Koala-Verter...V1.0 Koala-Printer..V1.0 By Dr. Jim Rothwell and Dan Rothwell Permission Granted for Personal Use Only. All Commercial Rights Reserved. Koala-Verter converts full-color Koala pad pictures into a black&white dot patterns which can print on a standard cbm 1525 graphics printer. Koala Printer reads in the converted pictures for printing, and allows the picture to be expanded in either vertical or horizontal directions. First, run Koala-Verter. The program willprompt for insertion of a disk containing Koala pics. Use the sample provided (jungle) or insert your own disk containing another program. then, press return . After reading and analyzng the picture, the Koala version will be displayed in color along with a table of the sixteen possible colors. Select a color to be extracted from the picture; black, for example. The next menu requests a dot-pattern to be substituted for the black areas. Select one, such pattern (a). The picture will be scanned bottom to top, extracting those black areas and creating a new picture containing the (a) pattern where black occurred in the Koala picture. Note that the pattern we substitute for colors in the Koala picture is a 2-by-2 dot pattern, allowing us 8 possible choices for our black & white version of the picture. This method of representing shading information by means of dot patterns is called dithering. Most importantly, we have control over how the various color areas are represented in the final print. Being naturally creative, we can decide which areas should contrast and which should blend. In this way (read 'trial and error' here), we will find the combination of dots which best represents what the picture says. After extracting a color and viewing the results, we may accept it (by pressing return) or reject it by selecting another pattern to substitute. Note that the menu at the bottom of the screen may be toggled on and off using the f7 key so you can see the full area of the screen. Once an extraction has been accepted, it goes into the 'final' print. Each succeeding extraction will be added to the previous ones to build the picture. Color seperations could be made by saving and printing each extraction by itself. Experiment with pattern-substitution on various pictures to get a feel for what works. Experience suggests that single-dot areas don't print well on a 1525; clusters of dots two-or-more wide seem to work better. Row-to-row registration of dots will vary from printer to printer, also. When ready to print, press f1 to exit and save the picture. It will now be a full 8k high-resolution picture, loading at $2000. Load and run Koala Printer. NOTE: Koala Printer supports only 1515/1525/mps 801 or 803 printers. Using the menu, load your dithered picture. Then view it. When viewing, any key takes you back to the menu. Now PRINT it. The picture will be turned sideways to better fit the paper and allow room for expansion. Unexpanded pictures, being smaller, print faster and are recommended for 'first drafts.' more importantly, the ribbon will last longer. You may exit from printing at any time by pressing the stop key. Upon exit from Koala-Verter and Koala Printer the 8k hi-res picture remains intact in ram at $2000, for those who wish to use it. This program has been released as FREE-WARE by the authors. If you like this program and appreciate the work, then send a donation of $20.00 to: Dan Rothwell Starving Artists Software c/o CUGKC Library 310 Monterey Liberty, MO 64068 In Turn, you will be rewarded with an all new, Version 2.0 'KOALA-VERTER/PRINTER' which features ultra hi-speed loading/printing, and dumping to various ascii dot-addressable printers without having to use the slower printing routines of the 1525 printer. Plus a complete set of documentation. Koala Verter/Printer is written entirely in assembly language via the MAE assembler. Koala Verter was originally destined to be a commercially available piece of software. However, this product was previously released to the library of the Commodore User's Group of Kansas City as part of an on-going HI-Res software utility library disk. Midwest Micro has decided not to market this product. Their loss is your gain! Address any immediate comments to: C.U.G.K.C., Inc. 70017,1774 Via EasyPlex. Your comments are always welcome.
Amiga7878