ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MAY 1991 IN LIMA NEWSLETTER ^^^^^^^ ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ABOUT Y.A.P.P. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^by Charles Good ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Lima Ohio User Group Y.A.P.P. (Yet Another Paint Program), written by Alexander Hulpke and published by Asgard, has been discussed extensively in Micropendium. A full review by Harry Brashear was published in the December 1990 issue. A letter to the editor by Lutz Winkler questioning Y.A.P.P.'s ability to display 424 vertical lines of resolution appeared in the January 1991 issue. In the March 1991 issue, a letter by Paul Charlton says such resolution is indeed possible. A letter to the editor by Alexander Hulpke in the February 1991 issue clarified some of the features of the software. When I purchased Y.A.P.P. at the November 1990 Chicago faire I intended to write a complete review for this newsletter. Since this has already been done in Micropendium, what I have to say below will be "additional comments" directed at both current and potential purchasers of Y.A.P.P. Readers interested in my comments are urged to read the Micropendium articles and letters mentioned above. Y.A.P.P. is an "artist" program designed for those with 80 column systems (a Geneve or a 99/4A with 80 column peripheral). Its features resemble those of TI ARTIST, and it allows the user to take full advantage of all the color and graphics capabilities of the 9938 and 9958 video chips to produce stunning color pictures. Comparable software that unlocks the color features of the 9938 chip includes XHi (also by Alexander Hulpke) and MYART. In my opinion, Y.A.P.P. is by far the best of these three. It is one of only two software packages for the TI that make full use of the 192K video ram possible with the 9938 or 9958 video chip. (Funnelweb is the other.) It is the only "artist" software for the TI or Geneve that allows manipulatin of GIF pictures, and it is unique in its ability to create double vertical resolution pictures consisting of 424 lines and either 256 or 512 columns. The other two "artist" programs mentioned are limited to 212 pixels vertically. --------------- To load GIF pictures into Y.A.P.P. takes a lot of RAM. You either need a Geneve, or you need a 99/4A with a supercart or gram device to provide RAM via the cartridge port. Without this extra RAM you lose the ability to manipulate GIF pictures with Y.A.P.P. In order to utilize double resolution, it is necessary to have 192K video RAM installed. Most TI 80 column peripherals have this much video RAM, but the Geneve doesn't. Y.A.P.P. comes with instructions and testing software for adding the necessary video ram to a Geneve. With only 128K of video RAM, the standard configuration on a Geneve, Y.A.P.P. users are limited to 212 lines of vertical resolution. There are lots and lots (probably thousands) of high resolution GIF format pictures on BBS systems that support IBM clones. These can be downloaded into an ordinary TI (with a disk system and memory expansion but without an 80 column peripheral) and viewed with GIF MANIA, a Texaments product. The results with GIF MANIA are less than ideal, because you are squeezing a high resolution picture with 32 or more original colors into the 99/4A's lower resolution display of only 16 colors. Those of us with 80 column systems can view GIF pictures in their full glory with the public domain program G99. However, neither of these GIF viewing programs allows the TI or Geneve user to manipulate the displayed image. This can only be done with Y.A.P.P., and this is one of the reasons Y.A.P.P. is so significant. An example of such manipulation is shown in THE CITY picture that accompanies the hard copy version of this article. This picture was originally in GIF format. I added the text at the bottom of the picture and changed some colors so that it would produce a better half tone dot matrix printout. XHi and MYART can only load previously created high resolution pictures that were saved in MYART format for enhancement or alteration. (XHi can also load low resolution TI Artist format pictures.) The number of MYART images available on BBS systems or user group libraries such as the Lima UG library is quite small compared to the number of available GIF pictures. --------------- The HARDCOPY utility that comes with Y.A.P.P. was used to print the picture that accompanies the printed version of this article. This utility was originally created for use with Alexander Hulple's XHi, and