picture or ANY viewable 320x200x256 picture with VGACAP (included) or any BLD/PLT file made with VGACAD, EGA2VGA, SQZGIF or MAC2GIF. It uses Floyd-Steinberg dithers to print with greatest possible gray-scale continuum limited only by you printer resolution and picture. It has variable brightness and contrast stretching image processing functions to optimize your print results. Other features include support for HP Laser and compatibles, GVGA (Genoa 6300/6300), EEGA/SVGA, and BMP/Windows 3.0 256-color input file. MAC2GIF is a viewer/colorizer/conversion utility for creating files which follow CompuServe's GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) which allows the transmittal and porting of your pictures to other machines in any graphics mode, as well as through communication software. SQZGIF will convert 256 color GIF pictures that are larger than 320x200x256 (e.g. 640x480x256) and interpolate or "color average" that picture into a 320x200x256 and save it to a .BLD and .PLT format for importing the results. Features include user-specified zooming or squeezed GIF and PCX pictures, the choice of fast interpolation or color averaging methods, and PCX format (to 2000x2000x256). VGACAP captures MCGA/VGA 320x200x256 or SVGA 640x480x256 and 800x600x256 screens. VGAFIL is included to convert 256-color 320x200, 640x480, or 800x600 captures to GIF or PCX, as well as configure VGACAP for fast, hard-coded SVGA screen grabs. VGAFIL also has a 256-color BMP conversion functionality for Windows 3.0. VGACAD Utilities #3 Gozum, Lawrence & Gozum, Marvin $various #7041/1655 more utilities to be used with VGACAD. EGA2VGA 5.0 will convert any GIF (16 colors and below) and any viewable EGA 640x350x16 (or 2) or VGA 640x480x16 (or 2) picture into a 320x200x256 color picture, with 256 new colors. EGA2VGA actually generates 256 new colors from the original 16 color EGA palette and interprets color mixtures. EGA2VGA also accurately calculates the correct aspect ratio for translation. EGA2VGA lets you export the converted screen to VGACAD (#1266) for editing, to GIFDOT for printing on an Epson/IBM compatible, or to GIFPUB for desktop publishing. EGA2VGA comes with three utilities for capturing graphics from different types of displays. Requires 512k. A hard disk is highly recommended. GIFBit 1.0 converts B&W PCX pics (up to 32KBx32KB) from an ordered dithered B&W pic (i.e., simulating gray shades) to a real gray shaded GIF picture. Once converted to gray shades, these pictures can be variably resized since gray shades take kindly to being resized. No video card is necessary. Save and load images without viewing them. For interactive viewing/saving, GIFBIT supports MCGA (320x200x256), MVGA (320x200x256 with a 1:1 aspect ratio !), VGA (640x480x16), and SVGA modes (640x400x256, 640x480x256 & 800x600x256). GIFBIT features interactive brightness, contrast, and skewing adjustments; save any viewable output or use the [F]ile mode to save MASSIVE gray images. About 512KB of memory is required. You must have an EMM.SYS (LIM EMS v32. or higher) to use the expanded memory option. MVGAVU 5.1 is a GIF and BLD/PLT viewer that supports the non-standard 320x400x256 and 360x480x256 video modes for generic VGA cards or PS/2 Model 50 (and up). It also support various SVGA video modes. MVGAVU supports 'smart' Slideshows within the program or batch file presentations. There are also screen adjustment features. Other features include full GIF87a support; SuperVGA command line mode and GIF selection/viewing; file and slideshow selection of 167 files; auto "Fade To Black" transition for GIF Slideshows; slideshow transitions such as vertical blinds and random lace; user-definable EEGA/SVGA slideshow mode; hardcoded, preset modes for Tseng 4000 chip; hardcoded, user modes for Oak Tech chip; contrast and brightness algorithms; and much more. Support is included for Windows 34-bit BMP image files. EGA/MCGA/VGA required. The following programs are not listed in the PSL NEWS listing because they are relatively simple drawing programs. They are still useful for simple applications, however: ArtMaster #557 has a lot of unusual features and although it isn't menu-driven, it is fairly easy to use. The author claims that these features or functions aid in making a drawing in two minutes where most drawing programs would take 10 minutes. Altamira Lockard, Brodie $? #111 is not a business-graphics package, nor a scientific graphing tool. But you will find the tools to do many fun and useful things: you can design logos, create posters and cards, plan a garden, make maps, draw floor plans, or just create beautiful pictures. Etch Milner, Charles $? #755 is a drawing program. It has six predefined font/icon sets and numerous drawing features. Graphed #114 is not a bad little graphics program, though I found it difficult to use without the documentation handy. There isn't any help screen to aid you if you can't remember the commands. Kraft Paint #117 gives you the ability to save and load pictures in a binary format and edit pictures with a variety of standard graphics tools to create graphic displays for work or for recreation. Joystick required. Sketch-A-Color Bridger, Mark $20 #123 is a simple graphics program. You have a choice of 16 background colors, displayed on the screen. Once the background color has been chosen you have a choice of one of two "palettes", each consisting of 3 foreground colors plus the background color. The program also has screen dump capability. YourArt1 Delano, Everett B. $? #124 is a medium resolution graphics program. YourArt2 Delano, Everett B. $? #125 is a high resolution graphics program. ]]]]]