Re: Computer Eyes: help!

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article Clairemont High School <clairmnt@n2.net> writes...

>Yippee!
>
>More scavenging from other school has brought us a Computer Eyes card!
>
>If course, no software or information. Can anyone help? I know it is a
>digitizer that can go in any slot, & that the non-GS card will only do
>B&W, but that is about it.
>
>Do we need software?

    Yep, you'll need a copy of the software to do anything at all
with the card. The latest version used the standard GS/OS desktop
interface, while the older software used a text interface that is
quite similar to AppleWorks.

>Does anyone have a copy?

    You can try contacting Digtial Vision (1-800-346-0090) but
chances are good they'll tell you that they've dropped support
for the Apple II. I believe Roger Wagner Publishing took over
selling and support of the ComputerEyes GS, but they too will
probably tell you the same story regarding Apple II support.

    In any case, should find yourself stuck, I have a clean
copy of ComputerEyes GS (3.20 is the final release). I also
kept copies of version 1.x and 2.x of the software, since
there are features (or even quality of image capture) not
available in the GS/OS version.

>Is it all in the ROMS and invoked though some special key-press? Help!

    There is no firmware on the card, it just grabs the raw
NTSC signal and translates it into a graphic on screen. Of
course you need the software to activate it, it won't do it
on its own. The software is fairly straight forward to use,
once you set the capture preferences (it is as simple as
pointing the camera and pressing a key).

>The school just got a low-end digital camera: in my wild dreams I could
>use the video out connection on the camera to easily convert them to A2
>format. Or maybe you can't digitize what is already digital? :-)
>
>But I jump the gun -- how do I get started with the thing?

    If you do indeed have the Apple IIGS version of the card,
then not only can you capture in standard Hi-Res and Double-
Hi-Res monochrome, but in native Super-Hi-Res as well. While
you can do color captures (320x200 with 16 colors) you'll
find the quality is quite poor, even for the GS. You can
however save the raw capture as a 6-bit color image and
create an image with 64 colors, but you need software that
will recognize it (Prism on the IIgs does, but I found will
not work properly unless you use 1.x or 2.x of the capture
software). I'm not aware of any Mac or PC software that will
read this raw format, but that is just in my own experience.

    You'll find the best results are digitizing in greyscales.
Yes, that is B&W, but unlike the IIe version of the card, you
get 16 levels of grey. You can get some stunning results if
you use the zoom-macro feature on a camera for very close up
shots. Besides the color depth limitation (you can capture
in color and B&W using both 640 and 320 modes incidentally)
the other thing to keep in mind is ComputerEyes is *not* a
real-time capture board. If your capturing a live image, the
subject must remain perfectly still for 6-12 seconds, other-
wise you will get a motion blurr effect. Capturing images
off a VCR is doable, but you need a still pause really.
These days my own ComputerEyes GS sits in its box, unused
(before I ceased using it though, I found it does a very
nice job capturing Japanese anime cartoons off the VCR). :)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca