Robot Helper ------------ Copyright 1993-1995 W.J. Montgomery VE3EC Last changed: 1-NOV-94 (see release notes at end) Introduction Robot Helper is a Mirosoft Windows 3.1 application designed to assist in the use of a Robot 1200c color scan converter. Robot Helper (RH) permits slow scan tv images to be stored on your hard disk and provides an easy to use disk storage manager, complete with thumbnail previews of all images. Images can be displayed in two on-screen full color preview windows before uploading them to the 1200c scan converter. A separate panel allows you to control the operation and mode of the 1200c directly from within RH. Robot Helper comunicates with the 1200c through a standard 8255 based interface. The interface port addresses are fully configurable from within the software. Robot Helper will also run in the background under Windows, permitting the simultaneous use of other Windows programs to provide paintbox and image processing functions. Images may be also stored on remote servers and accessed over a local area network (LAN). Clip-art images can also be loaded directly off CD ROMs. NOTICE: Robot Helper is a Shareware software product. You are encouraged to give it a try for a short period of time and to upload it (without changes) to any BBS or On-Line service. If you find the program useful and wish to continue to use it past the short (ie 10 days) evaluation period you are requested to register the software by sending a cheque or money order for $45 US funds to: William Montgomery VE3EC 482 Townsend Ave. Burlington, Ontario Canada. L7T 2B3 Registered users will receive a copy of the current release of Robot Helper and a printed users manual. Further development of the product is supported by your shareware registeration fees. New versions of Robot Helper will be made available through BBS systems and InterNet FTP sites. Current distribution sites include: o The Antenna Farm BBS, SYSOP Brian Summers VE3DUO, (905) 637-4026, 9600 baud V.32, & 2400 baud. o The 'Kookie BBS' at (419) 562-6327 o The Dallas Remote Imaging BBS (214) 394-7438 o ftp.cciw.ca /pub/u124/sstv anonymous InterNet FTP site. o ftp.ucsd.edu /pub/hamradio/sstv anonymous InterNet FTP site. o CompUServe (GO HAMNET) The author can be contacted via Internet email at: William.Montgomery@cciw.ca, or via AppleLink at: CDA0635. Installation Notes 1/If you downloaded RH from a BBS... Unzip the file to a 1.44 meg (or 1.2 meg) floppy and run the setup program on the floppy from within the File Manager. If you have a RH.KEY file, place it in the same directory as you intalled RH.EXE. You should then have RH.EXE, RH.INI, RH.HLP, and RH.KEY together in the same directory. 2/ If you registered and received a setup disk... Insert the disk into a floppy drive. From within the Windows File Manager double click on the SETUP.EXE file on the floppy. Next, use the File Manager to copy the RH.KEY (Registration File) from the floppy disk into the directory where you installed Robot Helper (RH). The setup utility will update some of the Windows DLL files during installation. If you receive any messages during installation that file xxx.dll is locked or in use, you should quite out of any other Windows programs or drivers that may be using (& locking...) Windows DLL's. Notes: If your 8255 ports are not at the 'standard' 300HEX address you should change the default port settings (Edit Menu->Setup) before sending any images to the Robot. Just run Robot Helper and select 'Setup' from the edit menu. The ports dialog box also allows you to increase the data delay to the 8255 interface and Robot 1200. On some fast machines ( 486 and up...) you may have to increase the dalay value to obtain reliable data communications with the Robot. On fast computers it may also have to use fast (10 MHz) 8255A interface chips in both the Robot 1200 and the pc interface card, or add a 'wait state' to I/O cycles using your PC's setup program (Advanced Options Menu). Note: If you are running in 8 bit (256 colors) VGA mode you will notice somewhat long delays whenever Windows must generate a new color palette to try to match the real color images. Robot Helper is MUCH FASTER when used with a 16 bit HiColor VGA card or 24 bit TrueColor card. Image processing is poor at best on 8 bit cards. ........................................................................... Release Notes 14-NOV-93 Version 1.0b2 Initial release. 