GEM Icons by Kenneth Jennings
5 Jan 1991 (release 1.0)
=============================


Silicon Graphics Icons by Kenneth Jennings
19 Aug 91 (release 2.0)
==========================================


These files are property of Kenneth Jennings 1991.  They may 
be freely distributed provided the following simple rules are 
followed:

> The entire contents of the directories and this text file 
remain intact and unmodified.  [To protect against accidents 
all the files have the Write and Delete bits turned off.]

> Your modified copies of these icons are yours to play with 
and are not attributed to me.

Them's the rules.  Now enjoy.



=============================================================



The Reason For GEM Icons
========================

A problem with many programs is that they come with monstrous, 
gaudy icons making the average Amiga Workbench look like a 
second grade photo collage.  Different size icons using 
bizarre color schemes create a cacophony of confusion on the 
screen.  The GEMmono and GEMcolr directories contain 
collections of Tool, Project, Drawer, and Disk icons modeled 
after the icons in the GEM windowing system.  Before you start 
disgorging your dinner at the sound of that three-letter word 
consider that these icons have a consistent, professional look 
about them which may lend an air of serious productivity to 
the image of your Workbench.  The icons were created using the 
IconEdit (V36.23) program which comes with the Amiga Workbench 
2.0.  To use these icons you should have a program similar to 
the Workbench 2.0 IconEdit program which can edit and save 
eight (or more) color icons and/or you should be familiar 
enough with the CLI to use the copy command to put the icons 
wherever you want them to go.


It is important to consider the color schemes used by these 
icons, because you will probably need to change the icons to 
suit your environment.  My Workbench is set up to use eight 
colors.  While the 2.0 Workbench can use up to 16 colors, the 
overhead of extra CPU time to move four bit-planes (versus the 
two bit-planes used by the old Workbench) of screen data 
around and the extra DMA time to display those bit-planes can 
make a 25MHz Amiga 3000 a tad bit pokey for more than routine 
use - i.e. having more than eight or so directory, CLI, and 
program windows open at once.  Three bit-planes offer a 
reasonable eight colors without quite as much CPU/DMA 
overhead.  The down side of eight (or more) colors is that the 
icons in the Color directory will not look the way they should 
in the old (pre 2.0) Workbench unless you have a program such 
as ColorBench which can make the old WorkBench use more than 
two bit-planes.


The color palette on my Workbench is loosely based on the 
Chocolate presets in 2.0 and displays the following colors:

Color 0 - R=$A G=$9 B=$9 - light tan background 

Color 1 - R=$2 G=$1 B=$1 - black text (window borders pre 2.0) 

Color 2 - R=$E G=$D B=$D - white 

Color 3 - R=$D G=$B B=$7 - pale yellow 

Color 4 - R=$6 G=$5 B=$5 - grey 

Color 5 - R=$D G=$2 B=$2 - red 

Color 6 - R=$2 G=$D B=$2 - green 

Color 7 - R=$2 G=$2 B=$D - blue


A 16 color palette file is located in this directory.  The 
name is palette16.pre and the first eight colors are set up 
with my palette values.  The rest of the colors are useful 
shades if you want to edit the icons with a wider range of 
colors.


The Workbench has three methods of presenting hi-lighted 
(clicked-on) icons: Complement, BackFill, or Image.  
Complement merely Exclusive-Ors the entire Icon image.  While 
this is very fast and easy for the CPU to do and also very 
inexpensive on memory it can look rather ugly.  BackFill 
complements the colors in the icon excluding the background 
color.  This looks a tiny bit better than a simple complement.  
Finally, Image displays an entirely different image for the 
hi-lighted icon.  This offers tremendous flexibility, because 
you can color the hi-lighted image exactly the way you want it 
to appear, or you could have an entirely different image 
altogether.  However, Image mode doubles the amount of memory 
used for the Icon which increases the amount of time it takes 
to load the images from relatively slow floppies.