is even easier to use with Y.A.P.P. HARDCOPY will print in black and white on a dot matrix printer a good representation of a high resolution MYART format picture that has been saved to disk. HARDCOPY uses up to 256 different dot densities to sumulate the 256 colors of a MYART format picture. THE CITY picture that accompanies this aritcle has 32 colors and a resolution of 256 x 212 pixels. The reason that HARDCOPY is easier to use with Y.A.P.P. than it is with XHi is that changing a picture's colors is much easier with Y.A.P.P. HARDCOPY works best when there is lots of difference between the darkest and lightest colors of the picture. A picture that looks great on screen but is made of similar shades of dark colors will print with HARDCOPY to look like a black cat in a coal bin. Changing a few colors, particularly lighetning background and border colors, as the original picture is displayed on screen before saving back to disk in MYART format will greatly enhance the subsequent printout with HARDCOPY. Such color changes are relatively easy with Y.A.P.P. and very cumbersome with XHi. There are a couple of minor limitations I found with HARDCOPY. 1- Its default starting point is the left side of line 212. If you use this default, HARDCOPY will only print out the upper half (the top 212 lines) of a picture created and saved as double 424 line resolution. The thing to do is change the "dH" default from 212 to 424. 2- In setting up HARDCOPY (with the HARDCOPY setup utility) you should chose SG10 as the printer type if you are using a STAR Gemini 10X or SG10. However, the resulting printouts will have narrow horizontal white lines because the resulting line feeds are too great. This can be corrected as follows for those with Gemini 10X or SG10 printers. After setting up HARDCOPY for the SG10 printer use a sector editor and examine the only sector of the file HC#SU. Look in Hex for the string 1B4A0F and change this to 1B4A0E. This will reduce line feeds by 1/144 of an inch and eliminate the little white horizontal lines. 40 column users take note! HARDCOPY can be used with an ordinary 99/4A (without an 80 column device) to print any MYART format picture of either 212 or 424 vertical resolution. -------------- A neat feature of Y.A.P.P. is the ability to load any TI Artist font into the program and then to display text anywhere on the picture currently displayed on the monitor. Text can be positioned with one pixel accuracy, and the modified picture with added text saved back in Myart format. The Lima User Group's software library has lots of these fonts. I sometimes have trouble trying to use a large font to add text to a double resolution picture. The text refuses to be displayed on top of the displayed picture. Apparently double resolution pictures really push the limits of memory of my 99/4A with AVPC and supercart. I have no trouble displaying text with normal resolution (212 pixel vertical resolution) pictures. --------------- The drawing cursor of Y.A.P.P. can be moved with a mouse or a joystick. A mouse is definitely preferable because joystick movement is limited to only 8 directions whereas the direction of mouse movement is basically unlimited. Some things are very difficult to draw with a joystick, such as good spirals or cursive writing. DSR's are included on disk to allow you to use the Myarc mouse, Mechatronic mouse, and Asgard mouse. Unfortunately, if you have an AVPC card and do not have a IBM bus mouse specifically wired to attach directly to the AVPC mouse port you are out of luck. In a March 15 phone conversation with Asgard's Chris Bobbitt I was told he recently discovered that the Asgard mouse is not compatible with the AVPC even if the AVPC has the revised EPROM 2. Asgard has for months specifically advertised Y.A.P.P. for AVPC users, and only now do I learn that ASGARD'S OWN MOUSE WON'T WORK WITH THE AVPC unless Chris can cob together some sort of software patch. This is especially distressing because the joystick DSR that comes on disk with all copies of Y.A.P.P. sold to date doesn't work either!! This non working joystick DSR was not written by Alexander, but was instead written at Asgard's request by another person. I wrote Alexander directly about this problem and he responded by sending me on disk a joystick DSR that does work well with Y.A.P.P. He sent the same DSR to Asgard. Presumably Asgard will include this working joystick DSR with Y.A.P.P. from now on. But, THOSE WHO HAVE PURCHASED Y.A.P.P. PRIOR TO MARCH 1, 1991 SHOULD BE AWARE THAT THEY HAVE A NON WORKING JOYSTICK DSR. --------------- Lutz