*********************************************************************** * * * JOBSDUMP V4.2/4.0 * * * * A GRAPHICS SCREEN-DUMP PROGRAM * * FOR THE DEC RAINBOW 100 PC FAMILY * * * * Copyright (C) 1985,6,7,8,9 James A. O'Brien * * * * 1166 Hope St., #6 * * Stamford, CT 06907 * * U.S.A. * * * * Tel: +1 203 322 7222 (Evenings) * * * *********************************************************************** This software may be copied and the copies distributed without restriction for PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL use. Copyright is retained by the author, and the source code will not be distributed. If you find the software useful (i.e. you use it!), a $25 donation to the author at the above address is requested for those users who are private individuals. In other words, this software is not public domain - it is SHAREWARE. Commercial site licenses may be obtained by contacting the author at the above address. NOTE that this software is NOT FREE FOR USE IN A COMMERCIAL ESTABLISHMENT, no matter how humble. Hardware Requirements: (a) DEC Rainbow with Rainbow Graphics Option (RGO) and 192k of random access memory (at least 256k in order to run from within GW-BASIC). CP/M version only requires 128k. [Has been tested with Suitable Solutions Turbow-286 board] (b) DEC LA50, LA75, LA100 or LA210 or Epson-compatible dot matrix printer. Software Requirements: (a) MS-DOS V2.05 (or later) for MS-DOS version. (b) CP/M 86/80 V2.0 (or later) for CP/M version. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The complete distribution package includes the files: JOBSDUMP.EXE MS-DOS version of JOBSDUMP V4.2 JOBSDUMP.CMD CP/M 86/80 version of JOBSDUMP V4.0 JOBSDUMP.DOC This documentation file. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 4.0,4.1 ? ******************************* a) It runs FASTER than 3.x and previous versions. b) The DEC sixel files are about A FACTOR OF 10 SMALLER than 3.x and previous versions. c) The -e option has been added to the command-line option set. It lets you output the graphics in EPSON-compatible (IBM) format. d) The -dnn option has been added to the command-line option set. It lets you DISPLAY on the screen for nn seconds the graphics that will go to the printer. e) The -n option has been added to the command-line option set. It lets you print the image in NEGATIVE mode to save printer ribbons when a picture has very little white space. f) The user interface is a more friendly cursor-driven environment, reminiscent of DEC-written utilities. The -g (GO) option has been added to the command-line option set, to allow command-line user to avoid the cursor-driven user interface. g) The CP/M version is functionally IDENTICAL to the DOS version as of version 4.0. h) The ERROR HANDLING for disk file output has been improved. The output now continues until the disk is full, at which time a graceful exit (accompanied by a message) occurs. i) The CP/M version is frozen at V4.0. Version 4.2 for DOS includes an option to select the colours which will print as black. This is accomplished using a DOS environment variable called JOBSCOLS. WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 4.2 ? *************************** a) The -l option has been added to the command-line option set. It compensates for the aspect ratio of the LA100 printer (different from that of the LA50 and the Rainbow screen). b) The operation of the -e (Epson mode) option has been enhanced, to give improved pictures with correct aspect ratio. c) The speed of the -e (Epson mode) option has been increased by means of a sixel lookup table. d) The menu display now shows more clearly the options in effect at any given time. (1) OVERVIEW ************ JOBSDUMP is a utility program designed to give the Rainbow computer an important ability not included with the system - the ability to print out graphics screens directly on DEC or Epson-compatible printers. It prints out both medium and high resolution graphics screens in either of two formats : (a) Small, which is a dot-for-dot representation of the graphics screen and is smaller than the screen since printer dots are smaller than screen pixels for the Rainbow computer. (b) Large, which is a double-size printout rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Thus, the right-hand-side of the screen picture is the first part to arrive at the printer. Large printouts just about fit on a page. The program is interactive, prompting for the resolution, the printout size, the output file, the graphics protocol format (DEC or Epson), the printing color and the preview option. At any time, you have the option of aborting the program by pressing the or the key. This is useful when you are not interested in printing the remainder of the graphics screen (for example, when it is blank). Since most printers are monochrome devices, there is no simple way to distinguish among the various colours or shades of grey visible on the screen. There are methods such as the error diffusion technique (see, e.g. "Digital Halftones by Dot Diffusion", by Donald E. Knuth in ACM Transactions on graphics 6, 245-273, 1987, and references therein). They operate by simulating, in a local average way, grey tones using randomly chosen black dots. However, these tend to be very demanding in terms of storage space and floating-point computation. Such techniques are better suited to larger machines. The latest MS-DOS and CP/M versions of JOBSDUMP handle this in two different ways. **V4.0: Any colour which differs from black on the screen is printed out in black on the printer. When the -n option is in force, everything except the background is white. **V4.2: An environment variable called JOBSCOLS may be used to specify the colours to print. e.g. SET JOBSCOLS=1234ABC will cause colours 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12 (hex notation) to print as black, while all others will be white. If JOBSCOLS is not defined, then the behaviour will revert to that of V4.0 above. If you're not sure about what to do with JOBSCOLS, ignore it! It's not at all necessary in most situations. In order to give a correctly-scaled representation of the screen graphics, the printer has to have a 2:1 pixel aspect ratio. This is no problem for the LA50, LA75 and (I think) LA210 printers. However, the LA100 printer does not support an aspect ratio of 2:1 exactly. This caused LA100 printouts not to be proportional to the screen image in previous (4.1 and earlier) versions of JOBSDUMP. JOBSDUMP 4.2 takes care of this by repeating every fourth sixel. While this approach reproduces the correct aspect ratio, the output may not always be pleasing; you should experiment and make your own judgement. A similar problem exists for the Epson-compatible mode of output due to the difference in dot density between Epson printers and DEC printers. JOBSDUMP 4.1 ignored every sixth column of dots in Epson mode, in order to achieve the correct aspect ratio. This occasionally led to a loss in picture quality, especially in pictures with lots of vertical lines. JOBSDUMP 4.2 instead bitwise OR's together every fifth and sixth sixel, giving much better results. In any case, this feature can be disabled by invoking the command-line option -ei (the Epson option, (I)gnoring the aspect ratio correction), if necessary. (2) PRINTING OPERATIONS *********************** JOBSDUMP allows you to print the graphics either a) directly to the printer or b) to a file, for later printing using the DOS PRINT command. This is useful if you want to print several pictures in background while you do something else on the computer. The files created by pre-4.xx versions of JOBSDUMP were large - about 40k for a small printout and 110k for a large printout. This has been drastically reduced in the present version to typical values of about 4k for a small printout and 8k for a large printout. It IS possible to get up to about 35k (small) or 90k (large) if the picture is sufficiently complex. However, even with digitized photographs, I have not yet encountered a large printout larger than 30k or a small printout larger than 15k. (For the DEC format, that is - the Epson-compatible output is just about as big as the old DEC sixel files.) In any case, to get started, all you have to do is type JOBSDUMP and follow the prompts. This simple invocation will be all that most people will want. All of the options are set in roughly the same way. To select an option to change, use the up/down cursor keys. The selected option has an arrow to its left and its current value is displayed in reverse video. To change the value of the current option, use the left/right cursor keys. The screen immediately reflects the changed value. In the print destination option, the left/right keys toggle between the values "Printer" and "File OUT.SIX". If you have selected "File OUT.SIX" and you would like a file other than one called "OUT.SIX", pressing the