VGA Magic V1.00 ShareWare Release Program and Documentation Copyright (C) 1990 BulletProof Software, Mark I Manning III and Mark I Manning IV 7611 Autumnal Lane Liverpool, NY 13088 Tel: (315) 451-2087 THE LEGALITIES The entire contents of this software package are Copyright 1990 by BulletProof Software, Mark I Manning III and Mark I Manning IV. All rights are reserved world wide. You may not disassemble or otherwise reverse engineer or modify it in any way. You may freely copy and distribute the package under the ShareWare concept as long as all files are included in unmodified form and no fee is charged beyond a reasonable ammount for the media and handling ($10 maximum suggested). This version of VGA Magic is a ShareWare Version of a commercial software package. You may make personal, non-commercial use of it without charge, but if you appreciate the program and wish to support further developement of it and other fine software products from BulletProof Software, you are encouraged to register it for a fee of $20.00. In return for registration, you will receive a personal, serialized copy of the full commercial version of VGA Magic which has additional graphics capabilities. In addition, you will be notified of all major updates to the program and given the opportunity to recieve any update for $5.00, which is the cost of the media plus shipping and handling. If you wish to make commercial use of VGA Magic, such as to demonstrate Microcomputer Hardware, you must purchase a commercial license from BulletProof Software for a fee of $65.00 per copy. Holders of commercial licenses can have their copies of VGA Magic personalized with the inclusion of thier own business advertisements and other special features. Please contact BulletProof Software if you are interested in doing so. WHAT IS VGA MAGIC VGA Magic is a graphics program which utilizes many of the advanced features of VGA Boards to display spectacular fast action 256 color 320x200 resolution (mode 13h) Kaleidoscopes as well as exceptionally fast 16 color 640x480 (mode 12h) line drawing. It is intended as a fun program to watch and play with as well as the ideal program for showing off or demonstrating VGA based Microcomputers. The user interacts with the program through an easy to use two tiered menu system plus a few special "Hot Keys" that are active during graphic displays. The user has control over various parameters, such as type of kaleidoscope, color palette selection, color palette rotations, how fast the color increments, horizontal and vertical line limits, the number of line reflections (3 or 15), and wether to use BIOS or direct screen writes. RUNNING VGA MAGIC VGA Magic uses graphics modes that work only with VGA Hardware, and could damage any other type of video board if it were run on it. To prevent this possibility, VGA Magic has the ability to test the video hardware to insure that it is compatible, and will abort with an error message if it is not. While this test is beleived to be definitive, please do not run VGA Magic on anything other than a VGA based system. When VGA Magic is executed, it will first display it's Logo and Copyright Screen until any key is pressed. When a key is pressed, it immediately starts running the authors' favorite Kaleidoscope routine. Pressing any key other than the special "Hot Keys" (see below) will bring up the Kaleidoscope Menu. The Kaleidoscope menu is pretty well self explanatory and a little experimentation will quickly demonstrate the function of all selections, so we won't explain these in detail. While at the Kaleidoscope Menu, pressing the key will activate the Pop Up/Pull Down Main Menu. You can navigate around this menu using the Cursor Arrow Keys along with the and keys to move the red Menu Bar over your selection. From the Main Menu, you can display information screens, go to the 640x480 PolyDiags line drawing section, the 320x200 Kaleidoscope section, or QUIT the program. PALETTE MANIPULATIONS During Kaleidoscope displays, the special "Hot Keys" that are used to dynamically manipulate the color palettes are active. Pressing any of the keys <1> through <9> will select one of the nine pre-defined palettes and down load it to the video board. This causes the graphics display to immediately change to the new palette. Pressing one of the keys , or turns on dynamic palette rotation, using one of three manipulation methods (see below for full explanation). Pressing the key will turn off palette rotation. VGA Magic maintains a buffer in user memory to hold the color palettes that are being manipulated. This buffer has the capacity to hold two complete 256 color palettes. When VGA Magic initializes, the default color palette is loaded into both the upper and lower halves of the buffer. Whenever a new palette is selected, it is loaded into the lower half of the palette buffer, and all palette downloads to the VGA Board are from the lower half of the palette buffer. When the key is pressed during Kaleidoscope displays, the contents of the lower half of the palette buffer (one complete palette) is rotated and then downloaded to the VGA Board at frequent intervals in synchronization with the horizontal scan so as to avoid interference. When the key is pressed during Kaleidoscope displays, the contents of both the upper and lower halves of the palette buffer (two complete palettes) are rotated and then the new contents of the lower half of the buffer is downloaded to the VGA Board. When the key is pressed during Kaleidoscope displays, the contents of the lower 128 colors in the lower half of the palette buffer are rotated (one half of a complete palette) and then the lower half of the palette buffer (one complete palette) is downloaded to the VGA Board. It may be difficult at first to digest all the above information and visualize the effects that these manipulations allow, so experimentation is the key to understanding. As an aid to getting started, consider this; since you can load fresh palettes only into the lower half of the buffer, the only way you can change the upper half is by rotating into it from the lower half. If you press the key to turn on full buffer rotation and then hit some combination of the <1> to <9> keys, you will rotate a mixed palette into the upper half of the buffer. This mixed palette will rotate around and back into the lower half of the buffer and then be downloaded to the VGA Board. An infinite variety of visual effects can be obtained by hitting different sequences of the , and keys in combination with different sequences of the palette select keys <1> to <9> at different key stroke intervals. PROGRAM SOURCE AVAILABILITY VGA Magic is coded in the FORTH 83 Standard Language. However, all the graphics routines used within VGA Magic are coded in 8086 Family Assembly Language and are therefor useable by programmers that are familiar with 8086 Assembly as well as those familiar with FORTH. Anyone interested in obtaining the well commented source code for VGA Magic can purchase it for unrestricted recycling for $30 if purchased alone or $45 for the combined registration fee and source code purchase. REGISTERING VGA MAGIC To make registering VGA Magic as painless as possible, an order form is included with this package which you can use if you have a printer available to print it out with. If you don't have a printer available just write the necessary information on any old piece of paper that you have handy. Then mail both the order and a check made out to Mark I Manning to: Mark I Manning BulletProff Software 7611 Autumnal Lane Liverpool, NY 13088 REVISION HISTORY Version 1.00 Initial release 1-10-90