************************************************************************
** 2L8 EGA/VGA Screen Font Editor               Too Late Version 1.11 **
* Jouni Miettunen * jon@stekt.oulu.fi * Oulu * Finland * Europe * 1995 *

Copyright (c) 1994-1995 by Jouni Miettunen. All Rights Reserved.
Freeware - use, share and enjoy!

	The truth of it is, learning, like travelling, and
	all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good
	sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more
	insufferable, by supplying variety of matter to his
	impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding
	in absurdities.
				Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

** WHAT IT IS

Nowadays everybody uses either PostScript Type 1, TrueType or at least
proportionally spaced multicolor bitmap fonts. The plain EGA/VGA single
color display fonts are uninteresting and pretty much useless in modern
graphical applications.

Well, I really don't care. I felt like writing an EGA/VGA bitmap screen
font editor might be interesting (and easy) and I was absolutely right. 
I'm not sure, if I learned anything during the process, but at least it
was relaxing.

** WHAT DO YOU NEED

8086+, standard VGA (640x480x16) and a mouse.

** HOW DO YOU USE IT

This program is self-documenting, just press the buttons and see, what
happens. Right mouse button reacts faster in some places.

** WHAT DOES IT DO

Edit a set of 256 characters, one at a time:

Character width 8, height 1-16 pixels.

Shift up/down/left/right, rotate +/- 90 degrees, horizontal/vertical
mirror, inverse/clear/fill all, swap left and right halves.

Store and paste 5 characters, undo all changes, reset to default.

Rotate up/down/left/right single row/column, remove single row/column,
insert selected row/column in selected place.

** SAVING AS A FILE

Save or overwrite a file, load any file (first max 4096 bytes read).
Make sure the filename is selected BEFORE pressing load/save button.

** WANT MORE ??

The single character editing functions are the most powerful I've seen
in any font editor in any operating system, but the functions handling
all characters simultaneously are a bit too few and lacking in power.

There should be a possibility to test the font in user-selected mode ie.
build-in text editor with selectable mode and color.

The max allowed EGA/VGA screen font height is 32 scan lines, not 16 as
allowed in this program. Also some nonstandard EGA implementations can
use 16 pixels wide characters.

There should be a file I/O dialog.

I wrote this program for fun and interest, not because I needed it. I
cannot give any guarantees that I wouldn't make the listed enhancements,
but the odds are high.

In any case it's always nice to hear from happy users.. Actually from
any users at all. Such an incident would also noticeably increase the
possibility that I might a) update this b) release something else.

** HISTORY

1.00 - it works with pen and paper
1.01 - it works with computer
1.02 - ROM fonts finally found and in use
1.03 - file I/O. Default stack is still 4K
1.10 - first public release
1.11 - bug fixes, thanx to NMN for reporting

** THE AUTHOR

That's all folks! It's such a simple program I don't expect any bugs to
surface, but if they do, please let me know. Suggestions are naturally
welcome, but I'm happy with it as-is. Hope you can find some use for it.

	Mr. Jouni Miettunen
	Rautatienkatu 20 A 10
	FIN-90100 OULU
	FINLAND - EUROPE

* Jouni Miettunen * jon@stekt.oulu.fi * Oulu * Finland * Europe * 1995 *
** 2L8 EGA/VGA Screen Font Editor               Too Late Version 1.11 **
************************************************************************