Re: Display SHR from Appesoft?

[CUTjblakeney@sympatico.ca (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 10 Feb 2002 01:27:41 -0500, dalloff@gcfn.org (Dave Althoff Jr)
wrote:

>I know this can be done, I just don't know how to do it, and I was hoping
>someone could help... 8-)
>
>I have this idea for a fairly ambitious data manipulation project. 
>Because of my own limitations and patience level for getting results, for
>the moment at least I am planning to do the bulk of the program in
>Applesoft BASIC, perhaps using some Assembler support routines to speed up
>some of the interface details (such as a string builder to read in data
>and a cursor routine for the user interface).  Anyway, I got this neat
>idea:  If the file contains a link to a graphic, I'd like to be able to
>display it.  I want to support 320 and 640 graphics (I don't see any real
>need to display either 280 or 3200 mode graphics...).  Obviously I'm on a
>IIgs, and there is no shortage of either memory or disk space.  I'm also
>not averse to writing a driver routine in Assembly (Merlin), but I have to
>be able to call the routine from Applesoft 'cause I'm too lazy to write
>the whole program in Assembly and I'm not comfortable working with the
>toolbox yet.
>
>Anybody got any suggestions to get me started?

If you are doing this on a IIgs, why not use GSoft BASIC instead of
Applesoft?  It is a much more powerful language, has no memory
restrictions and natively supports SHR graphics without having to use
toolbox calls.

There used to be a free version of GSoft that you could download and
use (I think the size of your program was limited to less than 64K or
something) but since ByteWorks transfered its Apple II sales to
Syndicomm, it is no longer available from ByteWorks web site.  I'm not
sure if it is still available or not.  However, Syndicomm did lower
the price to $40 USD when they started selling it.

If you are set on using Applesoft, there are a number of Applesoft
add-ons that give you access to the SHR screen, some are free
downloads, some were published in magazines and others were commercial
(of which some have been reclassified).

To just display an image on the SHR screen, though, you just need to
load the image into memory starting at $2000 in bank 1 and modify and
softswitch to turn on the SHR screen.

--
 Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II Unversity on A2Central.com
               - CUT the obvious from my address to e-mail me