I am looking for the original Squishy program for use on V2.x.

Squishy is a utility that changes the screen from 25 lines to 50 lines and (I hope) from 80 characters to 132 character per line.

If anyone has this please let me know where I can find it or email me at mmarling@direct.ca

Thanks a bunch!!!

Mike,

Squishy .. man that brings back memories .. Mike Pope came to Compaq Munich and one of the things we had to do was develop a process to reduce the screen. Mike wrote the original process and I cleaned it up and put it out on the RTI bboard … yeow!! that was a while ago.

I do have a copy of it but it is back in Portland and I will not be there until next weekend. If no one else comes forward let me know and I will get you a copy.

dsig@teleport.com onmouseover=window.status=imagine … ;return(true)"

David Tod Sigafoos ~ SigSolutions

voice: 503-639-8080

REVMEDIA FKB to the rescue

With the advent of more sophisticated video control (with 43 and 50 line

support) and with yet more sophistication to come (with the rumoured 132

column support) it is instructive to examine the system routines and control

records provided for the manipulation of the video screen. One thing that it

is timeous to point out is that whilst some of these routines (such as

VCARD) provide information that is accessible elsewhere, the use of calls to

standardised routines (such as GET_VID_INFO) is encouraged by RevTI as it

permits the construction of software "black boxes" which can be radically

changed on the inside without changing the result returned to the calling

program.

VIDEOCONFIG

There is a record in the SYSTEM file which contains the setup information

required when configuring the video mode. It has five multi-valued fields

as follows

        Video Mode - this is the numeric value used by VIDCTRL (q.v.)

             when resetting the video mode.

        Description of the video mode

        Screen width in this mode

        Screen depth in this mode

        Type of card mode will work with. Setting a VGA card to an

             EGA mode and vice versa does not work. This value records the

             kind of video card (as returned by VCARD (q.v.) which the

             video mode is designed for.

VCARD

Called subroutine taking (and returning) one parameter, the kind of video

card installed. Calling syntax is X=" ; CALL VCARD(X). Types identified

in Technical Bulletin 74 are, 0 - MDA, 1 - CGA, 2 - EGA, 3 - PGA, 4 - VGA,

5 - MCGA, 6 - Unknown.

GET_VID_INFO

This is a function taking one parameter - the branch, returning a result of

the information being asked for. The branches and returned results are as

follows

   1    Video mode

        0 Normal text mode

        1 25 line EGA Mode

        2 43 line EGA mode

        3 25 line VGA mode

        4 43 line VGA mode

        5 50 line VGA mode

        6 16 line VGA mode

   2    CRT Width

   3    CRT Height

   4    Video Card type - same as results of VCARD.

   5    Unknown - always returns 0 on test machine.

   6    Starting address of Video RAM, returned as a two byte number, in

        low byte high byte order. Normally this would return CHAR(0) :

        CHAR(184), in other words (0 + 256 * 184)=47104=B800.

VIDCTRL

This assembler subroutine controls the video setting of the screen and can

be used to "flip" modes in real time. It takes 5 parameters, of which only

the first two and the last one seem to be used. As it is an assembler

routine it is difficult to be able to state with any confidence exactly what

all calls do, however there seem to be three major kinds of call, with each

kind taking a specific action modifier. The calling sequence is therefore

   VidCtrl( Action, Mode, UK1, UK2, Flag)

where

   Action    Is the action to take, having the value of the video card

             type for modes 0 and 2, and the video mode to change to for

             mode 1.

   Mode      Is the type of operation to be performed 0  Reset video card

             to default settings

             1  Change video mode

             2  Possibly initialise card - does not seem to be required.

   UK        Unknown

   Flag      Result of operation.

Using this routine permits the programmer to reset the screen into an

alternative video mode. Note that when this is done there are several

caveats to be aware of :-

        Changing the screen size necessitates the changing of the status

        line location. This is done by resetting @CRTHIGH and @CRTMAXHIGH

        to the appropriate size and the calling the system routine

        INIT.STATUS.