16-NOV-93 Version 1.0b3 Fix for port setup in b2. Last minute directory default shuffle caused 1.0b2 to look for the RH.INI file in the 'Windows' directory instead of the default installation directory with RH.EXE. 19-NOV-93 Version 1.0b4 Includes new (updates) to THREED.DLL,SS3D2.DLL and SS3D3.DLL. This should fix the Gen Fault in user.com error that was sometimes showing up when clicking on the menu bar in the storage manager. Added bank switch buttons on the preview window control panel. * Note: If you get a "Function or Sub not defined" error message, you probably have an older version of 'SSTV.DLL' somewhere on your disk. This older version is about 4K and should be removed. 7-DEC-93 Version 1.1b2 Moved Robot controls to a separate panel. Added support for selecting Robot modes and speeds. Added Windows Help support. Added EPROM select to setup window (ports). 11-DEC-93 Version 1.1 First Release Version Minor changes from 1.1b2 05-JAN-94 Version 1.2b3 Final 1.2 beta 1.2 includes: -Support for low resolution images. -Clear preview window buttons. -Brightness, Contrast, and Color controls. -Slide show. -Color Keyed Load/Save clusters. -Double click load support in Storage Manager. 15-JAN-94 Version 1.2.1 -fix minor shareware date timeout problem. -removed OLE2 references. 16-JAN-94 Version 1.2.2 -added support for a transfer delay. This should prevent very fast PC's from overrunning the input buffer in the Robot 1200C. -if you experience lockup problems when talking to the Robot you should use the setup panel (ports etc...) to increase the delay value. 386 machines can generally run with values of 0. -Note: fast PCs may require the use of an 8255A-2 PIA chip in both the interface card and the Robot 1200C. 11-MAR-94 Version 1.2.3 -now saves positions of the four windows in the RH.INI file -new splash screen. ___________________________________________________________________ *** Note: Starting with version 2, Robot Helper must be run on a 386 or greater cpu. 7-MAY-94 Version 2.0b1 - Version 2 now based on ImageKnife VBX. - Improved 8 bit color support. - Image autoscaling to 256 X 240 - Now does Targa (.TGA), TIFF (.TIF), PCX, GIF, JPEG (.JPG), HIRes (.HRZ), GEST (.IMG), BMP, and DIB images. (distribution: Beta testers only) 8-MAY-94 Version 2.0b2 - Added missing JPEGIO.DLL to distribution. - made load image error handler more verbose. (distribution: Beta testers only) 21-MAY-94 Version 2.0b3 - Revamped SetUp.EXE - Removed reference to DDEML.DLL in setup. (distribution: Beta testers only) 23-MAY-94 Version 2.0 - Frozen for release if no problems are reported in the B3 vesrion. ___________________________________________________________________ 01-OCT-94 Version 2.1b1 - Corrected problem with attempting to save images or generate previews to R/O media. - Fixed scrolling problem in FO_GRID - Added trap for double clickers in change drive control. (Double click to change directories, single click to select drive.) - Warn if you save an image with the same name as an existing image. - Added a brightness histogram display in each preview window. - Added centering buttons for preview slide controls. ( these double as processing indicators) - Added a 'sharpness' image control. - Fixed scroll bar corruption in sliders. - Added some image modifiers to the previews. ( Flip H or V, Rotate CW/CCW, invert color, Black&White, Blur, Clear to Black) - TX mode is now forced to the Robot when the [transmit] button is pressed. Cleaned up mode interaction. - Added 'turbo load' buttons to the storage manager. These load both the preview window and the 1200 with a single press. - Slideshow control cleanup. 08-OCT-94 Version 2.1b2 - Fixed Load 1200 bug in Preview 1 that crept in at the last minute. 12-OCT-94 Version 2.1b3 - Changed B&C processing 21-OCT-94 Version 2.1b4 - Corrected Martin Mode set problem and 'Q' clipping in mode speed labels. 01-NOV-94 Version 2.1 -Release Version