Downloaded from BBS++ RoboBOARD HQ USA - 619-793-8360 / 619-793-8361 DATE: 06/20/93 ÜÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ Û Û ÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ Û Û Ûßßßßßßßßß ßßßßßßßßßÛ Û Û ßßßßßßßßßÛ Ûßßßßßßßßß (TM) Û Û ÛßßßßßßßßßÛ ÛßßÛ ÛßßßßßßßßßÛ ÛßßÛ ÛßßÛ Û Û Û ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ Û Û Û ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ Û ÛÜ ÜÛ Û Û Û Û ÛÜÜÜÜ Û Û ÛßßßßßßÛ Û ÛÜÜÜÜ ÛÜ ßÛß ÜÛ Û Û Û Û Û Û ÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ Û Û ßÛÜ ÜÛß Û Û Û Ûßßßß Û Û Û Ûßßßß ÜÛß Ü ßÛÜ Û Û Û ßßßßßßßÛ Û ßßßßßßßÛ Û Û Û ÜÛßÛÜ Û ÛÜÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÛ By Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc. ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ***** The Tel-FX Graphical Protocol ***** Tel-FX is a lighting fast, leading edge graphical protocol to be released by Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc. We are the company that grew out of the grass roots success of the ROBO-BOARD Pro and Plus series. We are finishing writing a new BBS package called RoboBOARD/FX 1.00 (100% new code). The original ROBO-BOARD was released officially, by Seth Hamilton in August of 1992, at the exact time that ONE Inc. was hosting the first ONE BBSCON in Denver. ROBO-BOARD was original, it was revolutionary, and it was plotting a new course, through uncharted waters. As with all good ideas we now have competitors. The most frequently asked question lately is, "What are you guys doing writing a graphical protocol, when others exist?" After all there is NAPLPS, the accepted international standard, and most recently the RIP protocol. This message intended for Robo-BOARD SysOps, will address this question and will outline some of the expected Tel-FX features soon to be presented in RoboBOARD/FX. RoboBOARD/FX and Tel-FX are high expectation products, driven by an informed group of Sysops and our desire to bring REAL realtime graphics to the online world. The reason we are protocol developers is out of necessity. We needed graphics, and continue to need graphics that can address these expectations. We do not feel that NAPLPS or RIP meet our expectations or the expectations of informed Sysops and Users alike. This is especially so since the advent of GUI (graphical user interface) based operating systems, like Windows and OS/2. Rather than us dissecting these other protocols and detailing their good features, missing features, and incomplete features, we will outline the Tel-FX Protocol. This will give you the information about Tel-FX you need to make your own decisions, without the bias of a one sided conversation. We have read the proclamations, regarding the virtues of an online industry united under one protocol. That is a wonderful idea but is it realistic with the protocols presented? NAPLPS, North American Presentation Level Protocol Sytax is an ANSI & CSA approved standard. The NAPLPS protocol addresses the needs of modern operating systems and graphics hardware by providing resolution and colour depth independent graphics. This allows for the display of a 16.8 million colour picture on a 2 colour monitor. Most of what was written into the NAPLPS technical specifications in 1983, is still a valid today. NAPLPS completely lacks user interface capabilities, and as its name indicates is strictly a presentation protocol. Despite all the thought, and effort put into NAPLPS it has failed to become the industry leader it could have become. The technical specifications were excessively large, wandering and very complex, making full implementation impractical or impossible for most developers needs. Furthermore toolkits and source code examples were not common enough, or possibly too proprietary to facilitate a quick implementation of NAPLPS. Out of the NAPLPS experience comes the new generation of graphical protocol developers; The protocol entrepreneurs. RIP is claimed to be the online graphical standard, by some. RIP, like the original ROBO-BOARD addresses the problem of online BIT Mapped Graphics. ROBO-BOARD has always sent its BIT Maps in realtime. RIP requires the user to go through a clumsy download and unpacking procedure. Whenever the sysop changes a graphic or a new user logs onto a BBS this download/unpack process must be repeated. This requires that a user have a good understanding of download protocols and archiving software. The RIP protocol is only capable of displaying 16 colour graphics at EGA 640 x 350 resolution. This lack of device independence and practical user interface is NOT in keeping with modern GUI interface standards, and our expectations. The most important criticism of the RIP protocol is the high cost placed upon the SysOp. Typically standards are not expensive and in many cases free. We consider ourselves BBS software developers and innovators, as well as protocol developers. We needed a protocol that would be colour and resolution independent, provide real-time BIT Map graphics, and provide an interface as functional as other GUIs. We have achieved all this with the FREE Tel-FX protocol. We do not see ourselves