Winkler in his Micropendium letter and in several personal letters to me questions the claim made by Harry Brashear in his Micropendium review that Y.A.P.P.'s double resolution is "almost as good as VGA". According to one of Lutz's letters to me, and according to Alexander (see the documentation for XHi v3.6) with the proper programming tricks the 9938 chip does allow 424 lines of resolution in G6 and G7 graphic modes. However, to properly display this type of ultra high resolution requires an exceptionally high quality color monitor with a dot pitch of .31 or less. Few TI or Geneve owners use such a monitor. The commonly used Magnavox 8CM515 professional monitor has about .42 dot pitch. When you turn on interlace to display 424 lines you get a flicker or jitter on screen with the 8CM515. This is more apparent with some of Y.A.P.P.'s double resolution pictures than with others. Y.A.P.P.'s double resolution pictures are absolutely the highest resolution graphics possible on any 99/4A or Geneve system. I don't mind the jitter my 8CM515 monitor shows in interlace mode, and the double resolution color pictures remind me of the photograph-like quality (individual pixels invisible or nearly so) of IBM VGA color displays. However, some users I have corresponded with are annoyed by the interlace jitter. I guess the esthetic quality of Y.A.P.P.'s double resolution display on a medium cost monitor is "in the eyes of the beholder". Is Y.A.P.P.'s double resolution "almost as good as VGA"? Y.A.P.P. pictures can simultaneously display all 256 colors of a 256 color palette with 256 pixel horizontal by either 212 or 424 pixels vertical resolution. Alternately it can simultaneously display any 16 colors from a 512 color palette with 512 horizontal by either 212 or 424 pixel resolution. IBM's VGA graphics can simultaneously show 256 colors from a 256000 color palette with 320 x 200 pixel resolution, or any 16 of the 256000 colors in 640 by 350 pixel resolution. Ignoring the jitter problem, which can be corrected with a more expensive monitor, VGA is probably better but not by much. --------------- Asgard did a sloppy last minute hurry up job just before the November 1990 Chicago faire trying to get Y.A.P.P. ready for market when in fact the product wasn't quite ready. Although Y.A.P.P. is a powerful well thought out product, what was sold in Chicago was very rough around the edges, particulatly the documentation. Although I informed Asgard of these problems a few days after the Chicago faire, as far as I know an updated corrected version of Y.A.P.P. has not been released. As a registered owner, Asgard should have informed me of any corrections or improvements. Problems are as follows: --At one point, Y.A.P.P. displays "version 1.00" and elsewhere in the program the screen says "v0.71". --The non working joystick DSR. Registered owners should be notified by Asgard of the existence of Alexander's working joystick DSR. --The documentation sometimes refers to "Paint-Pro" and sometimes to "Y.A.P.P." In a letter to me Alexander said that he initially named the program Y.A.P.P. Asgard wanted to change the name to PAINT PRO, but Alexander insisted on using Y.A.P.P. (which I like better anyway). References to PAINT PRO in the documentation can cause confusion, and are an indication of sloppiness on Asgard's part. --The Y.A.P.P. package is, according to the accompanying documentation, supposed to come with some TI Artist fonts on disk. Mine had no such fonts. This may be a sample defect not representative of Y.A.P.P. packages that have been sold. --Page 2 of the documentations mentions an on disk GIF converter program called GIFFER1. There is no such on disk file. --The package includes the public domain utility G99. Page 37 of the documentation tells you in great detail how to use G99 to convert GIF pictures to MYART format. Well....you can use G99 to load and display on screen GIF pictures, but you CAN'T USE G99 TO SAVE these pictures to Myart or any other format. ----------------------------- LATE NOTE ADDED APRIL 8: I just learned that Asgard has released an update of Y.A.P.P. The update is said to include corrected documentation, access to an enhanced HARDCOPY from within Y.A.P.P., and better compatibility with DIJIT AVPC cards. The update is available to Y.A.P.P. owners who return their original system disk to Asgard along with $4. ------------------------------ YET ANOTHER PAINT PROGRAM (Y.A.P.P.) Price- $29.95 + shipping Available from dealers, and from ^^^^^ASGARD Software ^^^^^P.O. Box 10306 ^^^^^Rockville MD 20849 ^^^^^703-255-3085 .PL 1