mjranum@gouldsd.UUCP (Marcus J. Ranum) (08/11/86)
To those of you who have offered to post graphics routines, for MS/DOS/HERCULES/C machines, I think there is enough interest out there to warrant postings. Whadda I hafta do, beg ? I have seen the kinds of graphics my Herc can produce, and it is incredibly frustrating to be unable to use them ! All *I* need is a "draw line" tool in C (lettuce pref) and I don't care how slow it is. I think there are enough others who would appreciate similar tools. Please post ! live free ! mjr -- Seek on high bare trails Let us arrange these flowers... Moon-lighted mountains!
beaucham@uiucuxc.CSO.UIUC.EDU (08/13/86)
Re: request for Hercules graphics tools for the IBM PC/XT/AT
for the C language.
There are a number of commercial packages for producing Hercules
graphics with the C language. Here's what I've discovered so far.
First, Hercules sells a graphics package called GRAPH X.
For a cost of about $45 this allows you to
draw vectors, circles, and arcs and do fills. The version I
received originally did not include a C binding, but when I
called Hercules and requested it, they sent me a copy. It works
with Lattice C.
In the Hercules Compatible Software brochure they mention
that HALO (Lifeboat Associates, $140) and GSX Toolkit (Digital
Research, $350) are available for the C language. A package
which is powerful for scientific work is GraphiC (Scientific
Endeavors, $250) which supports linear, log, semi-log, 3-D,
contour, polar, and Smith charts with labeled axes. Screen dump
is also supported. IBM's graphics packages all utilize the
VDI driver. While IBM does not support Hercules, a VDI driver
can be obtained from a third party (Graphics Software Systems,
$40) to allow C language graphics control.
The one I am using currently is PlotDev (MicroPlot, $39), a
resident device driver that allows you to do either Tek 4010
or 4027 emulation with C programs (or practically any other
language) using Hercules, EGA, and a number of other graphics
boards. We have concocted a home-brew graphics package (called
"g_raph") which works on top of PlotDev. It also includes
graphics screen dump and is a lot faster than VDI.
So there is a lot to choose from for the Hercules board and the
C language, depending on how much you want to pay. Sorry, but
I haven't seen anything for free.
Jim Beauchamp ihnp4!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!beaucham