pmancini@lynx.northeastern.edu (12/15/88)
For those who applauded the BGI, consider this. I have been developing
a graphic intensive program to be used at several sites. I was very pleased
with the DETECT ability until one day a very irate user called me. He had
a Zenith EGA card in his machine and was getting "a lot of horizontal lines
across the screen." As it turns out the BGI detected EGA, but assumed it had
an EGAHI mode. This card did not (it was really an enhanced CGA) and thus
went under when the 'wrong' graphics mode was selected. The patch for this
was a procedure that gave a sample image and then asked the user 'Hows this?'
If Thumbs_Down = true then the setgraphmode command had to be invoked.
Pete Mancini
Student, Northeastern University
Boston, MA ('the sunshine state'...)PASCAL-L%TREARN.BITNET@cunyvm.c (Pascal Language Discussion List) (12/21/88)
For those who applauded the BGI, consider this. I have been developing
a graphic intensive program to be used at several sites. I was very pleased
with the DETECT ability until one day a very irate user called me. He had
a Zenith EGA card in his machine and was getting "a lot of horizontal lines
across the screen." As it turns out the BGI detected EGA, but assumed it had
an EGAHI mode. This card did not (it was really an enhanced CGA) and thus
went under when the 'wrong' graphics mode was selected. The patch for this
was a procedure that gave a sample image and then asked the user 'Hows this?'
If Thumbs_Down = true then the setgraphmode command had to be invoked.
Pete Mancini
Student, Northeastern University
Boston, MA ('the sunshine state'...)lowey@dvinci.USask.CA (Kevin Lowey) (12/22/88)
In article <17918@adm.BRL.MIL>, Pete Mancini writes: > For those who applauded the BGI, consider this. I have been developing > a graphic intensive program to be used at several sites. I was very pleased > with the DETECT ability until one day a very irate user called me. He had > a Zenith EGA card in his machine and was getting "a lot of horizontal lines > across the screen." As it turns out the BGI detected EGA, but assumed it had > an EGAHI mode. This card did not (it was really an enhanced CGA) and thus > went under when the 'wrong' graphics mode was selected. The patch for this > was a procedure that gave a sample image and then asked the user 'Hows this?' > If Thumbs_Down = true then the setgraphmode command had to be invoked. I was going to ignore this but so far I've seen it three times #8-) You can't blame the BGI routines if the manufacturer of the graphics card only implements a subset of the cards functions!! I'd be upset at Zenith,, not Borland. Also, no matter how good the detection is, all programs should have a way to override the detection. Either in a configuration file or in a command line parameter. If a programmer does not provide this capability in a program then he is just asking for trouble. For example, I use a DEC VAXmate computer (sigh). I wrote a TSR program that allows me to tell software that the VAXmate is actually an AT&T 6300. This lets me install the video for Lotus 1-2-3, etc. as an AT&T 6300 and get 640 by 400 resolution instead of 640 by 200. However, the computer still is a VAXmate, so programs that "detect" what kind of graphics card they should use default back to the CGA card. If the authors of the programs provided a way to override the detection logic and explicitly state what graphics device to use, it would make my life a lot simpler. Related to this, I have written a few programs that use the .BGI routines. (one I worked on is SURFMODL, a 3d surface modelling program written by Ken VanCamp). I found that with most of these programs they expect the .BGI files to be in the current directory. This means I have to have the files copied into many directories on my hard disk. In my own programs I've started using the TP version 5 GETENV routine to get the value of an environment string called BGIDIR. Then I can do things like this: INITGRAPH (GRMODE, GRTYPE, GETENV('BGIDIR')); If the environment variable is not defined, then the current directory is used. If it is defined, then the directory can be used. In my AUTOEXEC.BAT file I can say SET BGIDIR C:\DRIVERS and store all my drivers in one directory, instead of all over the hard disk. I'd like to suggest that other .BGI developers do the same thing so a "standard" will develop. -- Kevin Lowey