Category : Display Utilities
Archive   : VPT415.ZIP
Filename : VPT.MAN

 
Output of file : VPT.MAN contained in archive : VPT415.ZIP
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³ V I D E O P A L E T T E T O O L V4.15 ³
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Programs and Documentation are Copyright 1991 by clySmic Software.
All rights reserved.



I. INTRODUCTION

This program allows VGA and MCGA users to:

þ View the quarter-million VGA colors available on their systems,

þ Set any text-mode attribute (0 - 15) to any color out of the
quarter-million,

þ Control the overscan (a.k.a. border) color (not available on MCGA
systems),

þ Have the colors "stick" with almost all programs,

þ Load and save their favorite settings in color files, and

þ Use the program in a command-line mode (for batch file use).



II. WHAT'S NEW

a. Improved error handling during file processing, especially for
network use.

b. The VPTDIR environment variable, which allows the user to control
where the .VPT files are loaded and stored. This is mostly for
network use. See section IX, below, for details.

c. Can press ScrollLock key to "lock" together all the sliders.

d. Now VPT is "reminderware." Sorry, but its necessary. The
easiest workaround is to register the software! VPT will remind
you every time in full-screen mode, and 1 out of 20 times in
command-line mode.

e. VPT "remembers" the last file you used and the last attribute you
were working on (this works only if VPTRES is loaded).

f. *Much* faster color loading, due to the use of direct access to
the DAC registers, rather than going through the BIOS. The BIOS
calls are either slow or cause severe flickering.

g. Home and End now adjust the color of the slider you're working
on, use X or Escape to exit.

h. A completely new and much better scheme to get the colors to
stick during a mode change. This involves a small terminate-and-
stay-resident program called VPTRES. MCGA users and those who
don't want a TSR (its really small) can still use VPT in the old
manner, without VPTRES. It is highly recommended though as an
improved way of controlling colors. See the TECHNICAL
INFORMATION section, below, for the gory details.

i. During loading you can press F1 for a directory of all the .VPT
files in the directory that VPT was run from. You can scroll
through this list and select a file for loading.

j. Networking functions include: network-aware file handling and
network user "home directory" support.



III. FILES INCLUDED

þ VPT.EXE................The Video Palette Tool.
þ VPTRES.COM.............Resident portion of the VPT system (optional,
but recommended).
þ VPT.MAN................Documentation file.

þ LOCK.COM...............A small TSR that locks EGA and VGA palette
registers (use only if needed). Registered
version only.
þ SEL.EXE................An ANSI color setting program. Registered
version only.
þ VPTLOAD.EXE............VPT color file loader for OS/2 full-screen
sessions. Registered version only.
þ TSTPATN.EXE............A television test pattern simulator.
Registered version only.


IV. LOADING THE RESIDENT PORTION

Command: VPTRES

If you try to load VPTRES more than once, it will print an error
message and exit. I recommend you place this command in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. VPT will run without VPTRES, but VPT runs much
better with it. VPTRES is very small and doesn't use any "hot-keys".

VPTRES has two options: /R which will let you reload VPTRES even
though its been loaded before. This is primarily useful for
environments like Windows 3.0. The other option is /Q, a "quiet"
switch that suppresses the program's identification message.



V. USING VPT'S INTERACTIVE MODE

Command: VPT

VPT operates in text mode and allows setting of any or all of the
sixteen attributes available in text mode. There are three sliders
(one each for Red, Green, and Blue), each of which can assume any of
64 values (0 through 63). The current values are displayed next to
the sliders on the right side of the screen.

Key(s) Action
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Left/Right Arrows Moves the R,G, or B slider between 0 and 63
to control the intensity of the R, G, or B
signal.

Control Left/Right As above, but moves five positions instead of
one.

Home/End Moves slider directly to 0 (Home) or 63
(End).

Up/Down Arrows Select between the Red, Green, and Blue
sliders.

PageUp/PageDown Selects an attribute between 0 and 15 to work
with.

A About VPT. Shows licensing and copyright
information about VPT.

B Backdrop mode. This makes the current
attribute the background and places text with
all sixteen attributes on the screen so you
can see the combinations. Any key exits this
mode.

D Loads the Default, boot-up colors.

L Loads the colors from a file of your choice,
if no file is specified, STD.VPT is assumed.
You don't need to add the .VPT extension.

O Sets the Overscan (border) color to the
current attribute. Not available on MCGA
systems.

S Saves the colors to a file of your choice, if
no file is specified, STD.VPT is assumed.
Note: all .VPT files are saved to the
directory VPT was run from, NOT the current
directory (unless VPT.EXE is there!).

T Automatically loads the sTandard color file,
STD.VPT. This is the same using Load and
typing STD ; its just easier.

X or Escape Exits VPT.


Keys Used While Loading or Saving a File:
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F1 Available during loading only. Replaces the
file with the first entry in a sorted list of
.VPT files in the directory VPT was run from.

