I need a program for viewing gif files on the IIgs. PCX files and any other formats would be a plus. I found .viewgif for the Apple II and it works for for the Apple II machine. It does work on the IIgs computer, but it doesn't have extra support for the larger IIgs color palette and higher resolution. I've tried searching around but so far no hits. Thanks in advance or any help.
Jeffrey
You might find something to your liking here:
http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/creative-visual
or here:
http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/products/apple2gs/convert3200.html
Convert3200 looks good. I'll try it. As far as the other link, I have most of those already and I don't really want to load a full blown art program just to load and image. I was hoping more along the lines of just a simple image viewer. Somthing like the old compushow for dos would be ideal.
Thanks for your help.
Jeffrey
I Tried that Convert 3200 but my IIgs only has 756k of ram, and it needs more ram to run, it just gives me a memory error and the crashes. My 64k Apple IIe can view gif files but so far my IIgs can't do it. I also tried most of the major paint programs but none of them view gif images. Most of them have their own formats. I also tried super convert but it runs out of memory as well.
Is there anything that will view a .gif file on a IIGS with only 756k of ram. I never imagined it would be this hard to find a gif viewer.
Also, does anyone know what makes and opens .pak graphic images and shr as well on the IIgs?
Thanks,
Jeffrey
That's a surprisingly restrictive constraint. You might consider trying some things out with emulation where you can have 4 or 8 MB at your disposal. One place you will find image viewers is under GSOS - there's an NDA that will display graphics called FinderView 3.0 - Alex has that on the What Is the GS site in a collection of tons of other desk accessories called "All_System_Addons.zip" (I actually found it on Asimov, but it's from Alex) but that's something that'll never run on your system - you'd need more memory for it plus GSOS underneath.
Hello retrocomputer22,
besides of the technical issues you also should bear some other facts in mind:
GIF standard has been revised several times.
In the primary release it was used by Compuserve members in the early 80´s.
In that days the resolution of GIF was rather poor and limited to max of 380 x 240 pixel.
Later with increasing resolutions of display cards also the standard was revised and
the resolution was expanded in steps from 480 x 360 pixel to modern sizes beyond
2048 x 1200 pixels. Trying to load such a large image in old application will surely lead to a crash.
Another problem was compression. Not every old application can handle compressions.
Safest way to convert GIF´s to use at old computers is first to open in modern computer
in application like Adobe Photoshop, reduce the size of the GIF to correct display resolution
( like 320 x 200 pixels )and and correct color resolution ( max. 12 bit ) then save without any compression.
Then you may load it at the old computer and display it with ancient application.
At the IIGS the following limits are valid:
320×200 w. max. 256 colors ( at GIF )
640×200 w. max. 16 colors
As far as i remember, we had a quite good GIF-viewer among the
contents of our Public Domain Software disks that was released from A.U.G.E ( Apple User Group Europe )
to the IAC ( international Apple Core ) so that that programm including also conversion tools was released
at both communities on the Public Share Disks. I´ll check out the contents within the next week.
sincerely speedyG
UPDATE :
List of IAC Disk-No. and Contents:
021
/GS.Graphics.01
IIGIF
SYS
Converts Apple graphics into GIF, and vice versa
GIF = Graphic Interchange Format
/GS.Graphics.01
MAXCOLOR
S16
Displays a 3200 colour test picture
/GS.Graphics.01
SETVIEW
S16
Displays the Mandelbrot and Julia sets
/GS.Graphics.01
PIC.SYS16
S16
Puts pictures onto the screen in PrintShop size, ready for printing.
Choice of 3 x 4 to 5 x 6
Version 1.0b by Jonah Stich
/GS.Graphics.01
M640.RESTORE.V1
S16
Paintworks+ sometimes destroys pictures which were saved in 640 mode;
this program sorts them out again.
/GS.Graphics.01
SUPERVIEW2.2
S16
A utility for looking at various graphics formats - and PW Gold animations.
Converts the various '3200' formats into official Apple formats
Version 2.2 by Chris McKinsey
/GS.Graphics.01
SECOND.CHANCE
S16
Changes the grey-scales of scanned pictures.
Version 1.1
/GS.Graphics.01
CONVERTGIF.V0.2
S16
Converts GIF files into Apple IIGS 320-mode graphics with 16 or 3200
colours
Version 0.20 by Jonah Stich
/GS.Graphics.01
GV.SYS16
S16
Always displays a picture - in a window, the picture cannot be seen
completely; must be shifted with the scroll bars.
Evidently only for type $C1, 32 k in size
/GS.Graphics.01
SHRCONVERT
S16
Converts graphics from other computers and from the predecessors of the
GS, forwards and backwards
Version 2.2 by Jason Harper
/GS.Graphics.01
VIEWER.3200SHR
S16
Displays 3200 colour graphics in 320 mode for the .3200 and .3201 formats
Version 1.2
/GS.Graphics.01
SHKALID
SYS
Graphics demo a la kaleidoskope
/GS.Graphics.01
WOGGLE
S16
Draws and displays the Mandelbrot and Julia sets
/GS.Graphics.01
ANIMATION.VIEW
S16
Slide show program, enables sequences to run which e.g. were produced with
PaintWorks Gold. Two sequences are also provided: Rings of Saturn and
a flying butterfly
/GS.Graphics.01
FKTGRAPHIK
S16
Displays functions - a few pre-prepared ones are also provided.
Version 1.7
/GS.Graphics.01
BEZIER
S16
Represents Bezier curves - two-dimensional
/GS.Graphics.01
FIXPIX
S16
Can convert 320-mode graphics into 640-mode ones - to be used afterwards as
backgrounds.
/GS.Graphics.01
BCUBIC
S16
Represents Bezier curves - three-dimensionsal
/GS.Graphics.01
SLIDESHOW
S16
Endlessly displays the pictures contained on a diskette or in a directory
/GS.Graphics.01
DRAW
S16
Drawing program in 320 mode - often leads to crashes -
crashes on loading new programs after this program!
/GS.Graphics.01
P256.SYS16
S16
A "drawing" program for displaying in 256 colours
Version 1.4 by Clyde B. Godfrey
/GS.Graphics.01
CHEAPPAINT
S16
A very good drawing and painting program in 320 mode. All the tools which
one would expect are provided.
Version 1.4 by Earl Gehr
/GS.Graphics.01
ANISHOW
S16
A program which can display Paintworks Gold animations with variable
speed (slightly overtaken by Finder View)
I found disk IAC #21 but it's for the Apple II and it has CBBS BBS software on it. Can you give me a link to the disk with all the graphic utils you spoke of?
Thanks,
Jeffrey
Ok, I solved my problem. I found a ton of image viewers and gif viewers on the Deluxe Ware IIgs CD-Rom that I downloaded from brutal deluxe.