The GEM icons are all presented in their correct types for the 
Amiga Workbench.  Icons ending in .Tool are Tool icons for 
programs.  Icons ending in .Proj are Project icons for data 
files created by programs.  There is also a Tool icon included 
for the Preferences program.  Plus, there is a Drawer icon 
called Folder, and a Trashcan icon called Garbage.  Finally, 
I've made Disk icons for Floppy, Hard, and Ram disks.  The 
Disk icons won't be visible on the Workbench until they are 
copied to disks.  All the Tool and Project icons are the same 
size.  The Disk icons are the same as each other (slightly 
shorter than the Tool and Project icons.) The Trashcan and 
Drawer icons are the oddballs.


You are almost certainly going to want to modify these icons, 
since they were created for my interlaced Workbench.  Without 
a multi-sync monitor and either a Microway Flicker Fixer or 
the deinterlacer in the Amiga 3000 many of these icons will 
flicker in interlaced mode.  In 200 scan line mode they will 
be rather tall, so you may like to double the width or edit it 
to a smaller height with one of the Icon Editors described 
earlier.



So What Is An Icon?
===================

What is an icon?  For every icon that shows up in a Workbench 
window there is an individual file which ends in the suffix 
.info.  This file contains the information for the icon.  If a 
file does not have an associated .info file, then nothing 
appears on the Workbench.  This is why you can be in the CLI, 
or using a file requester and see a slew of file names, but 
the Workbench display for the same directory may have only a 
few icons.  Remember, that the .info file (icon) is in the 
same directory as the file it is associated with.


Part of the information in the .info file tells the Workbench 
what kind of file the icon belongs to.  If the .info 
information tells the Workbench the associated file is a Tool 
then the Workbench knows it can load and execute the file as a 
program.  Though, it's not very devastating if you 
accidentally make a Tool icon for something such as a simple 
text file, because the Amiga's loader routine itself is smart 
enough to figure out the file is not executable and reports 
this to the Workbench.


If the .info file is for a Project then part of the 
information in the .info file tells the Workbench what program 
needs to be run in order to load this file.  This is called 
the Default Tool.  For instance, if you have a text file 
produced by ProWrite then the .info file for it specifies 
ProWrite as the Default Tool.  When the text file icon is 
double-clicked Workbench loads ProWrite and then passes the 
name of the text file to ProWrite.  Prowrite then loads the 
file and displays it in one of its own windows.


The information in the Tool and Project icons also tell 
Workbench how much memory to allocate for the program's stack.  
The icons also contain ToolTypes - short text lines passed to 
the program which allow you to customize the startup 
configuration of the program.  For example, some ToolTypes 
specify what kind of custom screen a program should use, or 
how big and where to open its first window.  ToolTypes are 
program specific, so you should consult a program's 
documentation for this information.


Drawer icons are associated with directories.  When you double 
click on a Drawer icon Workbench opens a window, goes into the 
directory and displays all the useable icon images found 
there.  The Trashcan icon is really just a modified Drawer.  
You can double click on it to open it and look inside the 
Trashcan directory, but you cannot drag the Trashcan inside of 
other drawers.  The Trashcan directory is the only one you can 
perform Empty Trash on.


Disk icons are special.  The icon is always the file named 
Disk.info in the root directory of the disk.  If the Disk.info 
file is not in the root directory, Workbench displays an 
internally generated default icon.  Disk icons do have a 
Default Tool, usually the program DiskCopy.  The Default Tool 
is invoked when you drag a disk icon over another disk's icon.  
Double-clicking on a disk icon makes it behave like a drawer 
icon - it opens a window and displays all the icons in the 
root directory of the disk.  So, if the Disk.info file is in 
the root directory of the disk why don't you see the icon 
twice - once on the Workbench screen and once in the disk's 
window?  Like I said, it's special.  A disk icon will not be 
displayed within a directory window.  It only appears on the 
Workbench screen.  This is why the disk icons I created are 
not visible in the directories.  They must be copied to disks.  
(Now you know why I said, "useable icon images" when 
discussing drawers earlier.)