Backspace Erases the last character in the file name.

Ctrl-Backspace Erases all the characters in the file name.

Escape Abandon the load or save.

Enter Finishes entry of the filename and performs
the operation.


Keys Used While Looking at a Directory with F1
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Up/Down Arrows Scrolls through the directory of .VPT files.

Home Goes to the beginning of the sorted directory
list.

End Goes to the end of the sorted directory list.

Escape Abandon the load.

Enter Select the displayed filename and perform the
operation.



VI. USING VPT'S COMMAND-LINE MODE

Command: VPT [option]

Where [option] is one of the following (capitalization does not
matter):

/L [filename] This loads the specified file, if there is
one. If there isn't, you will get an error
message. If [filename] is not specified,
STD.VPT will be assumed.

/C [filename] Like /L above, but does an ANSI clear screen
afterwards and displays no messages.

/D This loads the default palette. These are
the colors assigned by IBM and are the ones
you would see if you didn't use VPT.

/X Only available if VPTRES is not resident,
this option resets the "palette load on mode
change" option to true (see TECHNICAL
INFORMATION, below, for an explanation).

/H Displays color numbers in hexadecimal.

/I Checks for program code file integrity. If
VPT reports that the code file has been
corrupted, VPT.EXE has been altered,
accidentally or otherwise. Do not use VPT if
this check fails!! Not foolproof, but better
than nothing.

/? Presents a help list recapping your options,
indicates whether VPTRES is resident or not,
and displays the directory VPT will use to
load and save files.

Any other option will generate an error message.

The main reason for command-line mode is to include VPT in batch
files. First you would run VPT interactively, find the colors you
like, save them in the STD.VPT file, then include a line like the
following:

VPT /L or

VPT /C

in your batch file. This will load your saved colors when you run the
batch file. VPT.EXE should be placed in a directory on your PATH. If
you don't wish to see the informational messages produced by VPT in
command-line mode, you can redirect the output to the null device
(a.k.a. the bit bucket) as follows:

VPT /L >NUL:

Note that error messages *cannot* be redirected and will still be
seen.

If there are any errors, the DOS ERRORLEVEL is set to 10.



VII. MORE EXAMPLES

vpt /l mycol Loads the color file MYCOL.VPT. This assumes
you created such a file using the interactive
mode of VPT.

vpt /c Loads STD.VPT and clears the screen.

vpt /? Brings forth help.

vpt /i Runs the integrity check.

An example batch file:

@echo off
rem THIS BATCH FILE RUNS DULLAPP, WHICH, SINCE IT USES ONLY LIGHT
rem GRAY AND BLACK, IS A GOOD CANDIDATE FOR ADDING COLOR

rem LOAD DULLAPP COLOR SET (DULL.VPT)
vpt /l dull >nul:

rem RUN THE PROGRAM
cd \dull
dullapp
cd \

rem RE-LOAD STANDARD COLOR SET (STD.VPT) AND CLEAR THE SCREEN
vpt /c



VIII. OVERRIDING THE DEFAULT DIRECTORY AND NETWORK USAGE

To override VPT's use of its own directory (the directory it was run
from) for color file storage, you can define a DOS environment
variable naming the location you wish to use. For example, to use the
C:\FOOBAR\ZUUL directory to load and save your colors files, enter:

SET VPTDIR=C:\FOOBAR\ZUUL

at the DOS prompt. This command can, of course, be placed in a batch
file. To see what directory VPT is currently using, type VPT /?.

Another use of this command is when VPT is run from a network server.
Let us say that VPT is located on the Z: drive, and each user's home
directory is defined as drive F:. In order for the users to share
VPT's code, but each have their own color files, you would use a set
statement:

SET VPTDIR=F:\

in each user's environment. This would most likely be done when the
user logs on. Now the VPT.EXE file can reside on a drive that the
user only has permission to read & execute.



IX. TECHNICAL INFORMATION

þ GENERAL

VPT works by manipulating the DAC (digital to analog converter) color
registers; each register (there are 256, to allow for the 300x200x256
mode) contains 18 bits, 6 each for Red, Green, and Blue. Each RGB
value can go from 0 to 63, all the combinations makes for 262,144
possible colors. You can show up to sixteen of these at a time in the
text modes, each of the sixteen "attributes" can be any color (or all
the same color) out of the quarter-million.

þ VIDEO MODE SETS

a) Old method, used by pre-4.xx versions of VPT and still available
with VPT 4.14 if VPTRES is not resident.

Normally BIOS resets the EGA and DAC color registers whenever a mode
set is done. VPT without VPTRES makes its colors stick across a mode
set by using the "Default Palette Loading During Mode Set" BIOS call
to disable this action. If you desire to return this to its default,
boot-up condition, use VPT /X. Then a subsequent mode set, like MODE
CO80, will cause the default conditions to prevail.

b) New, much better, method, used by VPT 4.14 with VPTRES resident.

