LINCOMATIC BANNER AND KSET MANAGER DOCUMENTATION
-------------------------------------------------------------

INTRODUCTION: This package will allow you to make fancy
signs with your printer.


SUPPLIED FILES:

BANNER.COM The banner maker program
KSMGR .COM The KSET manager program
*.KSE various KSETs for your enjoyment


TABLE OF CONTENTS
-----------------

I. LINCOMATIC BANNER MAKER ................... 2
II. LINCOMATIC KSET MANAGER ................... 3
III. KSET FILE FORMAT .......................... 6
IV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................... 8



































1









_ _ _
I. LINCOMATIC BANNER MAKER
__ __________ ______ _____

The LINCOMATIC BANNER MAKER is a program which allows you
to make signs which can be printed on any printer. Unlike
some other sign-maker programs, you can choose among many
different fonts (KSET's) or even create your own. To
start the LINCOMATIC BANNER MAKER type

BANNER
BANNER
BANNER

First, you will be prompted for a KSET file. KSET files are
files which contain various type fonts for the program to
use. All of the files with extension .KSE are KSET files.
Try BDR30 to start (this is one of my favorites).


KSET file [.KSE]: BDR30
KSET file [.KSE]: BDR30
KSET file [.KSE]: BDR30

Note that you do not have to type the .KSE extension; the
program will fill it in for you. Next, you will be prompted
for an output file


Output file:
Output file:
Output file:

You can specify any file name you wish. Be sure not to
specify a file name which already exists, because its
contents will be overwritten. To output directly to your
printer turn on your printer, and enter 'prn'. Or you can
view the banner on your screen by typing 'con'. Next, you
will be asked


Change fill characters (y/n)?
Change fill characters (y/n)?
Change fill characters (y/n)?

If you answer 'n' your banner will be composed of '*' and
spaces. You can change these characters to suit your tastes
by answering 'y'. Finally, you will be asked to enter a line
of text


Enter a line of text up to 132 characters
Enter a line of text up to 132 characters
Enter a line of text up to 132 characters

Type in the words you want and press return. The program
will keep you posted on its progress and tell you when it's
done. Experiment with all the different KSET's. Try setting
your printer for compressed type, wide type, etc. The
possibilities are endless.












2









_ _ _
II. LINCOMATIC KSET MANAGER
___ __________ ____ _______


The LINCOMATIC KSET MANAGER is included so that you can
alter or create your own KSET (font) files. To start the
KSET manager, type

KSMGR
KSMGR
KSMGR

You will then get a menu as follows:

<0> Info about this program
<1> Dump a KSET into a text file
<2> Convert a text file into a KSET
<3> Exit to DOS



1. Dump a KSET file into a text file
__ ____ _ ____ ____ ____ _ ____ ____

Selecting will allow you to convert a binary KSET file into
1
1
1
a text file composed of the pictures contained in the KSET.
You can then put the text file into your favorite ASCII
editor and alter or add characters as you wish. Then, you
can use selection to convert the text file back into a
2
2
2
KSET.

Say you want to see what the pictures in BDR30.KSE look like.
First, select . You will then be prompted for the KSET
1
1
1
file:


KSET file [.KSE]:
KSET file [.KSE]:
KSET file [.KSE]:

to which you type BDR30. The program will then proceed to
dump the KSET into a file called BDR30.PIC (MAKE SURE YOU
HAVE LOTS OF SPACE ON YOUR DISK! .PIC FILES ARE BIG). The
program will keep you posted on which character it is
currently working. When the program is done, exit by
selecting from the main menu and put the file into a text
3
3
3
editor, say EDLIN or PC-WRITE.

















3











The beginning of the file will look something like this:


31 pictures are 31 dots tall
^A 14 this pic of ^A is 14 dots
...........**.................. wide
..........***..................
.........***...................
........***....................
.......***.....................
......**********************...
......**********************...
.......***..................... this picture is 31 dots
........***.................... tall and 14 dots wide
.........***................... (looking sideways)
..........***..................
...........**..................
...............................
...............................
~
^B 26
.........*****.................
........*******................
.......**.....**...............
......**.......**..............
......**.......**..............
......**.......**..............
......**.......**..............
......**.......**..............
.......**.....**...............
........**....**...............
........**...**................
.........******................
..........****.................
........******.................
.......***.****................
......**....****...............
......**.....****..............
......**.......****............
......**.........***...........
......**..........***..........
......**............**.........
.......**............*.........
........*......................
...............................
...............................
...............................
~

Note that the pictures are all rotated 90 degrees as they are
when you make them with BANNER. There are some rules to the
.PIC files.


4









(1) The first line of the file contains the height of the
pictures in the KSET.
(2) The first line of a picture description is the character
it represents followed by the width of the picture in
dots.
(3) Next is the picture
(4) A picture definition is terminated by a '~'.

In our example (which is part of a dump of BDR30.KSE), the
first line of the file is 31, meaning all of the pictures in
this KSET are 31 dots high. Next is the picture which
corresponds to ^A (ASCII 01). The picture is 14 dots wide
and the dot pattern is a 31 x 14 matrix representing a down-
arrow. Note that the picture is terminated with a '~'. The
next picture corresponds to ^B (ASCII 02), and it is a
31 x 26 dot picture of the Greek letter alpha.

You can define any ASCII character from 0-127. To represent
a space (ASCII 32), you can use or . DEL (ASCII 127) is
sp SP
sp SP
sp SP
denoted by . You can alter a .PIC file or create your own,
^?
^?
^?
then convert it to a KSET using the next option:




2. Convert a text file into a KSET
__ _______ _ ____ ____ ____ _ ____

Selecting from the main menu allows you to convert a .PIC
2
2
2
file of dots and asterisks into a KSET.

