Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!jamiep
From: jamiep@NCoast.ORG (Jamie Purdon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Journeyman V1.1 (was Re: Imagine)
Summary: ToasterPaint provides for "render to Toaster framebuffer"
Message-ID: <1990Dec26.005959.4068@NCoast.ORG>
Date: 26 Dec 90 00:59:59 GMT
References: <1990Dec21.183353.13714@qiclab.uucp> <1990Dec22.035100.12065@lavaca.uh.edu> <1990Dec23.062224.10652@qiclab.uucp>
Organization: North Coast Computer Resources (ncoast)
Lines: 43


>  >  I'm kinda pissed since newer products
>  >are magically bound to the framebuffer their owning company makes.
>  
>  It's hard to know what to support.  The 24bit hardware market on the
>  Amiga is so chaotic and there just isn't time to support everything.
>  At this point we would prefer to support the Toaster, since it's what
>  we have, and it has the best NTSC output of all the buffers.  But, so
>  far, NewTek hasn't provided anything to developers to deal with the
>  hardware directly.  Their approach seems to be to wait till they
>  provide developers with functions that access all of the Toaster's
>  features, rather than provide some lower level support (like writing
>  to the buffer) now, and the fancy stuff later.
"Writing to a buffer" is available, now, to every Toaster owner.
ARexx lets you access the hardware through ToasterPaint.
    
ToasterPaint (software, which is bundled with the Toaster,) can be
very easily used for Toaster rendering, through it's ARexx interface.
   
ToasterPaint lets you use ARexx (or just a DOS script) to write to the
Toaster's framebuffers.  This interface is handled by low-level code
that executes very quickly.  The "Dlvb" ToasterPaint/ARexx command
(action code) puts an entire scan line of pixels into ToasterPaint's
rgb buffers.  Another command renders the (changed lines in the) rgb
buffers "out" to a Toaster framebuffer.
  
The ToasterPaint/Arexx interface is an extended version of the
DigiPaint3.0/Arexx interface.  The "Dlvb" action code functions
identically in both programs.  You can use DigiPaint3.0 to test
ToasterPaint/Arexx scripts.  DigiView software uses this interface to
send it's working image into DigiPaint's (ham) buffer.
    
Anybody can make use of both (Toaster) frame buffers in a similar
manner.  The ToasterPaint/ARexx interface is documented in an appendix
to the ToasterPaint section of the Toaster manual.
  
--
Jamie Purdon, Author of DigiPaint1/3.0, ToasterPaint
bix: jamiep
quote: "Immediate neccessity makes many thing convenient,
        which if continued would grow into oppressions."
          - Thomas Paine,  writing anonymously in "Common Sense", 1776
"If they don't understand English, talk louder." - Common Sense ;-)