VBRANDT@DBNUAMA1.BITNET (02/09/90)
Hello all, Mickey Boyd recently asked about a better GIF picture viewer for the ST. Some people replied, suggesting various programs that include GIF viewing options. There is a complete GIF viewing program to be found at Simtel20 (in MISC.GIF or MSDOS.GIF or the like, can't remember). It's for PCs and clones, but it includes complete source in Turbo C. I had thought of porting and enhancing it, but couldn't, for lack of time. Maybe someone will do the job. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bitnet: VBRANDT@DBNUAMA1 (will go away some day ...) Volker A. Brandt UNM409@DBNRHRZ1 (alternative) Angewandte Mathematik UUCP: ...!unido!DBNUAMA1.bitnet!vbrandt (Bonn, West Germany) ARPAnet: VBRANDT%DBNUAMA1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (02/15/90)
John Jung asked about a "better" GIF viewer... There's one written in GFA BASIC called GIFNEO which does exactly as John suggested... if the original picture is larger than the ST lo-res screen, it lets you scroll around the picture, with the ST screen as a "window" onto the full GIF picture... Unfortunately, it's VERY slow to convert the GIF pic, and once converted, the scrolling is EXTREMELY slow. It DOES do a very good job of converting the colors though, and allows savi the ST screen window as a NEO format file. GIFNEO is available on CompuServe, and BBSs all over the world... However, as Mickey Boyd suggested, probably the best GIF converter I've used is the DIGISPEC program from Trio Engineering. It does compress a larger GIF file down to fit the ST screen, and can cut off the top and bottom (although it does let you choose where to center the final picture), and will only save the final picture in SPECTRUM format (which can be a waste if the picture is only 320x200x16colors, as a regular ST lo-res picture is), but again as Mickey mentioned, it allows you to control the Brightnes Contrast and Color Balance of the picture. You can then convert the SPC picture into a regular DEGAS format for the smaller filesize, if you wish. It's fast, can be run as an ACCessory, and is available as a separate program package from your local Atari software dealer... BobR