In the PC-basic homepage, we can see a "Frog" image on the right, near some other games and demo screens.
Can please someone post or send me the file with the frog?
(I need it, at school, as graphic image to load in memory to demonstrate the EGA working, and I'm unable to find anything to load!)
(So the request is for the "frog.raw"... or any other EGA image to Bload... )
(Please, help me if you can: time is running and the lesson is scheduled on day 4, so there are only 2 days left!)
Last edit: Alberto Donda 2019-04-02
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By the way, in the homepage is stated: "PC basic can emulate CGA EGA and VGA" ... but there are no VGA modes in the documentation (SCREEN command).
So is it actually possible to enter some VGA modes, like the classic 320x200x256?... yes or not?
I'm pretty confused on this point...
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The treefrog image was included with a program shared on the VOGONS forum: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=12319&start=100
Also attached here - these are BMP files that are being rendered by a GW-BASIC program.
However, note that this is not EGA, but rather CGA with emulated NTSC composite monitor, so it won't help illustrate the EGA. NTSC composite generates colour artifacts when displaying dithered black-and-white images, so it's an entirely different process.
I don't know of existing tools to convert images into BSAVE format, although this viewer may be of interest to you: https://github.com/ChainedLupine/BSAVEViewer. There probably were converters into BSAVEformat in the DOS era, but you'd have to go trawling textfiles.com and Simtel mirrors and similar sites to find them.
However since PC-BASIC itself emulates the video card, you could build a converter based on some of its source code. You'd need to start at display/framebuffer.py - it contains all the memory mapping logic.
GW-BASIC could only address CGA, MDPA and EGA modes; so the VGA emulation just emulates those modes as shown on a VGA card. The differences with EGA are minimal, except for the text mode which has a higher resolution and different font. 320x200x256 was accessible only in QBasic (as SCREEN 13), not in GW-BASIC.
Many thanks. All your informations are interesting and usefull. But after many hours spent try to make them work, I must resign because there is no time left for me. I undestand, with a bit of surprise, that there is nothing of ready to use. BSAVEViewer, for example, would be great... if only had just one example image to load! So we return to my original problem: I cant locate any ready image to bload with basic... Even the frog is not ready, I was plannig to let it calculate, then BSAVE it and then activate manually the burst mode. But I noticed this will work only with a proper INI file, and this would require administrator privileges in my school. Too complicate....
Well, I think I will prepare a generic "not so exciting" image using LINE and CIRCLE and then BSAVing it, just to simulate a bitmap ready to load again.
Have a ride with this, if you like...
10 SCREEN 9
20 CLS:KEY OFF
40 FOR J=1 TO 640 STEP 15
50 LINE (1,J)-(640-J,1),3:LINE (640,350-J)-(J,350),9
60 NEXT J
Last edit: Alberto Donda 2019-04-03
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But in any case the frog image is not using the EGA so you couln't use it to demonstrate the EGA. It's using CGA composite which works entirely differently from EGA.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Ok, after all... the lesson was a success:
I managed to download an old Paint program for PC, still having the "BSAVE" format option in the save menu. It came with various PCX examples, so it was easy to save a CGA image. Unfortunately it refuse to save multi plane modes, so no EGA.
Anyway, here it is the image, if someone wants to try it for fun...
Just copy it in your work directory (check with "files" command) and then type:
SCREEN 1
BLOAD "home.bsv"
a nice image will appair! : )
(Not bad, considering there are only 4 colors.)
In the PC-basic homepage, we can see a "Frog" image on the right, near some other games and demo screens.
Can please someone post or send me the file with the frog?
(I need it, at school, as graphic image to load in memory to demonstrate the EGA working, and I'm unable to find anything to load!)
(So the request is for the "frog.raw"... or any other EGA image to Bload... )
(Please, help me if you can: time is running and the lesson is scheduled on day 4, so there are only 2 days left!)
Last edit: Alberto Donda 2019-04-02
By the way, in the homepage is stated: "PC basic can emulate CGA EGA and VGA" ... but there are no VGA modes in the documentation (SCREEN command).
So is it actually possible to enter some VGA modes, like the classic 320x200x256?... yes or not?
I'm pretty confused on this point...
Hi Alberto,
The treefrog image was included with a program shared on the VOGONS forum: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=12319&start=100
Also attached here - these are BMP files that are being rendered by a GW-BASIC program.
However, note that this is not EGA, but rather CGA with emulated NTSC composite monitor, so it won't help illustrate the EGA. NTSC composite generates colour artifacts when displaying dithered black-and-white images, so it's an entirely different process.
I don't know of existing tools to convert images into
BSAVEformat, although this viewer may be of interest to you: https://github.com/ChainedLupine/BSAVEViewer. There probably were converters intoBSAVEformat in the DOS era, but you'd have to go trawling textfiles.com and Simtel mirrors and similar sites to find them.However since PC-BASIC itself emulates the video card, you could build a converter based on some of its source code. You'd need to start at
display/framebuffer.py- it contains all the memory mapping logic.GW-BASIC could only address CGA, MDPA and EGA modes; so the VGA emulation just emulates those modes as shown on a VGA card. The differences with EGA are minimal, except for the text mode which has a higher resolution and different font. 320x200x256 was accessible only in QBasic (as
SCREEN 13), not in GW-BASIC.Hope this helps
Rob
Last edit: Rob Hagemans 2019-04-02
Many thanks. All your informations are interesting and usefull. But after many hours spent try to make them work, I must resign because there is no time left for me. I undestand, with a bit of surprise, that there is nothing of ready to use. BSAVEViewer, for example, would be great... if only had just one example image to load! So we return to my original problem: I cant locate any ready image to bload with basic... Even the frog is not ready, I was plannig to let it calculate, then BSAVE it and then activate manually the burst mode. But I noticed this will work only with a proper INI file, and this would require administrator privileges in my school. Too complicate....
Well, I think I will prepare a generic "not so exciting" image using LINE and CIRCLE and then BSAVing it, just to simulate a bitmap ready to load again.
Have a ride with this, if you like...
Last edit: Alberto Donda 2019-04-03
The INI file is a per-user setting, you don't need admin access to change it - have you tried?
But in any case the frog image is not using the EGA so you couln't use it to demonstrate the EGA. It's using CGA composite which works entirely differently from EGA.
Ok, after all... the lesson was a success:
I managed to download an old Paint program for PC, still having the "BSAVE" format option in the save menu. It came with various PCX examples, so it was easy to save a CGA image. Unfortunately it refuse to save multi plane modes, so no EGA.
Anyway, here it is the image, if someone wants to try it for fun...
Just copy it in your work directory (check with "files" command) and then type:
SCREEN 1
BLOAD "home.bsv"
a nice image will appair! : )
(Not bad, considering there are only 4 colors.)