[Coco] Need help identifying author of an OS-9 program

Robert Gault robert.gault at att.net
Mon Apr 2 22:41:29 EDT 2018


I have an OS-9 disk with a title "256-Slideshow-720.os9". The disk uses the program viewvef but of 
particular interest are the .vef files on the disk. They were edited with GIMP such that they 
display "8-bit" artifact colors on a composite monitor.

In general, artifact colors are not new and Tandy used them in some games. Both MESS and VCC can 
emulate composite screens with MESS being quite good. However, the images on this disk display as 
gray scale images with both MESS and VCC. They can only be seen in color via a real composite monitor.

There is no screen swapping in the program and the pictures are displayed as follows:

montype -r
view -s -q7 picture.vef
etc.

Tim Kientzle is the author of the program but I think he may not be the person who produced the .vef 
images. They don't appear to be flicker type images. I can't think of any reason why MESS would not 
display the images in color when artifact effects are turned on. It is also strange that the OS-9 
palette is set to the RGB group even though the monitor needs to be a CMP type.

Robert


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