[comp.sys.apple2] Cartooners HELP please...

joseph@rutgers.rutgers.edu (Seymour Joseph) (05/04/91)

I own a great Apple IIGS program published by Electronic Arts that is
called Cartooners.  It is an amazing tool for creating simple animated
movies onscreen.  It came with a preset bunch of backdrops and sounds
and "actors".

I know EA published an add on disk called "Cartooners in Space".
Today I called them to buy a copy.  I was informed that not only
aren't they developing new software for the Apple II series of
computers, but since two or three months ago, they are no longer even
distributing or selling the packages they already developed. (this
also applies to their software for the Atari ST series)  

The Person I spoke to at Electronic arts had two suggestions:

1) If anyone out there knows of a store that still has a copy of
"Cartooners in Space" still sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere, please
let me know the name of the store and its phone #.  This is very
unlikely as the few stores that do continue to carry Apple IIGS
software would not tend to keep stuff like this around.

2) If anyone out there actually OWNS "cartooners in space" I would be
happy to send a few $$ to cover postage etc. to have you mail me a
copy.  Please... (The guy at EA actually recommended that I ask on
CompuServe, but the Internet will do for now...)

Also, I asked about the internal file representation for actors and if
there was any documentation, kind of like a cartooner hackers tool
kit, for creating your own actors.  The tech support guy at EA said
that the program was not developed in-house, and that they had no such
info. He again suggested that I ask on "compuserve".   Well, I'm
asking.  

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Seymour Joseph
1730 Elk Street
Piscataway, NJ 08854

joseph@rutgers.rutgers.edu

mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) (05/04/91)

In article <May.3.21.24.01.1991.19622@rutgers.rutgers.edu> joseph@rutgers.rutgers.edu (Seymour Joseph) writes:
>
>Also, I asked about the internal file representation for actors and if
>there was any documentation, kind of like a cartooner hackers tool
>kit, for creating your own actors.  The tech support guy at EA said
>that the program was not developed in-house, and that they had no such
>info. He again suggested that I ask on "compuserve".   Well, I'm
>asking.  
>
>Thanks in advance for any and all help.
>
>Seymour Joseph
>1730 Elk Street
>Piscataway, NJ 08854
>
>joseph@rutgers.rutgers.edu

(I'm not going to get into this habit, so don't even think of flooding
my mailbox with similar requests.  Thank you.)

Until recently, I was responsible for assigning all Apple II file types and
auxiliary types.  Although we don't require a file format to assign such
things, some developers still don't understand this and send us tons of
pages of file formats that they then won't let us publish.

I have here (in front of me) such a document for what eventually became
the "Cartooners" file format.  I can't publish it, for a few reasons:

1)  I don't have permission from the authors.
2)  It's about 5 pages of "C" structures which I really don't want to type
    in and convert to file type note format, and
3)  It's currently only an old DTS email, and such things are Apple
    Confidential and will be until the end of time.

However, it did come from the people who actually wrote Cartooners for
Electronic Arts, and I know they have a file format document because they
sent it to me.  (Oh, reason #4 - what I have is preliminary and may not
represent the final product.)

The company name is "ITDA" (Information Technology Design Associates) and in
1988 they communicated with us through MCI Mail account # 294-7532.  That's
about all the information I have, but hopefully it will be a good lead
for you.


-- 
============================================================================
Matt Deatherage, Developer Technical  | The opinions expressed herein are
Support, Apple Computer, Inc.         | not those of Apple Computer, and
Personal mail only, please.  Thanks.  | shame on you for thinking otherwise.
============================================================================