[Coco] Sockmaster HiColor and Rascan IMG file format

[Roger Taylor]

At 09:55 PM 1/8/2007, you wrote:

>I just put it up on my web page:
>http://www.axess.com/twilight/sock/hicolor/hicolor.html
>
>Just download the new HICOLOR.ZIP file.  It contains a virtual .dsk image of
>HiColor which also includes it's EDTASM source code, plus the .zip file also
>contains the hicolor.asm and hicolor.bas files seperately for easy viewing
>on a "non-CoCo" without having to extract them from the .dsk image..
>
>I used EDTASM, but the .asm file is on the borderline of being too large for
>EDTASM.  If you plan on adding anything you may either have to use a
>different assembler that doesn't mind 32K+ files, or go through the .asm
>file and delete all the comments to make room for more code!
>btw - That's what I had to do!  Older versions of HiColor have more verbose
>comments in the source code, and got more cryptic as more features 
>were added :(


Hello Sock,

I'm glad you're posting this for public use.  I wanted to understand 
this code many years ago when I was developing the Net-Mate terminal 
program for the CoCo 3.  This terminal program would have had the 
look of your Twilight Terminal program but with the features of 
Ultimaterm 4.0.  In fact, Net-Mate for the CoCo 3 already has all the 
great features of a 16-color ANSI terminal program, with Xmodem-CRC, 
Xmodem-1K, Y-Modem, Smart ASCII transfer, buffer control, terminal 
key emulation (sent to the remote computer), VT-100, ANSI (95% of the 
full set?), VT-52, and more.  Net-Mate was one of my never released 
jewels that would have been a hit 15 years ago on the BBS scene.  I 
don't see much of a use for it now in my situations but I'm willing 
to release that source code as well if I can form a Rainbow IDE 
project out of it and have it ready to build.  There's really no 
other way because of the modularity of the system... it's much like 
my Projector-3 system where all of the emulations, file transfer 
protocols, and so forth are contained in external files (modules), 
much like Windows DLL files.  Each file has to be assembled and 
converted into the right format on the disk in order for the main 
core of Net-Mate to automatically recognize those modules as part of 
the system.  Net-Mate can be expanded in the same way that 
Projector-3 can.  However, the only person that I know of who toyed 
in this area and did good, was Robert Gault when he added the Windows 
BMP format to Projector-3 by writing a driver file for the system.

I think Net-Mate MAY have an external video array driver like 
Projector-3 does.  That is, the entire system could possibly be 
enhanced to use HiColor by replacing the video module file.  This was 
also my intention for Projector-3 many years ago, but that never 
happened.  With P-3 now being a Portal-9 IDE and Rainbow IDE project 
for anybody to use in any way they like, perhaps my past dream can 
become a reality one day if someone studies your HiColor mode and 
learns how to interface it with P-3 or Net-Mate.  Unfortunately, I am 
so busy right now that I can only dream of those ideas for a future date.  :)

Cheers,



-- 
Roger Taylor