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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:AMIGA NOTES
Notice:Join us in the *NEW* conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:HYDRA::MOORE
Created:Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5378
Total number of notes:38326

1349.0. "Winning one for the GIF-er." by SOFTY::HEFFELFINGER (Give my body to science fiction.) Tue Apr 19 1988 02:10

    Those of you who read rec.arts.startrek on Usenet may have seen
    a series of messages which were uuencoded images of all of the "Next
    Generation" crewmembers.  They were in the GIF (Grapics Interchange 
    Format) format, which is evidently gaining popularity in the wider
    world.  (Shame, since IFF was just starting to catch on.)  Anyway
    this allows images to be shared on a variety of machines.  All that's
    required is a compatible reader program.  
    
    I appealed to the Usenet at large, and found a kind soul who sent
    me a copy of the Amiga GIF reader.  I've created an ARC file containing
    all of the pictures from the net, the reader program, and an IFF
    to GIF converter program, (and all the associated doc files.)  I'd
    love to upload this beastie so that you folks could have it in one
    neat little package.  (Well... little, if you consider ~150K little.)
    However, I've got no space to keep it.  If someone with lots of
    disk space for keeping silly things like STtNG pictures will send
    me some mail, I'll try to get it to you.
    
    Keep in mind that these pictures were generated on an "inferior"
    machine, so that they're really not up to the standards we're used
    to, but they're kind of cute, and at least you'll have the GIF reader
    in case something else comes along.
    
    Gary
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
1349.1ST-TNG now playing...WJG::GUINEAUWed Apr 27 1988 12:048

GIFPICS.ARC   is now at WJG::AMIGA:

It's 500 blocks small!


John
1349.2BAGELS::BRANNONDave BrannonThu Apr 28 1988 00:1917
    thanks for uploading/storing it.
    
    Any idea which "inferior" machine generated these pics?
    
    I've been curious about GIF, anybody interested in the file format?
    If so, I'll post it here.  Pity Compuserve decided to limit it to
    only 256 colors, it may suit their needs now, but it is already
    obsolete thanks to Amiga HAM and ST Spectrum 512.  I hope somebody
    at Compuserve takes a look at IFF when they finally get bit by
    the 256 color limitation.  Maybe the thing to do is to get Compuserve
    to register GIF as an IFF FORM with CBM to ease the transition.
    
    The DOC files in GIFPICS.ARC mention IFF2GIF, by Steve Wilhite.
    Does anybody have that?  The C code mentioned sounds interesting.
    
    -dave
1349.3BAGELS::BRANNONDave BrannonMon May 02 1988 23:487
    
    has anybody been able to get AMGIF to work?  all I get is stack
    overflow then Guru.  With a stack size of 100000 i get the overflow
    but no Guru.
    
    thanks,
    -dave
1349.4SOFTY::HEFFELFINGERGive my body to science fiction.Tue May 03 1988 03:017
    To be honest, I never tried it.  Should've checked it out first,
    I guess.  Most of my friends have Amigas anyway, so I couldn't think
    of a good reason to convert from IFF.  Did KIRK.GIF come through
    okay?  It looked a little funny when I ran VMSSWEEP against the
    archive.
    
    Gary
1349.5okWJG::GUINEAUTue May 03 1988 12:145

They all worked fine for me.

John
1349.6BAGELS::BRANNONDave BrannonTue May 03 1988 15:5119
    re: .5
    
    did AMGIF work for you?  If so, how did you invoke it?
    
    The pictures worked fine, so did hamgif and giffy.  The only
    thing I had problems with was AMGIF.  I suspected it didn't get
    much use, I didn't have any need to convert IFF to GIF, just was
    curious to see how it handles HAM pics.
    
    The KIRK.GIF was interesting, nice effect when it displays.  Seemed
    to have a good range of colors until the last screen update- then
    too much dithering.  The red shading on the other pictures and that
    dither are things that ComputerEyes digitizer on the ST will do.
    (A.B.A.C.U.S. had a presentation from them, that's the only reason
     I know about it, since they don't plan to sell one for the Amiga)
    The red shading is a way of getting more greyscale, when there isn't
    enough available in the 512 color palette.
    
    -dave
1349.7WJG::GUINEAUTue May 03 1988 16:556
No, all I did was display them. In fact I think AMGIF did screw up..

Then I realized I needed to use giffy (or that other one).

John