Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!usage.csd.unsw.oz.au!ccadfa!prolix!dac
From: dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Here's an EASY one for you
Keywords: Lazy, Lame, Arexx, Characters, pointers, Dac.
Message-ID: <18f0bf14.ARN1771@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au>
Date: 5 Apr 91 12:45:40 GMT
Reply-To: dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Organization: More like Mis~, really.
Lines: 81

The story so far;

Dac [that's me] has this really, like, y'know, lame idea of putting big
letters in messages, like this:

           ____   _____   ___    ____  _   _   ___   ____    _____  
          |****\ |*****| /***\  /****||*| |*| /***\ |****\  /****/  
          |*|_)*)  |*|  |*| ~~ |*|    |*|_|*||*|_|*||*|_|*)<*<__    
          |****<   |*|  |*| __ |*|    |*****||*****||****/  \***\   
          |*|_)*) _|*|_ |*||**||*|___ |*| |*||*| |*||*|\*\ ____>*>  
          |****/ |*****| \***/  \****||*| |*||*| |*||*| \*\\****/

So I did it, in Arexx, with a lookup table approach to the problem, and
although it works [and is decidedly lame :-)], I've been thinking how much
nicer it would be if I could have things like lower case, punctuation, and the
special characters [)(*&^%$#@!  etc.]. I could put all 95 characters in the
lookup table, but heck, it's as slow as a wet week already, and the
information I need is ALREADY there, in the bitmap for the font!

So, I got this idea that I could sneak up on the font currently in use, and
rip it's living soul out whilst it wasn't looking [for each character], and
for every pixel defined in the bitmap, put up a '*' or something [go on, call
me lame, I can take it :-/].

Now, in Modula 2, this would be pretty simple [he sez, hoping to bluff some of
the more easily led], but I happen to like Arexx a great deal, and thought it
would be a neat project.

Well, it's not a neat project at all.  It sucks the big one, and because I am
a totally lazy reprobate, I thought to myself "heck, there are all these
people out there, with nothing to do with their time except post flames [Got
yer ears on, Kent?], who claim to be able to do all sorts of things.  Perhaps
if I fobbed off my problem to the net, I'd get a result without having to
expend any real effort, [said result being a lame program to print big
renditions of characters out to screen, file, a lurking BBS, whatever]."

                                So here it is!

Specifications: {May be subjected to any change you so desire}

Must be in Arexx. No horrid little assembler calls, or C calls, or Modula 2
calls [Jforth, Amigabasic, ADA, Draco, also excluded, get the drift?]

Program can ue the default font, extra points will be given to people who suss
out what font is currently being used.  Italicization would be really neat,
and underlining and inverse, but that's double secret extra points material,
and not part of the basic spec.

Program will parse inputted text, and for each character encountered, produce
a bitmap image on the screen of each character.  For instance, 'Lame' would
come out something like

			 ###
			  #
			  #      ##   ## ##  ##
			  #        #  ## ## #  #
			  #   #  ###  # # # ####
			  #  ## #  #  #   # #
			 ######  ## # #   #  ##


[or something like that]

I haven't got the foggiest notion about how to follow pointers to things,
using Arexx, and I figger that such an ability _must_ be there, somewhere, I'm
just too damned lazy to find it.

So, if you're no too offended by the incredible tweeness of it all, I'd
appreciate your code [fragments will do], either here [if you're into
incredible wastes of bandwidth] or via my mailbox in Melbourne, Oz, which
fills up quite nicely, but has this horrid habit of [apparently] not
successfully sending any of my nicely formatted replies out.

I'll summarise if I get more than one mail on the subject.:-)

Thankyou for your attention.
Dac
--
{Send your flames to =Marc Barrett=, he's used to 'em}
David Andrew Clayton. // _l _  _ dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au    *or*|I post.I am.
Canberra, Australia.\X/ (_](_l(_ ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au!prolix!dac@munnari.oz