


                         UPGRADE-J TO THE K3BC SSTV

     

          We  have been adding changes piecemeal to the I revision as  they 

     were  added. In the latest change to accommodate the 32 bit  architec-

     ture  of the Stealth 2 mb. video card, we had to change  almost  every 

     file  so decided to call this a new revision, J. The changes  are  de-

     tailed  below.  You should write down the  previously  determined  SYS 

     CONFIG constants before up-loading this revision, and as a first  step 

     insert  them  into the new files. This only takes a few  minutes,  but 

     will be well worth it.

          (1) A new QUAD program, QD, was added which allows you to  assem-

     ble any four files in the same mode format into a single pix file. You 

     can  then either save the quad for later use or  immediately  transmit 

     it.  Uses  would  include more compact storage of  pixes,  medleys  of 

     related  pixes,  or more often the retransmission of  pixes  just  re-

     ceived.  It  is arranged to make it convenient  to  temporarily  store 

     pixes under dummy names, A, B, C, etc. using RT and then typing QD  at 

     the DOS line to quickly assemble and transmit four of these pixes from 

     QD. [QUAD.BAS]

          (2) The TVT (Trucolor Viewing and Transmitting) program's  selec-

     tion of a picture to transmit from an album page of pictures has  been 

     popular,  so we have extended this capability to a program  for  those 

     who  don't have Trucolor capability. It's called LVT (aLbum  View  and 

     Transmit) and can be called up from the DOS line. [TVT and LVT]

          (3)  With  several choices now for a transmit  program,  we  have 

     added a software choice in RT's SYS CONFIG in line 3050 to pick  which 

     program you want to connect to the F9 key. You could always go to  the 

     DOS  line and select any one, but this saves you a few  keystrokes  on 

     switching to the one you use the most. [RT]

          (4) Another change allows you to make a choice other than the  16 

     line "shades of gray" header for the Martin and Scottie modes. You can 

     choose  a gray billboard background as an alternate or a picture  type 

     header  which can be anything you can create with your favorite  Paint 

     program  using portions of photos etc. The three choices are  made  in 

     the SYS CONFIG of the transmit programs using parameter HD. [HEADERS]

          (5)  W0YUQ wanted to have the output of the TV2TIF program to  be 

     centered  in  the TIF file pix. A software switch was added  to  offer 

     that  choice  in  SYS CONFIG. I still recommend using  the  left  edge 

     aligned choice here when you intend to return the file to a SSTV  mode 

     after working on it.

          (6) The F8 key was changed so when you choose this VIS mode,  the 

     system will just stay in this mode over a number of pictures until you 

     choose to exit using one of the other function keys. That is, when you 

     Q(uit)  a picture and go to the selection screen, the  default  choice 

     will  continue  the F8 choice. F6 can still be used to return  to  the 

     full RT selection screen, F9 to transmit, etc.

          (7)  The Diamond Stealth 2 mb. video card is getting  popular  in 

     some of the new computer package deals. It has an unusual  arrangement 

     in the 640x480x16.7 mil VESA mode 112h. Instead of the usual 24 bit (3 

     byte)  per pixel, it uses 32 bits (4 bytes) for each pixel, the  extra 

     byte being empty. It took considerable rewrite of several of the  core 

     ASM  modules  to accommodate this and since almost every  program  has 

     picture  viewing, almost every file was affected. Since I  don't  have 

     such  a card, I had to depend on others to validate this  change.  Any 

     feedback from Stealth users would be appreciated.

          (8)  For  those of you who chose not to use a RAMDRIVE  and  just 

     tried  using the hard-drive along with the SMARTDRV program,  you  may 

     have experienced an odd problem in the F7 and F8 auto-VIS modes in  RT 

     (ie,  you  set DR$="c" in line 3050 of RT's SYS CONFIG).  The  picture 

     copying  starts for a few lines and then the  hard-drive  inexplicably 

     turns  on  for a moment, breaking lock on the picture  SYNC.  This  is 

     affected  by the SMARTDRV cache parameters you set up. It was hard  to 

     duplicate this problem here when it was reported, but fortunately very 

     easy  to fix. The RAMDRIVE is still highly recommended for RT  and  is 

     absolutely required if you want to copy Colorfax or Wefax.   

          We welcome your requests for other features you'd like to see.



                                                  Have fun,

                                                  Ben Vester, K3BC

     2/3/96


