iav1917@ritcv.UUCP (04/18/86)
[Etched along the wall of the CD's groove, the words "Byte me!"] In article <47@brl-smoke.ARPA> SY.FDC@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU (Frank da Cruz) writes: >Has anyone ever succeeded in writing an assembler program for the DEC Rainbow >that senses whether the graphics option is installed, and then if it is, either >(a) allows changing of foreground/background text mode colors, and/or (b) draws >a line between two arbitrary points on the screen? The Rainbow documentation >is obscure on these points, and the only software I've ever seen that allows >the user to take advantage of Rainbow graphics is GW Basic, and when you exit >the GW Basic environment, everything goes back to normal monochrome text. >Reportedly, there's also a Turbo Pascal Graphics package for the Rainbow. My >interest, however, is simply to allow the SET TERMINAL COLOR command from the >forthcoming release of MS-DOS Kermit to work on the Rainbow, and possibly also >to include some simple Tektronix emulation. Some small MS assembler sample >programs would be a real help. Naturally, the results will be shared with the >world. Frank, First of all it is good to see someone who is still using the Rainbow. Answering your first question, yes, sort of... Try checking out some of sources on the FidoNET BBS "Hitch Hiker's Guide" at 1-315-589-7361. If cannot get a hold of them, E-Mail me back and I'll send you a copy. What you will get are a lot of the basic routines: sensing, I/O, graphics gener- ation, etc. that could be used to construct a driver. These are all in MASM and from the Rainbow Graphics Option Programmer's Manual. I think they're called GRAPHASM.ARC. In answer to your main interest, however, there is no quick and easy solution. The easiest route you can take is to buy a "graphic shell" which is basically an interpreter that takes the displaying text and scans for special graphics' codes. The best example here is Polygon's Rainbow-ReGIS. Another is a Tektronix 4010/14 emulator under CP/M from Fauske and Associates, Inc., 1-312-323-8750. I heard a while back that they had a MS-DOS version also. You can write programs or modify the source of MS-Kermit (if you are lucky to have it) to send the graphic commands to call GSX either under CP/M or MS-DOS. (Or, under MS-DOS, to call the ReGIS graphic commands.) Yes, there does exist a version from Digital Research of their CP/M- front-end graphics processor, GSX, for MS-DOS. Digital Research and DEC deny its existence but DR placed it in the public domain when they saw the sales for the Rainbow dying. Check out Access Technology's 20/20 for the Rainbow to get a copy of GSX or download the Graphic Othello game from the above BBS (called GOTELO.ARC). DEC never created a proper graphics front-end driver for their machine and all the remaining Rainbow owners are suffering. The key word is proper because the graphic shells do work; they just don't seem to be seamless with the os and some, like Rainbow ReGIS, are slow. Try some of the programming examples and see how fast you can do graphics on the Rainbow! As for languages, Digital Research's F77 and CBasic fully utilize the Rainbow's graphics board. There exists an extension package for MBasic-86. There are couple more languages, but I can't think of them. As for good programming examples, the Turbo Pascal routines are really the assembly language routines placed in Pascal routines with some good extensions. You could take these and create a DOS shell (like DOSAMATC for the PC). But, unless you run the program as a shell and then run MS-Kermit, the graphics will stop with the program. The Pascal routines are also available on the above BBS. As a side note, there exist several graphics & drawing packages and a notable one in the public domain: Draw V1.4 from Christopher LaRosa. Worth checking out even though it is not quite finished. The final thought here is that DEC gave out all the routines and tools to put together graphics packages but failed to give or show us how to write generic drivers that would allow any program or language to run and allow those programs to access the graphics easily. Also, probably because of this, no outside companies have created any. There is one exception I know of to the above. However, it is an expensive one. VenturCom produces Rainbow-VENIX Version 2 which provides a nice graphics interface for the Rainbow. Check out Larry Campbell's article in a recent issue of Digital Review (I believe). You're looking at about $800. But, you do get a good implementation of Unix. If you have any questions or comments, please E-Mail to the above UUCP address. Chow, Alan I. Vymetalik "I bought some batteries, but they weren't included. So, I bought them again." - Steven Wright ---------------------------------------------------- | Usenet: {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!iav1917 | | UUCP: iav1917@ritcv.UUCP | | CSNet : iav1917%rit@csnet-relay.ARPA | | Bitnet: aiv1974@ritvaxd | ----------------------------------------------------