VPTRES creates a table and a pointer to VPT's colors that BIOS uses
whenever a mode set is done. This ability to override the defaults is
built into the VGA BIOS. You don't need to (and can't) use VPT /X
when using VPTRES. You also don't need to use VPT /C when exiting
from graphics programs to "reset" the colors. All told, a much better
way to make DAC colors sticky.

þ COLOR FILES

The saved color files have an extension of .VPT which you NEVER need
to type when using VPT. For DOS 3.x/4.x users, they are stored in the
same directory that VPT is run from. For instance, say VPT is stored
in the C:\BIN directory, that directory is on your PATH, and you are
in C:\ZUUL. When you run VPT, DOS will find it on your PATH in C:\BIN
and run it. The color files will also be loaded and stored in C:\BIN.
For DOS 2.x users, the file will be stored in the root directory
because DOS 2.x doesn't provide the information to determine where a
program is run from.

VPT attempts to check for a valid color file by not loading any files
that aren't exactly 49 bytes long. You will get a 'bad color file'
message. If a file is 49 bytes long and has a .VPT extension but
*isn't* a VPT color file, it will get loaded anyway. The colors
should be interesting.

þ REFERENCES, &c.

VPT was written based on technical information from the book
"Programmer's Guide to PC & PS/2 Video Systems" by Richard Wilton and
IBM's "Display Adapter/2 Technical Reference". Assembler routines to
load the DAC registers came from on-line code examples and the "V7VGA
Technical Reference Manual" by Video-7.

VPT, TSTPATN, and SEL were written in Turbo Pascal and Assembler.
VPTRES and LOCK were written entirely in Assembler.


X. CAVEATS

EGA-aware and VGA-aware programs still will run with their own colors,
almost all other programs will use the colors VPT sets.

VPT now uses direct hardware access to the DAC color registers. VPT
has been tested on true-blue VGAs and Video-7's FastWrite VGA with
BIOS version 1.18.

Note: VPTRES will NOT work on FastWrite VGAs with a BIOS version less
than 1.18 due to bugs in the Video-7 BIOS. FastWrite users can still
use VPT without VPTRES, or can obtain a BIOS upgrade from Video-7.



XI. OTHER INCLUDED PROGRAMS

þ LOCK.COM

If you want to "lock" the colors you set against any EGA/VGA-aware
programs that try to change them using BIOS: set your colors, then run
the TSR program LOCK.COM included in this package. This program can
be removed and re-run by using a TSR control package like TurboPower's
excellent MARK and RELEASE (version 2.2 or later). Note: VPT will not
be able to reset your colors after LOCK is run. To reset them, remove
LOCK, reset, then run LOCK again. Use LOCK *only* if you need to.

þ TSTPATN.EXE

This is a silly program that displays a test pattern to see what
various colors look like with lots of text and various lines on the
screen. Also great for simulating 1960s TV circa 3 A.M.

þ SEL.EXE

An easy ANSI color selector for those who use ANSI.SYS or a similar
ANSI screen driver. Allows easy color selection using one or two-
letter color mnemonics instead of the ANSI color numbers. Type SEL /?
for instructions.

þ VPTLOAD.EXE

This is a program for OS/2 users that will load color files created by
VPT. This is just a loader, not a full port of VPT, but combined with
running VPT in the DOS box, it gives OS/2 users access to all the
colors in their full-screen sessions.



XII. SHAREWARE/LEGAL/MONEY STUFF (REGISTER NOW!!!)

VPT is copyright 1991 by clySmic Software (Ralph B Smith Jr,
President/Chief Programmer).

VPT is released as Shareware. If you find this program useful, please
send clySmic software $25.00 as a registration fee for EACH machine
(including network copies) it is executed upon. You will receive by
mail a non-reminding version of VPT, and the extra accessory programs
mentioned herein.

You may copy the program and distribute it without charge for non-
commercial, non-governmental use. You may not sell or otherwise
charge for VPT. However, users' groups may charge a small fee (not to
exceed $10) for media and postage. Commercial and governmental users
are REQUIRED to pay the user fee. Please be certain that all files
are kept together.

This program is provided AS IS without any warranty, expressed or
implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular
purpose. So there.

clySmic Software is not responsible for anything that may happen when
you use VPT, including hardware damage or information loss.

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW PO BOX NUMBER!!!

MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO RALPH B SMITH JR - ALL CHECKS MADE OUT TO
CLYSMIC SOFTWARE WILL BE RETURNED!!!



Ralph B Smith Jr
clySmic Software
P. O. Box 2421
Empire State Plaza
Albany, NY 12220

CompuServe 76156,164


  3 Responses to “Category : Display Utilities
Archive   : VPT415.ZIP
Filename : VPT.MAN

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