as RIP rivals, rather we congratulate the crew from RIP on their success thus far and wish them the best in the future. Before anyone in these echoes puts RIP down don't underestimate what they have done for online graphics. We at Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc. are hoping to see RIP address the issues of realtime, colour independence, and device independence. We have developed our graphics toolkits in house, and as a result of this extra work can release a developers kit. YOUR COST NOTHING! To save Tel-FX developers and sysops money we will also be releasing a FREE Tel-FX Terminal and Drawing Package. The Tel-FX Terminal is a very polished light weight SVGA and ANSI capable terminal. Tel-FX Draw is a very modern GUI driven design package. The Tel-FX Protocol is the solution for developers who want a superior interface without charging valued SysOps hundreds of dollars for graphics. Tel-FX allows for a windowed interface in any graphically capable environment. By creating a windowed protocol BBS users can drag windows around their screen totally independent of the host system. If a Tel-FX Terminal user has a 21" monitor and wants to run it at a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 'no problem', your user simply has a larger playing field than the standard 640 x 480 screen resolution. Exactly the way Microsoft Windows does it. A user can have multiple Bulletins up on the screen at the same time, the main menu, a template etc. These are just a couple of examples that demonstrate the flexibility of a windowed interface but most importantly it brings a new level of design power to the implementor. Tel-FX Draw is a full featured 256 colour high resolution drawing, painting and graphics assembly package intended for use with RoboBOARD/FX and other Tel-FX implementations. We have accomplished a natural feeling graphics designer by using a mouse driven interface, buttons, intuitive icons, flyout sidebar menus and dragging dialogue boxes. Tel-FX Draw introduces mondo fonts; large fillable banner fonts, that can be dragged and morphed into any four sided shape. Mondo fonts come complete with multilingual character sets. There are morphable ellipses that can be dragged into virtually any elliptical shape. Tel-FX Draw is a polygon based drawing package and its prime entities are polylines, polysplines (Bezier), and 3 point arcs. Also included in Tel-FX Draw is a very sophisticated pop up icon editor, that lets you easily draw, transform, and visually merge icon files. You can let your users view full colour photographic images in realtime using our in house JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) technology or our fast GreyPEGs. The Tel-FX protocol supports anywhere from 2 to 16.8 million colour graphics, however our implementation supports both 16 and 256 colour modes. We realize that the last thing people want to do, is create a 16 and a 256 colour version of every screen. The Tel-FX Terminal and Tel-FX Draw automatically convert 256 colour SVGA to 16 colour VGA graphics if only a 16 colour VGA graphics adapter is detected. We chose our 256 colour palette very carefully. We derived it mathematically to insure a wide range of colours. The Tel-FX Draw palette not only lends itself very well to drawing, but also produces excellent results when displaying JPEG photographic images. There is also a complete grey scale in our 256 colour palette, perfect for displaying black and white photographs quickly. We decided that 16 colour VGA was too limiting for those who cannot display 256 colours, so we extended the VGA palette to create a virtual 64 colour spectrum. A polyline is made up of a number of lines, splines, and arcs that are chained together in an end to end manner. Polygons are exactly the same as polylines except that they are closed and must have at least 2 sides. When a polygon is closed the last point picked with your mouse is in exactly the same place as the first point you picked. Polygons and polylines are used by most high end graphics packages or systems like Microsoft Windows, Corel, PostScript, ATM and Harvard Graphics. Polygons and polylines allow for powerful entity manipulation such as rotating, mirroring, stretching, scaling and morphing. Polygons and polylines give Tel-FX one of the necessary ingredients, to address the complexities of screen resolution independence, colour independence, and multi platform compatability. Other protocol developers have chosen a short sighted flood fill approach to painting, that makes colour and device independence impossible. Polygons allow for perfect colour fills every time. The Tel-FX protocol will be capable of emulating ANSI while in graphics mode. If a user has logged on using FX-TERM and entered an ANSI DOOR their terminal end will stay in graphics mode. This has an interesting look seeing ANSI, being displayed in a futuristic SVGA Icon driven environment. We feel that Tel-FX has a very important role in online graphics. Tel-FX provides the necessary tools for this generation and the next generation of GUI based BBS software. Thank you Hamilton TeleGraphics Inc.