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ADAM Multimedia Disks


jblenkle

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disneyland-1.gif.926d2034eec5436fc68d739f6f7bf6ac.gif

My Five Favorite Rides at Disneyland

 

My Five Favorite Rides at Disneyland

 

This one was tougher than I thought it would be. Originally it had the PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE to advance to the next screen, but I noticed it threw the timing off depending on how quickly you read the screen and pressed enter. So I just timed each screen to display for about 50 seconds.

Check out the READ ME file on how to change how long each picture will display on the screen if you are having trouble finishing before it changes.

 

See all the Multimedia Disks here...

ADAM Multimedia Disks

 

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59 minutes ago, Captain Cozmos said:

I have not been paying attention but can you post a tutorial or provide a link to properly convert an image to the TMS9928 format.
With all the software that you use.

I know you can do it through Tursi's software but I have never had any great success with it.

Well, I'm not 100% sure of what you're asking for. It's a long and sometimes confusing process.

 

For the Multimedia Disks I use the CONVERT9918 program to convert .JPG/.BMP format and then re-save the resulting picture in ADAM PowerPaint format.

 

Then after getting the .pp picture over to an ADAM disk (or disk image) it's loaded into PowerPaint and then re-saved again in ADAM SmartPaint (.HRP) format.

 

Then you use a SmartBasic program on the Multimedia Utilities disk called HRPtoHGR to convert the .HRP format to .HGR which is actually something the Multimedia Disk program can read and display.

 

You can also sometimes compress the .HGR picture to .CMP using the Multimedia Utilities which reduces the file size of the picture. But this doesn't always work for every picture.

 

I've gotten to the point where I can look at a .BMP or .JPG and pretty much tell if it's going to convert well to ADAM format. Less colors in the picture are best because of ADAM's limited 16 color palette. Pictures in general just don't turn out very well. Cartoonish pictures turn out the best.

 

I usually use the pre-sets in CONVERT9918. It's really a matter of re-loading the picture a few times using different pre-sets and then picking the best. I've become more skilled getting acceptable pictures just by having done it so many times.

 

I don't know if this has helped you at all. I wish there was a simpler solution for getting great looking pictures on the ADAM. A larger color palette would have helped!!!

 

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No, you explained it.
I think I will just make a picture in powerpaint and start there.
One of the few programs I actually bought back in 1984ish.

I ended up using a routine I made in Z80 back then to display my pictures in Smartbasic and I know how to get the data off the disk.

So, back to old school.

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1 hour ago, jblenkle said:

Well, I'm not 100% sure of what you're asking for. It's a long and sometimes confusing process.

 

For the Multimedia Disks I use the CONVERT9918 program to convert .JPG/.BMP format and then re-save the resulting picture in ADAM PowerPaint format.

 

Then after getting the .pp picture over to an ADAM disk (or disk image) it's loaded into PowerPaint and then re-saved again in ADAM SmartPaint (.HRP) format.

 

Then you use a SmartBasic program on the Multimedia Utilities disk called HRPtoHGR to convert the .HRP format to .HGR which is actually something the Multimedia Disk program can read and display.

 

You can also sometimes compress the .HGR picture to .CMP using the Multimedia Utilities which reduces the file size of the picture. But this doesn't always work for every picture.

 

I've gotten to the point where I can look at a .BMP or .JPG and pretty much tell if it's going to convert well to ADAM format. Less colors in the picture are best because of ADAM's limited 16 color palette. Pictures in general just don't turn out very well. Cartoonish pictures turn out the best.

 

I usually use the pre-sets in CONVERT9918. It's really a matter of re-loading the picture a few times using different pre-sets and then picking the best. I've become more skilled getting acceptable pictures just by having done it so many times.

 

I don't know if this has helped you at all. I wish there was a simpler solution for getting great looking pictures on the ADAM. A larger color palette would have helped!!!

 

I believe the only reason I added PowerPaint was to help you. It doesn't sound like a lot of help if you still have that many steps! ;)

 

So your final output file is this HGR file? Would it be useful if I added that instead to Convert9918?

 

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32 minutes ago, Tursi said:

I believe the only reason I added PowerPaint was to help you. It doesn't sound like a lot of help if you still have that many steps! ;)

 

So your final output file is this HGR file? Would it be useful if I added that instead to Convert9918?

 

It has helped a lot!!! The program I was using before - BMP2PP - was less friendly to use and the results in CONVERT9918 seem to be overall better.

 

But yes, ultimately the picture needs to be in the .HGR format to use on the multimedia disks (or compressed from .HGR to .CMP).

 

I'm not 100% sure it would be an advantage adding the .HGR format to CONVERT9918 though. If the picture needs to be edited in any way or text or other graphics need to be added to it, it would still have to be loaded into PowerPaint and PP can't load .HGR files.

 

I suppose for some pictures being able to save directly to .HGR would be an advantage - those that don't need any editing or text added. But I've done the conversion process so many times now that it doesn't take me very long to get the finished product. Plus if I goof something up, I can just re-load the .PP or .HRP file back into PowerPaint and fix it.