Finally, all the icons contain information telling Workbench 
where it would like to appear on the screen.  Workbench is 
sloppy with Tools, Projects, and Drawers.  You can put the 
anywhere, even overlap them.  In the case of Disk icons the 
location is treated as a suggestion.  Workbench reads the 
Disk.info files when it starts up and whenever a new floppy is 
inserted.  If the position information conflicts with a Disk 
icon already present, Workbench finds an empty place to put 
the icon.  The Disk, Drawer, and Trashcan icons also contain 
information telling Workbench where and how big to open the 
windows.  When you use Snapshot on an icon all this 
information is updated.



How To Use The Icons
====================

First, if you want to make changes to the Color icon images to 
suit your tastes you will need an Icon Editor capable of 
handling eight color icons.  Any old Icon Editor should do 
fine for the Black and White icons.  (The Icon Editors are 
also helpful, because they tend to use file requesters which 
will facilitate copying the icons around.)  If you want to use 
the images as-is then you can just use the CLI to copy them 
around.


Projects and Tools: If you are replacing an already existing 
icon then you should select the old icon (single click) and 
choose Info on the Workbench menu.  Write down the important 
stuff - Stack Size, ToolTypes, and for the Project icons 
you'll need to know the Default Tool.  If you are making an 
icon for a Project that does not have an icon then you should 
find another previously existing Project icon (belonging to 
the proper Tool) and get the pertinent information from that 
icon.  Disks, Drawers, and the Trashcan are not quite so 
involved.


Once you've determined the information about the icon, in the 
CLI you'll need to copy the icon from my collection to the 
proper destination and reset some protection bits, and then 
back in the Workbench change the Icon information, 
positioning, and (if applicable) the window size and 
placement.  For demonstration purposes I'll show how to add a 
Project icon to a generic text file, so the file can be used 
in ProWrite by clicking on the icon.  We'll say that my 
collection of icons is in the floppy drive DF0:, the text file 
is somewhere in the floppy drive DF1:.


Go to the CLI/Shell (whatever you like.)


Now we're going to use the black and white Word Processing 
Project icon in my collection and copy it to the same 
directory where the text file is and use the appropriate name.  
The file, TextFile, is located in DF1:Work/Docs.


COPY DF0:Icons/GEMmono/WordProcessor.Proj.info TO 
DF1:Work/Docs/TextFile.info   (Enter all of this on one line)


Now, if you type LIST DF1:Work/Docs/TextFile.info you will see 
that the file has some protection bits turned off - the Write 
and Delete bits to be specific. (You'll also notice my 
FileNote announcing ownership is no longer with the file.  
Once copied, the icon is yours to edit - just never modify or 
take credit for my originals.)


In order to use the Workbench Snapshot and Info to update the 
icon's information we have to put those two protection bits 
back, so type:


PROTECT DF1:Work/Docs/TextFile.info +WD


Now back to the Workbench.  Open the drawer DF1:Work/Docs.  If 
the drawer was already opened, you'll have to close the window 
then open the drawer again, so Workbench can load the icon 
image.  Alternatively, if you are blessed with Workbench 2.0 
then click in the window and then select Update from the 
Window menu.


Click once on the icon (you may have to scroll the window 
around to find it) and choose the Info option from the Window. 


ProWrite Projects have a Stack size of 4096.  Next, fill in 
the Default Tool specifying the full path and file name for 
the ProWrite program.  If you're smart you've ASSIGNed the 
ProWrite: volume name to the ProWrite program directory in 
your Startup-Sequence, so all you need to use for the Default 
Tool is ProWrite:ProWrite.


Click on the Info Requester's Save gadget, and then move the 
icon where you want it to go and use the Snapshot menu option.