REMEMBER: You MUST use an ASCII text editor, and tabs are NOT
allowed in the .PIC file.

You will be prompted for a .PIC file, and then the program
will make a KSET file with the same name and the .KSE
extension. (i.e if you enter BDR30, the program will convert
BDR30.PIC and make a file called BDR30.KSE). NOTE: This
program will overwrite existing files, so if you already have
a .KSE file with the same name as the .PIC file on your disk,
it will be overwritten. Therefore, it is a good idea to
first copy any .KSE files you are experimenting with to
another disk so you have a backup in case you screw up.















5









_ _ _
III. KSET FILE FORMAT
____ ____ ____ ______

For those of you who are technically minded, and wish to
create new applications for the KSET files, here is the
internal format:

KSET files are composed of records of 16-bit integers
(2-byte words stored in reverse-byte order, i.e. LSB first)
The records of the file are numbered sequentially starting
from 0. The records are organized as follows:

The first 131 records of the file are reserved for a data
table:

record 0: the size of this KSET file in records
record 1: the height of this KSET in pixels
record 3: the width in pixels of the largest picture in
this KSET
records 4-131: file position pointers to the pixel data for
the ASCII characters 0-127.

The rest of the file is free-form pixel data for the pictures
in the KSET. The first record of each picture is the width
of the picture, followed by the bits which make up the
picture. This probably all sounds very confusing, so I will
give an example. You can use a in Pascal to
file of integer
file of integer
file of integer
read the KSET files. We will use the file BDR30.KSE. The
first 3 records of this file are:

record 0 = 4107
record 1 = 31
record 2 = 28

This means that the file is 4107 records long, the height of
the pictures contained in it is 31 pixels high, and the
widest picture in the KSET is 28 pixels wide (pictures within
a KSET can vary in width, but they are all the same height).
Let's get the pixels for the number '2' (ASCII 51). 51+3=54,
so the pointer is record 54 in the file. We find

record 54 = 1630

This means the data for '2' starts at file position 1630. We
seek to position 1630 in the file, and find

record 1630 = 14

This means the picture for '2' is 14 pixels wide. So we need
31 X 14 (height X width) = 434 bits to make the picture.
This means the next 434 / 16 = 27.125 = 28 words in the file
contain the bits we need. The next 28 records in the file
are:

decimal= hex = binary = pattern( '.'=0,'*'=1)


6









---------------------------------------------------
896 = 0380 = 0000001110000000 = ......***.......
0 = 0000 = 0000000000000000 = ................
1920 = 0780 = 0000011110000000 = .....****.......
16256 = 3F80 = 0011111110000000 = ..*******.......
3968 = 0F80 = 0000111110000000 = ....*****.......
32640 = 7F80 = 0111111110000000 = .********.......
7040 = 1B80 = 0001101110000000 = ...**.***.......
-31872 = 8380 = 1000001110000000 = *.....***.......
13184 = 3380 = 0011001110000000 = ..**..***.......
768 = 0300 = 0000001100000000 = ......**........
24960 = 6180 = 0110000110000000 = .**....**.......
1536 = 0600 = 0000011000000000 = .....**.........
-1600 = C180 = 1100000110000000 = **.....**.......
3073 = 0C01 = 0000110000000001 = ....**.........*
-32384 = 8180 = 1000000110000000 = *......**.......
14339 = 3803 = 0011100000000011 = ..***.........**
511 = 01FF = 0000000111111111 = .......*********
-8185 = E007 = 1110000000000111 = ***..........***
511 = 01FF = 0000000111111111 = .......*********
15 = 000F = 0000000000001111 = ............****
-32768 = 8000 = 1000000000000000 = *...............
0 = 0000 = 0000000000000000 = ................
0 = 0000 = 0000000000000000 = ................
0 = 0000 = 0000000000000000 = ................
0 = 0000 = 0000000000000000 = ................
0 = 0000 = 0000000000000000 = ................
0 = 0000 = 0000000000000000 = ................
0 = 0000 = 0000000000000000 = ................



If we arrange these bits in 14 rows of 31 bits and discard
any excess bits, we get


......***......................
......****.........*******.....
......*****........********....
......**.***.......*.....***...
......**..***.............**...
......**....**............**...
......**.....**...........**...
......**......**.........***...
......**.......************....
......***.......*********......
......*****....................
...............................
...............................
...............................


Viola! Hope this example helps.



7









_
IV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
___ ________________

These programs are distributed in the manner that the
'Freeware' concept should be; they are literally free! No
strings attached. Copy 'em, distribute them; just please do
not distribute altered copies, and PLEASE do not sell them!
You got it for free, so others should, too.

Thanks to Michael Rubin for inspiring me with his
programs KSMAKE and KSDUMP. Any suggestions or comments
should be sent to

Sam Lin
7709 Beech Tree Road
Bethesda, MD 20817

If you want a reply you MUST INCLUDE A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED
ENVELOPE. I would like some input on what features to add on
future versions (if there is sufficient interest). Also, if
you create an interesting KSET of your own, please send me a
copy of it so I can include it with future releases.
Finally, please let me know of any other interesting
applications you think of for KSET's. Enjoy.

































8




ENVELOPE. I would like some input on what features to add on
future versions (if there is sufficient interest). Also, if
you create an interesting KSET of your own, please send me