tsmith@milano.UUCP (10/16/86)
A Chinese friend of mine has recently purchased a program that draws Chinese Characters on a video screen. The program works great on machines equipped with a Color Graphics Card - but unfortunately, He has a Mono Hercules board on his home PC. Naturally, the extensions to the program that allow a Herc board are mucho $$$'s more, so he's looking for a less expensive solution. What he needs, I guess, is some sort of memory resident routine that will trap graphic instructions to the CGA and convert them to the Herc format. Do any gentle net-landers have experience and/or code to perform this feat? Kindly E-Mail any information you may have.... Thanx TJ -- Thomas J. Smith @ MCC Software Technology tsmith@mcc.com sally!im4u!milano!tsmith
asf@sbcs.UUCP (Alan S. Fink) (10/18/86)
> A Chinese friend of mine has recently purchased a program > that draws Chinese Characters on a video screen. The program > works great on machines equipped with a Color Graphics Card - but > unfortunately, He has a Mono Hercules board on his home PC. Naturally, > the extensions to the program that allow a Herc board are mucho $$$'s > more, so he's looking for a less expensive solution. What > he needs, I guess, is some sort of memory resident routine that will > trap graphic instructions to the CGA and convert them to the Herc > format. Do any gentle net-landers have experience and/or code to > perform this feat? Kindly E-Mail any information you may have.... > > Thanx > TJ > > -- > Thomas J. Smith @ MCC Software Technology > tsmith@mcc.com > sally!im4u!milano!tsmith Such a conversion program interests me too. If such an animal exists can someone perhaps post it to net.sources (assuming of course that its PD software)? Alan S. Fink UUCP: {allegra, hocsd, philabs, ogcvax}!sbcs!asf ARPA: asf%sunysb.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA CSNET: asf@sunysb.edu
berger@clio.Uiuc.ARPA (10/21/86)
If the program writes directly to screen memory, as many PC specific programs do, he's out of luck.
dmt@mtunb.UUCP (Dave Tutelman) (11/06/86)
>> A Chinese friend of mine has recently purchased a program >> that draws Chinese Characters on a video screen. The program >> works great on machines equipped with a Color Graphics Card - but >> unfortunately, He has a Mono Hercules board on his home PC. Naturally, >> the extensions to the program that allow a Herc board are mucho $$$'s >> more, so he's looking for a less expensive solution. What >> he needs, I guess, is some sort of memory resident routine that will >> trap graphic instructions to the CGA and convert them to the Herc >> format. Do any gentle net-landers have experience and/or code to >> perform this feat? Kindly E-Mail any information you may have.... If the "graphic instructions to the CGA" are BIOS calls, then the Hercules BIOS I posted to net.sources a few months ago will do the trick. (Sort of. The aspect ratio won't be quite right, and the image won't use the whole screen, but it'll work.) However, the unfortunate fact is that VERY few programs use BIOS calls for graphic output. Most write directly to display memory. Since there's no display memory trapping on most PC-compatible machines (read here, "practically all"), you have no way of trapping the graphics instruction. What MIGHT BE feasible is a "daemon" that runs from time to time, and "fixes" the screen by some transformation. A few problems with this are: - Herc Board occupies different memory addresses from the CGA. Unless you have a memory board that maps into the CGA address space, you'll never capture the graphic writes. - The algorithm would have to at least check (and maybe recompute) the whole screen, often enough to look like a reasonably smooth refresh. I bet that'd be a brutal drag on real-time performance. - I don't know which would give better (less objectionable?) images: using less than the full screen and an improper aspect ratio, using a two-pixels-to-three "dithering" algorithm, or using a one-pixel-to-two mapping and running off the edge of the Hercules screen. Good luck, and if you find a solution please post it. --------------------------------------------------------------- ---=== Dave Tutelman -------===== Physical - AT&T Information Systems ----------====== Room 1K218 ==--------======== 307 Middletown-Lincroft Rd. ====---========= Lincroft, NJ 07738 ============ Logical - ...ihnp4!mtuxo!mtunb!dmt ====== Audible - (201)-576-2442 ---------------------------------------------------------------