Ta-Dah.  That's it.  The other icon types follow the same 
procedures.  The Tool Icon may need to have new Stack and 
ToolTypes added with the Workbench Info.  If you have problems 
with using Snapshot or Info it probably means the icon file's 
write/delete protection bits have not been reset.  In order to 
get an alternate icon to show up for the RamDisk, you need to 
copy the .info icon file to RAM:Disk.info prior to invoking 
LoadWB in the Startup-Sequence.  Finally, keep in mind that if 
you modify the RAM disk icon position or window placement you 
will need to save the Disk.info file back to where it came 
from so that it can be recopied the next time you reboot.



Black & White Icons - GEMmono
=============================

These icons are actually four color icons, two of the colors 
simply aren't used for anything (OK, one of the 'unused' 
colors is really used, since it's the Workbench background 
color).  They use the BackFill method of hi-lighting, so that 
the black lines on the white icon becomes white lines on a 
black icon.



Color Icons - GEMcolr
=====================

These are eight color icons.  Well, mostly eight color icons.  
Not all the icons use all eight colors. The icons use the 
Image fill method.  This gives the icon designer the most 
control over what colors are present when the icon is hi-
lighted.  The unselected image of all icons is a simple black 
outline filled with the background color.  When hi-lighted, 
the Project icons merely fill the inside of the outline with 
white.  (This would kind of make the Project icons black and 
white, since they use only three colors including the 
background color.)  The Tool icons fill with white and some 
components of the black image inside the icon will be colored.


Now you're saying, "You call that color!  You weenie!  You 
fraud!  You Trameil devotee in Amigoid clothing!!"  Well, the 
reason a 16 color Windows, GEM, or Presentation Manager screen 
looks sharp and professional while a standard four color Amiga 
Workbench looks like murder in Toontown is due to a couple 
things.  Consistency: Most of those IBM windowing systems use 
similarly sized (usually small) icons placed predictably on 
the screen.  Color: When icons use color, they use it 
predictably and prudently.  While there are 16 (possibly more) 
colors available, rarely is the entire palette used in an 
icon.  A few colors used just to hi-light important details 
protect the IBM windowing environments from looking like comic 
books.


The problem with the Amiga is that it is just too darned 
flexible.  For instance, Icon Master will let you create the 
largest possible icon the system will allow: 320x100 pixels.  
That's positively HUGE!!  (The Amiga is reallllly flexible.  
In many DOS windowing systems there is no representative .info 
file.  Instead, the windowing system forces hard-coded icon 
images on the user based on the filename's three character 
extension.)  While it may be interesting that the Amiga is 
able to do it, you really shouldn't try.  A typical Amiga 
Workbench has monster icons on it with clashing color schemes.  
This is why, despite the power and flexibility offered by the 
Amiga, an IBM user can look at the Amiga screen and declare 
(with complete honesty) that the Amiga must be a toy, because 
that is what they see.


Keep these things in mind when you make your own icons.  
Normally, my rules are to keep icons roughly square, and not 
much more than 30 pixels in either direction.  If the finished 
.info file is bigger than 1K (2 disk blocks) [this is for 
icons on a hard disk - for icons on a floppy I try to keep the 
icons smaller than 488 bytes (1 disk block)] then work on 
making the icon image smaller.  Be consistent with the way the 
image is drawn and with where you put the icon in its window.  
A little discipline and organization go a long, long way.



Silicon Graphics Color Icons - SGcolr
=====================================

The SG Icon collection is based on the icons used by a Silicon 
Graphics Personal Iris Workstation I once saw.  The icons 
follow a common theme of sitting on a platform turned at an 
angle to the viewer.  The effect is rather nice.  The icons 
are small and were meant to be used in hi-res interlaced mode 
on my Amiga 3000.  I made generic icons for rendering 
programs, desktop publishing, and paint programs.  There are 
also some new icons for SAS/C 5.10 and another one for the CD 
ROM utility included with the XETEC CD ROM.  Also in the 
directory is an IFF brush of the basic platform to sit the 
images on.  Included is a set of other icons I created after 
2.0 arrived. (Browser, CacheEdit, Pool, etc...)  I simply 
cleaned up the color schemes to make them presentable on the 
Workbench.  Some have found these extra icons useful, so 
they're added to the collection.



