Instant Graphics 2.18 Developer release for Telenet BBS sysops and users

[IGS GUY]

This is the Instant Graphics update after 30 years IG218.ACC and IGS218.EMU
for the Interlink terminal. The IGDEV10.PRG for Drawing and making Music and
to upload to Telenet BBS systems using a WIFI modem or maybe some other way
with a modified version of Hatari on one Apple system that I know of...
https://breakintochat.com/blog/2012/12/13/telnet-to-bbs-within-hatari-emulator/
The IG218D10.ZIP file I made on my 1040STf with WIN Zip 2.2
I got from here: https://www.modula.org.uk/atari-st-disks/ just
search for video master on that page it's on that disk image.  It may be
compatible with the ZIP that Windows does I didn't test it much.
IG218 does lot's of things IG217 does not.

IG218 has editable fill and line patterns, a new
timing command that uses Vsync, internal double stepping for XORing
with BitBlit, the Spray Paint command has color rotation, the random
constant has two ranges r and R, the input command now uses all
mouse pointers not just a polymarker.  I changed the IG default color
palette and tried to make resolution swapping better.  I added a new
option for the N command you can jump forward in the buffer, this allows
you to jump to several short chip tunes as needed.  There is new X 9
command that loads and executes IG commands in the IG MIDI buffer.
Also IG218 when grabbing number values from the serial port or a file ALLOWS
a carriage return and line feed character to break the line the _ still works.
In the IGDEV10.PRG just HIT the F1 key to Draw and make Music.  The IGS
Editor Kevin Moody & Anthony Rau wrote only supported Medium Resolution
limiting it to 4 colors.  I really wanted it to support Low Resolution
16 color mode.  When I wrote BIG Paint(DOS), Condor PAINT(DOS),
Vectasketch & Sketchpad(JAVA applets) they all had many colors.
IG needed that too.  ST high res mono mode supported as well.
I worked on this update for the last 2 years hope you enjoy it.

 

 

IG218D10.ST IG218D10.ZIP

[Kirkman]

Larry, I’m super-impressed you stuck with it. Can’t wait to check it out. 
 

—Josh

[+DarkLord]

Congratulations on bringing this project to fruition! 

 

[Kirkman]

Larry, I played around just a little bit (in emulation under Hatari), and had a couple thoughts:

 

1. I tried using the Oval tool first, and couldn't figure out how to exit the tool. After several restarts I saw that for some of the other tools (like Arc or Elliptical Arc), you have a note that pushing both mouse buttons together exits. The Oval tool could probably use a similar message.

 

2. It might be good to have an alternative exit mechanism for those tools. Clicking both buttons together is somewhat tricky for me in emulation.

 

3. I'm curious, what algorithm do you use for generating circles, ovals, etc? It's not Bresenham, right?

[IGS GUY]

I commented the more complex routines,  THIS IS THE WAY all the old IG drawers worked HIT the right button first then hold the right button down and press the left button to exit,  some routines were less complex and just a right click was enough.   The graphics primitives are in the ST’s ROMs.   I had to deal with no graphics at all in CONDOR.SYS for DOS but not anything else.   I bought a book with graphics primitive formulas in it for Condor,  Bresenham’s routines were in there.  Condor could only use the BIOS it could only plot a DOT!   I had to make my own graphics library for Condor.   I have many tech books you used to be able to just walk into a Mall, Walden Soft had tech books on the shelf I’d buy them, some I had to order.

 

NOTE:  Even I forget this sometimes...

If you run the IGxxx.ACC  and you exit with just UNDO you activate a FEATURE that may cause a problem ,  it’s in the DOCs.    LEFT SHIFT+UNDO when exiting the IG.ACC to the DESKTOP is what you are supposed to do.  Just hitting UNDO to exit the ACC  sets 24 lines of text not 25 preserving the last line for the terminal program it’s running on top for its status line, sorry I thought about taking that away but FLASH and Interlink terminals were the king back in the day IG was only a added feature for them so I left it that way.   Running other TOS programs that use 25 lines of text such as the IGDEV10.PRG will cause issues because it expects all 25 lines not 24 lines of text, the screen will scroll up all the click points will be off vertically by one line.   You don't have to reboot, just run the IG.ACC again and EXIT with LEFT SHIFT+UNDO and it will be back to 25 lines of text. 

[IGS GUY]

I meant to type ST ZIP 2.2 in that original message.  I did click on IG218D10.ZIP with Windows Zip and the text files looked correct.   I thought about using ARC of LHarc but after searching a little on here decided ST ZIP would be the best choice it said it was compatible with PKZIP.   Anyway thanks to Kirkman for getting me interested in IG again and DarkLord for helping me out with testing.

[+DarkLord]

No problem - glad to have had the opportunity to help! 

 

[Kirkman]

I have completed my first IG drawing ... I adapted the Federation Cruiser sprite from FTL.

 

One of the things I love about IGS (and RIP, etc) is that since they are scripting languages, you get to see the artist's drawing process whenever you render the image.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Kirkman

[Tillek]

Some pretty amazing work.

 

[Tillek]

@DarkLord @IGS GUY @Kirkman

 

Just FYI, I got Warlords working on STar Fleet HQ (must have had a corrupt file somewhere).

 

At any rate, you need 4 players to start a game, so if you're interested, I'm already on the waiting list.

