Microreviews for November 1995 MICROpendium by Charles Good --------------- PLOTTER by Bruce Harrison Have you seen those neat Texas Instruments graphing calculators in the stores. I refer to the TI-80, TI-81, TI-82, and the newest TI-85. These are now popular items in calculater technology, completely capturing the high end calculator market from BASIC programmable calculators such as the CC40 and the TI-74. They all have a square LED screen at the top which allows you to enter equations and have them graphed for you on the little screen. You get a nice display of sine waves, parabolas, elipses, etc. These rather expensive calculators can be programmed by storing data in their "registers" (memory locations). The more expensive ones have lots of memory and work with an extra cost interface that lets you dump data to a table top computer. College students and engineers carry these calculators around with them today the way college students of my day carried slide rules. Well, thanks to Bruce Harrison's latest public domain software our 99/4As can now do anything the graphing calculators can do except fit in your pocket. As you know, in either BASIC our computers have an excellent suite of mathematical functions (PI, ATN, LOG, TAN, etc) and very accurate calculating to many digits with no rounding off errors. What BASIC lacks is an easy way to plot equations on screen in high resolution using individual pixels for the plot. There is old (1983) all BASIC software that puts high res equation plots on screen, but the display takes forever to build, and all you can do is look at the end result. Bruce has solved this by creating a group of BASIC plotting programs with embeded assembly code that quickly puts the plot on screen in bit map mode, and he has added all kinds of neat extras not found in the old software. With each of the PLOTTER programs you edit line 100 of the program and there you insert the equation(s) you want graphed. When you run the program you are prompted for the position of the X axis (horizontally across any of the screen's 192 pixels of vertical resolution) and position of the Y axis anywhere along the 256 pixels of screen width. You also get to specify a "Y scale factor" which can magnify the vertical part of the plot. The natural scale factor is 1, and some plots would look very flat on such a scale so you can balloon the plots by specifying a scale factor of 20 or 40 to make them look good on screen. Once you enter the Y scale the computer takes about 30 seconds to calculate 256 plot points and display them on screen along with lolid lines for the X and Y axes. Now for the fun! You can press S to save the plot to a 25 sector TI Artist compatible "_P" file. You can also load an previously saved plot into PLOTTER. If you want to add text to your plot just load it into Bruce's DRAWING PROGRAM and type your text anywhere on screen, then print the result and/or save it back as either a TIA picture or a Drawing Program format picture. (The latest version of Drawing Program both saves and loads TIA pictures). From within PLOTTER you can also print a plot to almost any 9 or 24 pin printer including my ancient Gemini 10X. Here is the most amazing feature of PLOTTER. You can put an equation in line 100, run the program and display the equation's plot. You can then break the program (Fctn/4), edit line 100 with another equation, run the program again and get your second plot on screen. Now press O (for "overlay") and your first plot is displayed on screen along with the second plot! They are both there on screen. When you ran your first plot and then issued the break command (Fctn/4) to get into command mode so you could change line 100, your first plot didn't go away. It was stored in a buffer waiting for the overlay command to be issued. You can also load a plot from disk, load a second plot from disk (or create one from the equation in line 100), and overlay them both on screen for printing or saving to a disk file. Printing as well as loading and saving to disk files does not work in a Geneve. Plotting to the screen and overlaying does. On the same DSSD or SSSD disk there are three different versions of PLOTTER, depending on the type of equation. In one Y is a function of X, such as Y=SIN(X). In another version, for parametric equations, both X and Y are a function of a third parameter P and you plot simultaneous equations such as X=3/4*COS(P) and Y=1/4*SIN(P). The third verison of PLOTTER is for equations using polar coordinates with plots radiating out from the X/Y origin. Each of these is a separate XB/assembly program. What's that you say? You're not an engineer. You're not a college student with a major in mathematics. You don't understand algebra and never heard of trigonometry. Don't worry, this software is still fun. Just randomly play around with the equations in line 100, and the input variables that assign the X and Y axis and see what you get. The results, even with random equations, can be beautiful. Bruce includes several sample plots saved on disk in TI Artist format. Each is a work of art suitable for full page printing with his TIA printer (reviewed last month) and framing. The documentation is idiot friendly. Just do what it says, enter the values suggested, and you will get beautiful geometrically interesting plots. Bruce is a retired engineer, so if you have really serious (or not so serious) questions on using this software you can make use of a feature not found in other public domain software offerings, the Harrison Help Line. In the