Silicon Graphics Black & White - SGmono
=======================================

These are simply quick-and-dirty black-and-white versions of 
the color icons.  I made them in one afternoon.  Fire up a 
four or two color workbench on your 3000 and embarrass the 
fool up the street with his pathetic, overpriced, under-
performing Mac.  (Even I was stunned with how fast the 3000 
looks when you denigrate Amiga Workbench to the level of Mac 
Finder.)  (Did you know the Mac System 7 is only useful [i.e. 
will allow productive multitasking] if you have the OS 
installed on a hard drive and you have 4 Meg of RAM.  It's 
copy protected, too.  (So I'm told by an unfortunate Mac 
owner.)  Thus a Mac with 4 Meg RAM, and a hard disk is roughly 
equivalent to an Amiga 500 with 1 Meg RAM, and a couple 
floppies.  What some people will do to make their toys behave 
more like Amigas.)



List-O-Files In The Directories
===============================

Directory "Ken:Icons/GEMmono" on Monday 19-Aug-91

Accounting.Proj.info         314 ----rwed Today     19:13:58
Accounting.Tool.info         314 ----rwed Today     19:13:45
DataBase.Proj.info           314 ----rwed Today     19:13:58
DataBase.Tool.info           314 ----rwed Today     19:13:44
Draw.Proj.info               314 ----rwed Today     19:13:30
Draw.Tool.info               314 ----rwed Today     19:14:03
Education.Proj.info          314 ----rwed Today     19:13:47
Education.Tool.info          314 ----rwed Today     19:13:25
Floppy.Disk.info             376 ----rwed Today     19:14:05
Folder.info                  448 ----rwed Today     19:13:26
Game.Proj.info               314 ----rwed Today     19:14:04
Game.Tool.info               314 ----rwed Today     19:13:51
Garbage.info                 352 ----rwed Today     19:13:28
Generic.Proj.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:13:27
Generic.Tool.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:14:01
Graph.Proj.info              314 ----rwed Today     19:13:37
Graph.Tool.info              314 ----rwed Today     19:14:09
Hard.Disk.info               376 ----rwed Today     19:14:00
MultiFunction.Tool.info      314 ----rwed Today     19:13:46
MultiFuntion.Proj.info       314 ----rwed Today     19:13:48
Outline.Proj.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:13:41
Outline.Tool.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:14:11
Paint.Proj.info              314 ----rwed Today     19:13:36
Paint.Tool.info              314 ----rwed Today     19:14:07
Preferences.info             314 ----rwed Today     19:13:50
Programming.Proj.info        314 ----rwed Today     19:13:35
Programming.Tool.info        314 ----rwed Today     19:14:06
Project.Proj.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:13:29
Project.Tool.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:14:02
Publish.Proj.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:13:52
Publish.Tool.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:13:33
RamDisk.Disk.info            376 ----rwed Today     19:13:38
Spreadsheet.Proj.info        314 ----rwed Today     19:13:54
Spreadsheet.Tool.info        314 ----rwed Today     19:13:40
TeleCom.Proj.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:13:56
TeleCom.Tool.info            314 ----rwed Today     19:13:43
WordProcessor.Proj.info      314 ----rwed Today     19:13:53
WordProcessor.Tool.info      314 ----rwed Today     19:13:34