        When video modes change, the screen is left blank. A background

        must therefore be filled in using Video.RW. In the code that

        follows the default background of \B01B\ is used. If you do not

        use the default and you wish to construct a generic routine,

        you will have to extract the correct settings from the

        environment.

        As mentioned in the discussion of VIDEOCONFIG, certain video modes

        do not work with certain video cards. The program following makes

        no allowance for this, but for genericism it could be coded to

        check the current video card against the requested mode by

        examining the VIDEOCONFIG record.

        As we wish to return to the normal status line when leaving the

        temporarily chosen mode, it is necessary to capture the screen

        image before the new mode is invoked, and restore this image

        upon return.

The code following represents a generic routine for calling a window from a

menu and having that window appear in a non-default video mode. It may be

called directly as a subroutine, or via catalyst using * to separate the

arguments. The arguments are the window name and the mode to use. The mode

can be the number or the text equivalent.

Subroutine Call_Window(Window, Mode)

  Declare Subroutine VidCtrl, Catalyst, Video.Rw

  Declare Function Guar_Assign, Get_Vid_Info

  Mode=Guar_Assign(Mode)

  If Index(Window, "*", 1) Then

   Mode=Window-1, "B*"

   Window=Window1,"*"

  End

  VidCard=" ; Call VCard(VidCard)

  ModeNums =0,1,2,3,4,5,6"

  Names=TEXT,EGA25,EGA43,VGA25,VGA45,VGA50,VGA16"

  ModeHigh =25,25,43,25,45,50,16"

  GoSub Save

  Locate Mode In ModeNums Using "," Setting Pos

Then

   DoIt=1

  End Else

   Locate Mode In Names Using "," Setting Pos Then

DoIt=1

   End

  End

  If DoIt Then

   GoSub SetUp

   Catalyst("W", Window)

   GoSub Restore

  End

Return

SetUp:

  Flag=" ; VidCtrl(VidCard, 0, "", "", Flag)

  Flag="

  VidCtrl(Field(ModeNums,",",Pos), 1, "", "", Flag)

  @CrtMaxHigh=Field(ModeHigh, ",", Pos)

  @CrtHigh   =@CrtMaxHigh

  Video.RW(0,0,(@CrtWide-1),(@CrtHigh-1),"C",\B01B\)

  Call Init.Status

Return

Save:

  SaveMode   =Get_Vid_Info(1)

  SaveHigh   =@CrtHigh

  SaveMaxHigh=@CrtMaxHigh

  Video.RW(0,0,@CrtWide-1,@CrtMaxHigh-1,"R",Image)

Return

Restore:

  Flag=" ; VidCtrl(VidCard, 0, "", "", Flag)

  Flag=" ; VidCtrl(SaveMode, 1, "", "", Flag)

  @CrtMaxHigh=SaveMaxHigh

  @CrtHigh=SaveHigh

  Call Init.Status

  Video.RW(0,0,@CrtWide-1,@CrtMaxHigh-1,"W", Image)

Return

(Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 8-10)



amcauley@sprezzatura.com

Sprezzatura Group

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

Thanks Andrew and David!

David, the information and sample code that Andrew supplied should be sufficient. I will contact you if I need the original.

Thanks again guys!!!

Andrew:

Thanks for the info!

Unfortunately, the info is for ARev V3.x and I need info for ARev V2.x. If you have a REVMEDIA article pertaining to the earlier version of ARev I would appreciate the info.

Thanks again!

David:

After playing with the info conveyed by Andrew, I find that I currently need the SQUISHY program (or info to write a new one).

Thanks again.

If I recall correctly, it was possible to change the vertical size but not the horizontal. At one point I had a monitor that allowed up to 132 by 60. I was able to use 60 lines by setting the appropriate variables, but I was not able to use 132 colums, because much of the code assumes 80 columns. Maybe I was just missing something. If so, I'm curious what I missed. Post an update if you get it to work.

Hmm, the only way I can think of is to retrofit the 3.X routines into 2.x but to do that you'd need valid 3.X licences.

amcauley@sprezzatura.com

Sprezzatura Group

World Leaders in all things RevSoft

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