 

If we can verify it works, I'll make it the February featured game, which will mean tournament prizes if there is enough interest.

 

(For those not in the know, Warlords was a game written for IGS).

 

[Tillek]

bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 for those unaware... and after you've called there, the Atari BBS list will provide even more!

 

www.sfhqbbs.org/ataribbslist.php

 

[+DarkLord]

Cool - will have to check that out for sure.

 

@kirkman - nice job on that. How hard is the editor to use now?

 

Thanks...

 

[IGS GUY]

Kirkman found bug.  I fixed it this morning but I got to work and don't have time to release the update.  The Flood fill command was repeating itself,  surprised I missed that,  the test graphic looked right.

Anyway just added a while statement to make it wait till the mouse button was released.  I'll get the fix up soon.  Kirkman nice work on the drawing.  My art skills are weak I'm pretty good at math and logic though.

 

 

[Kirkman]

11 hours ago, DarkLord said:

@kirkman - nice job on that. How hard is the editor to use now?

I find the interface frustrating, and I'm still coming to grips with it. As I began trying it, I ran into various things I didn't understand or that didn't work the way I thought they would, so I after some flailing, I mostly limited myself to drawing only with the line tool. It was a lot of work to re-create the FTL ship with that constraint, but it came out nicely.

 

IGS is capable of doing some cool stuff. The last couple nights I've spent some time trying to refine my original image with stuff I learned later (including that flood fill bug Larry mentioned above, which artificially slowed down the rendering). And that's the beauty of IG as a sort of scripting language ... You can go into the source and tweak stuff (to an extent).

[Kirkman]

16 hours ago, Tillek said:

@DarkLord @IGS GUY @Kirkman

 

Just FYI, I got Warlords working on STar Fleet HQ (must have had a corrupt file somewhere).

 

At any rate, you need 4 players to start a game, so if you're interested, I'm already on the waiting list.

 

If we can verify it works, I'll make it the February featured game, which will mean tournament prizes if there is enough interest.

 

(For those not in the know, Warlords was a game written for IGS).

 

I just used IGS 2.18 to connect to the BBS and sign up for Warlords. Curious to see what sort art it has, beyond the title screen (see below):

 

 

 

[+DarkLord]

Interesting. With my Mega STe and earlier IGS versions, that title screen comes out like this:

 

 

I'll have to try v2.18 now...   

 

[Bikerbob]

Very cool

 

James

[Tillek]

The real sucky part is that the game requires players to play in groups of 4.  So 4 people to a game, and I allow a user to be in 5 games (or maybe I set it higher, I'd have to check.

 

But until you get the 4th person, nothing happens.

 

So right now, it's me and Kirkman waiting for two others to stumble on in.

 

[Tillek]

2 hours ago, DarkLord said:

Interesting. With my Mega STe and earlier IGS versions, that title screen comes out like this:

 

 

I'll have to try v2.18 now...   

 

It's pretty much the same thing... except for the pallette.... (I was assuming the pattern around everything came from the camera,,,,, and CRTness of it).

 

[IGS GUY]

This is the fix for the duplicate FLOOD FILL commands that the Drawer was creating.   Glad it was pointed out and I'm still around to fix things.

I hard a really hard day at work yesterday, it's usually like that every Friday.   I can always give drawing tips here.

 

IGDEV11.ST IGDEV11.ZIP

[+DarkLord]

Thanks for the quick update! 

 

[Tillek]

7 hours ago, IGS GUY said:

This is the fix for the duplicate FLOOD FILL commands that the Drawer was creating.   Glad it was pointed out and I'm still around to fix things.

I hard a really hard day at work yesterday, it's usually like that every Friday.   I can always give drawing tips here.

 

IGDEV11.ST 360 kB · 1 download IGDEV11.ZIP 47.14 kB · 3 downloads

Thank you!  And no worries.  Kirkman was in the chat last night and did a great presentation.  We'd still love to have you sometime, but I understand how things go sideways at work.

 

Safe travels!

 

And thank you Kirkman!  We loved your IG presentation!

[Kirkman]

Hey guys ... I'm pretty excited about this: I am now serving some IGS content on my BBS, Guardian of Forever at guardian.synchro.net.

 

Some of you may know that GoF is a modern Synchronet BBS, which is *not* Atari BBS software. But the beauty of IGS is that it's just a text script/language, so you can serve it from anywhere! Since Synchronet supports Javascript, I can write my own modern JS to generate and serve IGS code dynamically. This opens up a lot of possibilities, and also papers over some of IGS's limitations (writing loops and stuff in IGS is super convoluted, and nested loops are not supported, for example).

 

Anyway, I made a video of the IGS stuff in action on Guardian of Forever: 

 

 

And if you'd like to try it yourself, make sure you are using the latest IGS that Larry provided above, then connect to guardian.synchro.net. Once you're connected, hit X > 6 > 4. (eXternals > 6: Other experiments > 4: Instant Graphics & Sound tests).

 

One final note: Several of my 2023 demos will switch the ST into low resolution, and then perform bitblits. There are some bugs related to this in Larry's current release of IGS (v2.18). He has patched some of those bugs in a beta 2.19 version he sent to me privately, but which he has not yet released publicly. Anyway, that's why you may see something different on your Atari than what is shown in the video.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Kirkman
Cleanup

[+DarkLord]

Cool stuff.