jxh@cup.portal.com (Jim - Hickstein) (07/27/89)
Is there an implemetation of NAPLPS out there somewhere for a PC-class machine with a VGA? Is it free? Public Domain? Shareware? I need to prototype an application that writes things on a VGA that get converted to NTSC, and want a simple way to generate characters that look reasonably good, and possibly specify some graphics, at least lines and boxes; that sort of thing. It occurred to me that NAPLPS might be a good place to start, in order to keep the program that describes the images some distance away from hardware dependence. It seems that NAPLPS terminals contain some good-looking fonts in local storage (i.e. these things are not drawn as graphics down the slow line: that would be intolerable), and I thought that a PC NAPLPS implementation might have done some of this work for me. Am I all wet? Is NAPLPS dead? Is it the wrong approach? Is there something that everybody uses to accomplish this task but hasn't been made known to me? I realize that asking for opinions is a sure way to generate lots of traffic, but this time I must. Please guide me! Thanks very much. Email opinions, post facts. (Gee.. That's a good rule generally...) -Jim Hickstein jxh@cup.portal.com Nothing to do with the bozos here that get all the publicity; I'm a client, not an employee. ...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!jxh
dave@oldcolo.UUCP (Dave Hughes) (07/30/89)
Naplps is not dead - it is the basis for the big $$$ 'Prodigy' videotext service by IBM and Sears, and the basis for Bell Canada's 'Alex' videotext service. Most of the creative development work using it is in Canada. There is a quite new VGA PC Naplps drawing program by Image Base. Called PLP DRAW. In Canada. Don't have the address, only the phonenumber 416-593-5473. Not cheap ($600 I think). It is easy to use, uses only one screen (many earlier products required two monitors - one for menus and one for graphic), and mouse. Another experienced Naplps software house in Canada is Microstar, with a range ofproducts. Not absolutely sure they have a VGA drawing program. 613-727-5696. There simply is no known free or shareware naplps products. Which is one of the reasons this excellent standard is so little known. Everybody that uses it (which has been banks, graphics studios, videotext ventures) has wanted to make big bucks on it fromthe first day, so put a price on everything.