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1991-02-21
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VGACAP v7.1 (c) Copr. 1987-91 Lawrence Gozum & Marvin Gozum
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
User Manual
DISCLAIMER
This product is distributed AS IS. The authors specifically disclaim
all warranties ,expressed or implied, including ,but not limited to,
implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular
purpose with respect to defects in the diskette and documentation, and
program license granted herein, in particular, and without limiting
operation of the program license with respect to any particular
application use or purpose. In no event shall the authors be liable
for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage including but
not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.
LICENSING AGREEMENT
You may use this program for a 10 DAY TRIAL PERIOD. Should you find
this program useful, you MUST register it; you will then be provided
with the latest releases of the VGACAD system see last section of this
manual).
You can freely distribute copies of unmodified VGACAP and charge $10
max for distribution, in lieu of recognized Users Group guidelines
(e.g., Asso. of Shareware Professionals or NY Amateur Computer Club).
WHAT IS VGACAP ?
VGACAP is a resident utility that captures pictures in 320x200x256
VGA/MCGA mode, any 640x480x256 SVGA mode or any 800x600x256 SVGA mode
(e.g., Genoa GVGA, Tseng 3000/3000, Paradise/PVGA, Trident 8800/8900,
ATI, Video7, C&T 452/453, Oak, ...) supported. VGACAP will capture and
"Bsave" 320x200x256 pictures; SVGA 640x480x256 and 800x600x256 pictures
will be saved to *.RAW file files (ie., "RAW" pixel dumps).
WHAT IS VGAFIL ?
VGAFIL is a conversion program for use in a batch file (*.BAT) or as an
interactive stand-alone program; RAW and BLD/PLT files are 640x480x256
or 800x600x256 screens, or 320x200x256 screens respectively. VGAFIL is
designed to integrate directly with VGACAD v2.0 (and up) and replace
BLD2GIF and RAW2GIF. Moreover, VGAFIL converts and saves captured
images to 32768-color TGA (Targa 16), 256-color BMP (Windows 3.0), PCX,
GIF files or 16-color GIF files. VGAFIL is also a utility to customize
and configure VGACAP to take advantage of specific SVGA chipset
hardcoding for FAST screen captures.
REQUIREMENTS
About 512KB of memory is required for VGAFIL, although it uses about 2/3
of that; it, also, requires that the BRUN41.exe runtime module be present
in your present path; this is explained later in this manual. You MUST
have a VGA or MCGA adaptor (at least BIOS compatible) present and an
analog monitor to use VGACAP. VGACAP uses about 3KB of RAM. To use
the 640x480x256 or 800x600x256 capture mode, you MUST have SVGA.
CONFIGURING VGACAP
VGACAP, on default, is set for BIOS operations; BIOS calls are 'generic'
and should work with most, if not all, SVGA cards. However, BIOS calls
are slow. By using the hardware configuration, VGACAP will capture
screens in 2-3 seconds compared to about 20-30 seconds for 800x600x256
screens (based on 28ms HD on 18 MHz 386sx).
To configure VGACAP for your specific hardware type
VGAFIL -V <ret>
or
VGAFIL -C <ret>
A menu will guide you. Simply select the letter which corresponds to
your video card chipset. Remember, when in doubt, return the setting
to BIOS operations. BIOS operations does not guarantee that it will
work, generally, if your video board manufacturer took care in
writing its BIOS - it SHOULD work.
If you are having compatibility problems with VGACAP or VGAFIL please
contact Lawrence Gozum by:
1) E-plex at CompuServe [73437,2372]
2) E-mail at the CompuServe PICs Forum
3) Telephone (416) 923-3387
4) Mail at
One Oriole Rd. #206
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M4V 2E7
HOW TO USE VGACAP
Run VGACAP before entering your painting/CAD or digitized picture
viewer. Press <ALT-F4>, while viewing your picture in any paint/CAD
program and the screen and palette will be saved in your default drive
and directory. If you are viewing your picture in MCGA/VGA 320x200x256
then it will be "Bsaved". If you are NOT is MCGA/VGA 320x200x256 mode,
then VGACAP will assume you are in an SVGA mode !
<alt-F4> is the HOTKEY
The first time you run the program it will save your screen and palette
to SCREEN00.BLD (.RAW) and SCREEN00.PLT respectively. If there is an
existing SCREENxx.BLD (.RAW) or SCREENxx.PLT file, it will increment to
the next higher number. You can use your favorite memory managers to
remove this TSR or reboot to release it from memory.
If you are viewing in 640x480x256 SVGA mode or 800x600x256 SVGA mode,
then the SCREENxx.BLD file is changed to SCREENxx.RAW; the "Bload" header
is not included and a "RAW" contiguous pixel dump is implemented. If you
wish, you can easily design your own utilities to read and process these
"RAW" pixel dumps; they are simple contiguous pixel dumps with file sizes
of 307,200 bytes (i.e., 640 x 480 = 307,200 pixels) for 640x480x256 SVGA
mode and 480,000 bytes for 800x600x256 SVGA mode. The *.PLT files remain
the same.
Note: When in DOS or using a picture viewer (e.g., PICEM, VPIC, or
CSHOW) or application which requires a keypress to continue, it
is necessary to hit another key after hitting the 'HOTKEY'.
LOADING/CONVERTING SCREEN GRABS WITH VGAFIL
If you type "VGAFIL <ret>", then you can select any filename by moving a
highlighted bar (with the arrow keys) and pressing the <return> key.
Pressing <Spc> allows you to select a different PATH, while <Esc> exits.
A matching *.PLT file MUST exist or an error message will result.
A *.GIF or *.PCX file is created with the corresponding name.
GIF/PCX FILES WITH THE SAME NAME WILL BE OVERWRITTEN !
On default, VGAFIL selects RAW/PLT files. BLD/PLT files can be selected
by using the "-B" option.
VGAFIL -B <ret>
On default, all captured screens are converted to GIF (87a) files.
To convert screens to 256-color PCX files, use the "-P" option.
VGAFIL -P <ret>
To convert screens to 256-color BMP files for Windows 3.0, use the
"-W" option (for uncompressed Windows 3.0 "Wallpaper").
VGAFIL -W <ret>
To convert screens to 32768-color TGA files for XGA, Hercules HGSC,
Targa cards (and other "high-end clones"), use the "-T" option (for
uncompressed Targa 16 bits format").
VGAFIL -T <ret>
COMMAND LINE AND BATCH FILES
VGAFIL can be used in batch (*.BAT) files for multiple conversions.
Simply type "VGAFIL [filename] " with no extension (path optional) for
every file you want to convert in your batch file; you can also use
this method if you want to convert a specific file from DOS.
Examples: VGAFIL screen00
VGAFIL -B screen00
VGAFIL \capture\screen99
VGAFIL -B \capture\screen99
VGAFIL -P \capture\screen99
VGAFIL -W \capture\screen99
VGAFIL -T \capture\screen99
VGAFIL will automatically search for the RAW/PLT files or BLD/PLT files.
If no files are found or matching *.PLT file is missing, then an error
will result; the matching PLT files MUST be in the same drive/directory
or default drive/directory.
TEMP, MVGASCRN, NYBLSCRN, AND USERSCRN FILES
TEMPorary files are used by VGACAD, SQZGIF