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QNews QBasic Newsletter issue 07
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QNews QBasic Newsletter
Issue Number 7
164 Members ;( I weeded thru them, others dropped out. Tell your
friends!
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Inside This Issue:
1. QBasic SCREEN 12
2. Painting in QB
3. FoX and MineSweeper
4. ASCII Artist
5. QB: I/O or serial Ports among other things.
6. QB: Tutorial 2 -Cross Fading
7. The Final Say
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1. QBasic SCREEN 12
From: Robert E. Aukerman <RAukerman@compuserve.com>
Date: Monday, October 26, 1998 3:07 PM
Jeff,
It appears many of your readers focus on programing in QBasic Screen 13 for
several reasons. Here are a few words on the benefits of Screen 12.
First, high resolution. Practically anything you see in modern programs
like MS Windows can be created in BASIC SCREEN 12. Windows 3.1 icons,
frames, dialog, boxes, backgrounds, and text are less than 16 colors and
scaled for 640 x 480 pixels. Second, colors. There is a general
misconception that 16 colors means the default colors from CGA days.
Screen 12
Has access to 256 colors via the PALETTE statement but can only use 16 on
a given screen. Consider this, a gray scale photograph. Screen 13
programs can use all of the gray tones in the 256 palette (16 grays) and
display 340 x 240 pixels. Screen 12 programs can use the same 16 shades of
gray in a full 640 x 480 pixel screen. Same grays, 4 times the sharpness.
It does affect image quality, a lot. Colors? You might be very
surprised to find many color images render just fine in only 16 colors.
This is certainly true if you are "drawing" your SCREEN 13 arrays by hand.
raukerman@compuserve.com
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2. Painting in QB
From: Robert E. Aukerman <RAukerman@compuserve.com>
Date: Monday, October 26, 1998 3:56 PM
Jeff:
While it might sound overwhelming at first, it is not difficult to
connect bit map paint programs like Windows Paint/ PaintBrush, or better,
to BASIC programs. And there are good arguments to do it. I abandoned
making arrays and tiles by hand, inside BASIC, years ago, when the first
EGA was introduced. If one has a routine that will load a paint program
format like PCX or BMP into BASIC, any part of that screen can be BSAVEd.
When you wish, BLOAD the saved file to an array and you're home free. PUT
the image, Mask and PUT for transparent back ground. Make sprites, bold
font words, backgrounds, buttons and bars, animate, etc. Paint it exactly
how you want it. If one works in BASIC standard colors in the paint
program the BSAVE needs no palette correction. If not standard colors,
many paint programs will give you the RGB values of colors from which
palette numbers can be made. Most paint programs export a 640 x 480
images. That means BASIC SCREEN 12 is the best match. If this interests
you e-mail questions to me or respond to Jeff. An extension of this
method includes BASIC import of scanned photo images . Imagine, a 640 x
480 background, of actual star and galaxies photographs in your game.
raukerman@compuserve.com
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3. FoX and MineSweeper
From: SPMcAul@aol.com <SPMcAul@aol.com>
Date: Monday, October 26, 1998 4:46 PM
Hi ya all! I'm Steve, co-creator of FoX.
This is the URL to a MineSweeper game by George Gardiner - it's pretty good
http://homepages.force9.net/georgeg/mine.zip
We would be grateful if you could put this on your site. Also could you please
include a link to the FoX Page at http://members.aol.com/spmcaul/fox.htm
I'd like to get to know you all!
Happy Programming!
Steve
<><
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4. ASCII Artist
From: The Garner Family <paulbrenda@intranet.ca>
Date: Monday, October 26, 1998 8:28 PM
Hi all QBNewsers!
First of all, I would like to thank Jeff Rapp for this excellent newsletter! Second, I am also grateful to Jeff for doing a review a few issues back on Ascii Artist 1.0, he suggested a few EXCELLENT features that I would have never thought of myself! Now, ASCII Artist 1.1 is almost complete and I was just wondering if everyone who thinks they would be interested in a program to help draw ASCII Art, please send me an email at:
paulbrenda@intranet.ca
I just want to see if this is a waste of time. =)
Thanx everyone,
Phil
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit CRITICAL MASS Today!
http://critical.hypermart.net/
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5. QB: I/O or serial Ports among other things.
From: william bulmer <chuggaboywil@yahoo.com>
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 1998 4:22 PM
QB:
Hi, first of all, I'd like to say that I am glad that this
mailing newsgroup is back. I have a few questions, the first being
serial and I/O PORTS.
I'd like to know how to use them, espescially with the monitor.
I've heard that this can make a graphics program much faster. Can
someone please help?
Also, now have QBasic 4.5, but does anyone know where to get 7.1?
Finally, I can't seem to be able to use DEF SEG, PEEK, or POKE as
far as manipulating the data in a variable. Can someone please help?
Now, I have some news. A few issues ago, I wrote in requesting
how sprite math works. I've figured it out. The sprite's size, it
seems, cannot be determined by that seemingly BS equation given in
help. I've found a better equation (I think):
size = (length/4)*width
Now, each value stored in the sprite array (except for the zero
position) contains information of four pixels within the sprites going
from left to right. You find this value this way:
array(x)& = ((256^3)*pixel4)+((256^2)*pixel3))+(256*pixel2)+pixel1
This long equation probably will slow down the computer, so I've found
something else you can also get it by this:
array(x) = cvs(chr$(pixel1)+chr$(pixel2)+chr$(pixel3)+ chr$(pixel4)
If you find any problems with what I've just related to you, don't be
afraid to write to me asking just what the H*ll I wrote.
-William Bulmer
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
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6. QB: Tutorial 2 -Cross Fading
From: @--->[!Terminator_Z!]<--@ <shadow@georgeg.force9.co.uk>
Date: Sunday, November 01, 1998 2:43 AM
Tutorial 2 on cross fading is out now! Get it now!!
http://homepages.force9.net/georgeg/tut2.zip
Mail me and tell me what you think, how it could be improved and what other
subjects you would like to see a tutorial on!
Is anyone out there willing to have these tutorials up on their site? I try
and get one uploaded every Sunday. You could just have a link to "the
latest tutorial by Terminator_Z" and I would update the link every Sunday
and that way you wouldn't have to keep updating your site. Anyways, mail me
if your interested.
Tutorials to date:-
http://homepages.force9.net/georgeg/tut1.zip -Pixel morping
http://homepages.force9.net/georgeg/tut2.zip -Cross Fading
Terminator_Z (shadow@georgeg.force9.co.uk)
CRiTiCAL MASS (http://critical.hypermart.net)
FoX (http://members.aol.com/spmcaul)
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7. The Final Say
From: Jeff Rapp <QNews@qble.hypermart.net>
Date: Sunday, November 1, 1998 7:00 PM
Hey! Good as usual. Now, straight down to business. I have put
up an all new site for Pem 2, some of you may have heard of it,
others not... It is a Shell for DOS (I don't like to use OS) that
has it's own programming language to create visual programs in a
windows-like environment. I am currently looking to people to
join the devlopment team. You can go to the site and see how to
join at:
http://pem.hypermart.net
There are a few new features on this site, like the addition of the
message and the instant-links board. On the instant-links board,
you just enter your site, and you have yourself a link. Wow...
That's about it for today... See 'yall later!
Jeff Rapp
Editor of the QNews
jrapp@geocities.com
