Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!atari!portal!portal!cup.portal.com!Jake-S
From: Jake-S@cup.portal.com (Jake G Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: GROB2TIF in the Serial I/F Kit
Message-ID: <27769@cup.portal.com>
Date: 10 Mar 90 19:28:15 GMT
References: <1990Mar9.175617.21192@hellgate.utah.edu>
  <1812@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 17

On the floppy that accompanies the 82208 Serial I/F Kit is a nifty program
called GROB2TIF which allows conversion of graphic object files (which have
been uploaded to a PC) to TIFF (tag image format files) format so they may
be displayed on a PC screen or incorporated into other documents. I thought
that a limitation in that program should be mentioned here.
   The instructions say that graphic objects must be uploaded in ASCII 
format in order for GROB2TIF to work properly (which is true). However,
when the HP48 formats for ASCII transfer, it becomes a memory grabber,
requiring something like 7.5 times the size of the object in empty RAM  to 
be available as scratch. Thus, with a machine devoid of everything but the
GROB to be transfered, the largest that can be sent in ASCII is approxi-
mately 3.9K bytes in size, corresponding roughly to a 250 by 125 PICT size.
GROBs larger than 3.9K yield "SEND Error: Insufficient Memory" when attempted
to be sent to the PC in ASCII mode.
   HP is aware of this limitation, and knows that a version of GROB2TIF which
can convert files uploaded in BINARY would be much more useful.
Jake Schwartz