[comp.sys.zenith.z100] simtel <msdos.worldmap>

malpass@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Don Malpass) (06/28/88)

	Beacuse I'm an Africa-nut, <MSDOS.WORLDMAP>AFRICA.ARC in the
latest Simtel listing immediately cought my attention and I
downloaded most of what's in the directory.  It is specific to PCish
things with EGA cards and color monitor, so I tried it on somebody's
system at work.  I'm greatly impressed by it all.  By now you've
anticipated the question:  has anybody gone to the trouble of flailing
the sources [some turbo-Pascal code is included, but availability of C
sources is also mentioned] into the form required for Z-100's?  I know
nothing about EGA, so can somebody estimate how much effort it would
take?
	don		[malpass@LL-vlsi.arpa]

kvancamp@ARDEC.ARPA.UUCP (06/30/88)

 >	Beacuse I'm an Africa-nut, <MSDOS.WORLDMAP>AFRICA.ARC in the

(Glad you're not a Brazil nut :-)

 >latest Simtel listing immediately cought my attention and I
 >downloaded most of what's in the directory.  It is specific to PCish
 >things with EGA cards and color monitor, so I tried it on somebody's
 >system at work.  I'm greatly impressed by it all.  By now you've
 >anticipated the question:  has anybody gone to the trouble of flailing
 >the sources [some turbo-Pascal code is included, but availability of C
 >sources is also mentioned] into the form required for Z-100's?  I know
 >nothing about EGA, so can somebody estimate how much effort it would
 >take?
 >	don		[malpass@LL-vlsi.arpa]

A couple of comments: (1) I wrote the Turbo Pascal code in a couple of
days, so I wouldn't expect it to take any longer than that for a decent
programmer to rewrite it for a Z-100.  (2) Note that it was written in
the OLD Turbo Pascal (3.01), not the new one with the device-dependent
graphics.  I did this because I had a nice EGA graphics library that was
public domain and that I had used before, and I was trying to churn out
a quick-and-dirty program.  About the only features I used in that library
that aren't in the standard TP graphics functions is the ability to draw
lines specifying real-world coordinates, and window clipping routines so
my text at the top of the screen isn't overwritten if you zoom too much.  
But anybody should be able to emulate these functions pretty easily, or
else use the Turbo Graphix Toolbox, which supports the Z-100.

                            --Ken  Van Camp 
ARPANET or BITNET:        kvancamp@ARDEC.ARPA
USENET:                uunet!ardec.arpa!kvancamp

                   I would understand life much better 
             if someone would just show me the source code.