Directory "Ken:Icons/GEMcolr" on Monday 19-Aug-91

Accounting.Proj.info         550 ----rwed Today     19:16:02
Accounting.Tool.info         766 ----rwed Today     19:15:56
DataBase.Proj.info           550 ----rwed Today     19:16:02
DataBase.Tool.info           766 ----rwed Today     19:15:54
Draw.Proj.info               550 ----rwed Today     19:15:42
Draw.Tool.info               766 ----rwed Today     19:16:06
Education.Proj.info          550 ----rwed Today     19:15:58
Education.Tool.info          766 ----rwed Today     19:15:39
Floppy.Disk.info             780 ----rwed Today     19:16:07
Folder.info                  756 ----rwed Today     19:15:41
Game.Proj.info               550 ----rwed Today     19:16:07
Game.Tool.info               766 ----rwed Today     19:15:58
Garbage.info                 756 ----rwed Today     19:15:42
Generic.Proj.info            550 ----rwed Today     19:15:41
Generic.Tool.info            550 ----rwed Today     19:16:05
Graph.Proj.info              550 ----rwed Today     19:15:51
Graph.Tool.info              766 ----rwed Today     19:16:10
Hard.Disk.info               780 ----rwed Today     19:16:06
MultiFunction.Proj.info      550 ----rwed Today     19:16:04
MultiFunction.Tool.info      766 ----rwed Today     19:15:57
Outline.Proj.info            550 ----rwed Today     19:15:52
Outline.Tool.info            766 ----rwed Today     19:16:10
Paint.Proj.info              550 ----rwed Today     19:15:50
Paint.Tool.info              766 ----rwed Today     19:16:09
Preferences.info             766 ----rwed Today     19:15:58
Programming.Proj.info        550 ----rwed Today     19:15:48
Programming.Tool.info        766 ----rwed Today     19:16:08
Project.Proj.info            550 ----rwed Today     19:15:41
Project.Tool.info            550 ----rwed Today     19:16:06
Publish.Proj.info            550 ----rwed Today     19:15:59
Publish.Tool.info            766 ----rwed Today     19:15:47
RamDisk.Disk.info            780 ----rwed Today     19:15:52
Spreadsheet.Proj.info        550 ----rwed Today     19:16:00
Spreadsheet.Tool.info        766 ----rwed Today     19:15:51
TeleCom.Proj.info            550 ----rwed Today     19:16:01
TeleCom.Tool.info            766 ----rwed Today     19:15:53
WordProcessor.Proj.info      550 ----rwed Today     19:16:00
WordProcessor.Tool.info      766 ----rwed Today     19:15:48



Directory "Ken:Icons/SGmono" on Monday 19-Aug-91

.a.info                      341 ----rwed Today     19:19:12
.c.info                      341 ----rwed Today     19:19:08
.h.info                      341 ----rwed Today     19:19:09
.lmk.info                    341 ----rwed Today     19:19:04
Blanker.info                 408 ----rwed Today     19:18:38
Book.info                    326 ----rwed Today     19:18:02
Browser.info                 474 ----rwed Today     19:18:45
C.build.info                 344 ----rwed Today     19:19:06
C.options.info               356 ----rwed Today     19:19:05
CD_drive.info                373 ----rwed Today     19:18:07
CacheEdit.info               342 ----rwed Today     19:18:27
Calc.info                    353 ----rwed Today     19:18:32
ClipMap.info                 238 ----rwed Today     19:18:50
Clock.info                   403 ----rwed Today     19:18:08
Compiler.info                326 ----rwed Today     19:18:37
Data.info                    277 ----rwed Today     19:18:41
Debug.info                   335 ----rwed Today     19:18:49
Demo.info                    322 ----rwed Today     19:18:22
DoIt!.info                   380 ----rwed Today     19:18:25
Drawer.info                  388 ----rwed Today     19:18:44
Dumpster.info                444 ----rwed Today     19:18:33
ED.info                      340 ----rwed Today     19:18:56
FDisk.info                   388 --p-rwed Today     19:18:00
HDisk.info                   397 ----rwed Today     19:18:57
IFontTool.info               326 ----rwed Today     19:19:02
InterFont.info               359 ----rwed Today     19:19:00
LSE.info                     341 ----rwed Today     19:19:13
MRBackup.info                386 ----rwed Today     19:18:17
MakeFont.info                326 ----rwed Today     19:18:09
More.info                    330 ----rwed Today     19:18:59
Music.info                   326 ----rwed Today     19:18:18
NoDemo.info                  322 ----rwed Today     19:18:29
Paint.info                   348 ----rwed Today     19:18:21
Platform.info                330 ----rwed Today     19:18:16
Pool.info                    234 ----rwed Today     19:18:53
Prefs.info                   388 ----rwed Today     19:18:47
Program.info                 326 ----rwed Today     19:18:15
Project.info                 380 ----rwed Today     19:18:52
Publish.info                 326 ----rwed Today     19:18:01
RDisk.info                   397 ----rwed Today     19:18:36
Recon.info                   326 ----rwed Today     19:18:30
RecoverED.info               340 ----rwed Today     19:18:05
RedBook.info                 326 ----rwed Today     19:18:10
Render.info                  335 ----rwed Today     19:18:13
SetFonts.info                340 ----rwed Today     19:18:58
Shell.info                   354 ----rwed Today     19:18:19
Source.info                  343 ----rwed Today     19:18:03
Stars.info                   386 ----rwed Today     19:18:11
TeleCom.info                 330 ----rwed Today     19:18:39
Tool.Icon.info               310 ----rwed Today     19:18:51
Tool.info                    330 ----rwed Today     19:18:43
Trace.info                   281 ----rwed Today     19:18:35
Video.info                   330 ----rwed Today     19:18:31
View.info                    326 ----rwed Today     19:18:46
VirusX.info                  344 ----rwed Today     19:18:24
X11R4.info                   378 ----rwed Today     19:18:23