 

 

 

 

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Ah, fair enough. I've actually just finished reversing the HGR format and adding support. I was hoping it would give you back those two missing columns over PP, but when I tried to load the files onto the slideshow disk to test, it broke the disk. So I don't know how to test it. ;) Do you have a disk manager I could use to try changing out the file? Looking at the way it loads in the slideshow, it might not anyway.

 

Anyway, yeah. The format is otherwise so close to Powerpaint - it adds a 21 byte header (which is the same for all images) and flips the order of the color and pattern tables.

 

I definitely see the point that any need to edit the image negates the value. So I'll just go ahead and push it as is. I did add the ability for it to /read/ PP, PC and HGR files back in though! (And MSX SC2).

 

I could paste the file, I suppose, if you're curious. But no expectations. :)

 

TT-02.HGRH

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47 minutes ago, Tursi said:

Ah, fair enough. I've actually just finished reversing the HGR format and adding support. I was hoping it would give you back those two missing columns over PP, but when I tried to load the files onto the slideshow disk to test, it broke the disk. So I don't know how to test it. ;) Do you have a disk manager I could use to try changing out the file? Looking at the way it loads in the slideshow, it might not anyway.

 

Anyway, yeah. The format is otherwise so close to Powerpaint - it adds a 21 byte header (which is the same for all images) and flips the order of the color and pattern tables.

 

I definitely see the point that any need to edit the image negates the value. So I'll just go ahead and push it as is. I did add the ability for it to /read/ PP, PC and HGR files back in though! (And MSX SC2).

 

I could paste the file, I suppose, if you're curious. But no expectations. :)

 

TT-02.HGRH 11 kB · 1 download

Yeah, I can't get the file to load into the program either. It appears to copy to the ADAM disk OK, but when I do a CATALOG the file shows up with a happy face where the file type should be. It should be an 'H' type file. I'm not technical at all so I have no idea what that means.

 

As for the disk "breaking" when you tried it. It's pretty much a one-shot deal with these disks. They break very easily if you try copying files with the same name back on them. I have to delete the file and then use the CRUNCH feature in File Manager to completely erase the name out of the directory and off the disk.

 

You also need to make sure the name is correct in the Slides.DEF file and that the number on the top of the column is correct as far as how many picture and song files are on the disk or it will crash.

 

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9 hours ago, jblenkle said:

As for the disk "breaking" when you tried it. It's pretty much a one-shot deal with these disks. They break very easily if you try copying files with the same name back on them. I have to delete the file and then use the CRUNCH feature in File Manager to completely erase the name out of the directory and off the disk.

Yeah, I did that, but the disk didn't boot afterwards, and I don't know anything about using the Adam. ;) I'd need to level up a few times to be useful there.

 

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9 minutes ago, Tursi said:

Yeah, I did that, but the disk didn't boot afterwards, and I don't know anything about using the Adam. ;) I'd need to level up a few times to be useful there.

 

Hey, just curious...do you do anything with midi? There is a utility to change Type 0 midi files into ADAM .ADM files which then can play on the Multimedia Disks, but there is no utility to convert .ADM files back to .MID. They would be much easier to edit that way. As it stands, if I screw up the .ADM file there is no way to fix it and I have to go back to the original .MID and redo the whole process again.

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On 3/30/2023 at 11:08 PM, jblenkle said:

Hey, just curious...do you do anything with midi? There is a utility to change Type 0 midi files into ADAM .ADM files which then can play on the Multimedia Disks, but there is no utility to convert .ADM files back to .MID. They would be much easier to edit that way. As it stands, if I screw up the .ADM file there is no way to fix it and I have to go back to the original .MID and redo the whole process again.

I don't know MID format offhand, but if you send me a ADM and MID of the same file, I'll see if I can understand the conversion process well enough.

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4 hours ago, Tursi said:

I don't know MID format offhand, but if you send me a ADM and MID of the same file, I'll see if I can understand the conversion process well enough.

OK, I will find a suitable pair of files to send you.

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4 hours ago, Tursi said:

I don't know MID format offhand, but if you send me a ADM and MID of the same file, I'll see if I can understand the conversion process well enough.

Ummm...what format do you need these in? On an ADAM disk image? Or PC files? The .ADMs are on ADAM disks and quite frankly I've never tried transferring them back to PC.

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2 hours ago, jblenkle said:

Ummm...what format do you need these in? On an ADAM disk image? Or PC files? The .ADMs are on ADAM disks and quite frankly I've never tried transferring them back to PC.

What format do you want them in?

 

Unless I can find docs on the Adam disk format, I'm just going to use that disk manager to copy it to the PC... and I don't know if there's a header on the PC version. Every step adds a little complexity, and I've no way to test it. So it's all kind of a crapshoot. ;)

 

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45 minutes ago, Tursi said:

What format do you want them in?

 

Unless I can find docs on the Adam disk format, I'm just going to use that disk manager to copy it to the PC... and I don't know if there's a header on the PC version. Every step adds a little complexity, and I've no way to test it. So it's all kind of a crapshoot. ;)

 

Well, it's easier for me if I send you the ADM and MID on an ADAM Disk image. I can copy files to ADAM disks, but I've never gone the other way so I won't know if I'm doing it right. Let's give it a shot and see what happens. I'll do it in the morning. Too late now.

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