Plotter docs he says, "Should you have questions, comments, or need help, the author is readily available by mail or phone. ... We answer all mail! By phone, we're available from 9AM through Midnight Eastern time, seven days a week." Amazing! Send me $1 and I will send you PLOTTER. Please specify the version you want: DSSD disk with lots of sample plots for 9 pin printers; SSSD disk for 9 pin printers with fewer sample plots; DSSD disk for 24 pin printers. ---------------------- PRNINST by Bruce Harrison Here is another public domain offering from Bruce. This one will print any TI Artist instance, automatically centered left/right on a 8.5 inch page. The instance is printed a couple of inches tall. PRNINST is designed to let you use a TIA instance as part or all of a letterhead. Just print your favorite instance at the top of the page, then load up a word processor and print your letter below the graphic. It works on 9 and 24 pin printers, including my SG10 and 10X printers. On 9 pin printers you have your choice of single or double density printing. Double density looks really good! Just load PRNINST from EA5 or EA3 (there is no XB loader). You are asked for your printer name. Just accept the PIO.CR default. Then you asked for the full path name of the instance. Once this information is entered printing begins. I'll send you PRNINST on the same DSSD disk that has EDITINST (see below) complete with source code, some sample instances, and documentation. If you want I can also send you on another (DSSD) disk instances of all the 50 United States. Most of these state instances include text of the state's motto. These state instances make great letterheads, particularly if you modify that of your state with your own text and perhaps mark it with your specific location within your own state. -------------------------- INSTEDIT by Bruce Harrison Since the Harrison Drawing program only allows you to load and save instances, but doesn't allow you to manipulate them, Bruce has made an Instance Editor. You can do almost anything with this editor that you can do with his drawing program, but there is no color. Everything is black and white. You can load in an existing instance or a drawing program picture or a TI Artist picture for modification and saving back to disk as an instance. When loading in a big picture, you delete those areas of the picture you don't want to save and save the rest back as an instance. You can also create an instance from scratch. When editing you have a cursor which can be moved in the usual 8 directions with the keyboard or a joystick. The cursor can be in the pen up or down position. When down you mark black pixels on the screen, which is in bit map mode. You can also create lines between marked spots A and B, make perfect circles, and fill in enclosed areas with black. You can even take a small instance and duplicate it elsewhere on the screen, creating larger instances that are multiple copies of the original. You can add text to your instance using any CHARA1 font or a TI Artist "_F" font. This is a very powerful editor. INSTEDIT comes on the same DSSD disk that contains PRINTINST. Source code for both programs, docs, and sample instances are included. -------------------- THE HARRISON DRAWING SUITE by Bruce Harrison Here is a list of public domain drawing software by Bruce Harrison. The output of each piece of software can be used by the others as described below. These have all been reviewed by me before but some have been recently updated. With these programs you can do almost anything TI Artist can do, and a whole lot more. Everything listed here is available from me for $1 per disk. PLOTTER: reviewed by me this month. Different versions for 9 and 24 pin printers. SSSD and DSSD versions. PRNINST and INSTEDIT: reviewed by me this month. Create or edit instances. Print with 9 or 24 pin printers instances centered on a page as a letterhead. Both on the same DSSD disk. DSSD disk of USA state instances also available from me. DRAWING PROGRAM: newly updated to save in TI Artist format as well as in it's own Drawing Program format. Can import Drawing Program pictures as well as TI Artist pictures and instances, and can use TI Artist fonts or CHARA1 files for text. Two versions, one for 9 pin printers and a new version for 24 pin printers, each on a separate DSSD disk with source code. Does not work on a Geneve or on systems with 80 column cards. TI ARTIST PRINT: prints TI Artist pictures to full 8.5 x 11 inch size. TI Artist can't do this. And everything is correctly proportioned. Circles look like circles. Two versions, one for 9 pin printers and a new version for 24 pin printers each on separate SSSD disks with source code. VIDEO TITLER: Manipulates Drawing Program or TI Artist pictures for recording on video tape as title screens. Examples can be seen in the 1995 Lima conference videos. DSSD disk with samples. FONT CONVERTER: Can convert all 130 Jim Peterson XB screen fonts into CHARA1 files which can be used in Drawing Program. SSSD disk with sample converted fonts. The set of Jim Peterson screen fonts, with XB demo programs to view the fonts, is available from me on three DSSD disks. SLIDE SHOW: Displays TI Artist pictures in slide show format. Many options for timing and ordering of pictures. One DSSD disk. -------------------- ACCESS: Bruce Harrison: 5705 40th Place, Hyattsville MD 20781. Phone 301-277-3467. Charles Good: P.O. Box 647, Venedocia OH 45894. Phone 419-667-3131. Internet email cgood@osulima1.lima.ohio-state.edu or good.6@osu.edu