Directory "Ken:Icons/SGcolr" on Monday 19-Aug-91

.a.info                      757 ----rwed Today     19:21:19
.c.info                      757 ----rwed Today     19:21:01
.h.info                      757 ----rwed Today     19:21:15
.lmk.info                    757 ----rwed Today     19:20:52
Blanker.info                 824 ----rwed Today     19:21:03
Book.info                    742 ----rwed Today     19:20:30
Browser.info                 826 ----rwed Today     19:21:11
C.build.info                 760 ----rwed Today     19:20:59
C.options.info               772 ----rwed Today     19:20:52
CD_drive.info                789 ----rwed Today     19:20:33
CacheEdit.info               790 ----rwed Today     19:20:54
Calc.info                    769 ----rwed Today     19:20:56
ClipMap.info                 478 ----rwed Today     19:21:18
Clock.info                   819 ----rwed Today     19:20:35
Compiler.info                742 ----rwed Today     19:21:00
Data.info                    373 ----rwed Today     19:21:06
Debug.info                   751 ----rwed Today     19:21:17
Demo.info                    670 ----rwed Today     19:20:46
DoIt!.info                   796 ----rwed Today     19:20:52
Drawer.info                  804 ----rwed Today     19:21:09
Dumpster.info                972 ----rwed Today     19:20:58
ED.info                      756 ----rwed Today     19:21:21
FDisk.info                   804 --p-rwed Today     19:20:28
HDisk.info                   832 --p-rwed Today     19:21:21
IFontTool.info               742 ----rwed Today     19:20:50
InterFont.info               775 ----rwed Today     19:20:42
LSE.info                     757 ----rwed Today     19:21:25
MRBackup.info                802 ----rwed Today     19:20:40
MakeFont.info                742 ----rwed Today     19:20:35
More.info                    746 ----rwed Today     19:21:24
Music.info                   742 ----rwed Today     19:20:41
NoDemo.info                  670 ----rwed Today     19:20:54
Paint.info                   764 ----rwed Today     19:20:43
Platform.b.info              338 ----rwed Today     19:21:10
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Pool.info                    474 ----rwed Today     19:21:20
Prefs.info                   804 ----rwed Today     19:21:17
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Publish.info                 742 ----rwed Today     19:20:29
RDisk.info                   813 --p-rwed Today     19:21:00
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VirusX.info                  760 ----rwed Today     19:20:51
X11R4.info                   794 ----rwed Today     19:20:48



The Future
==========

I've begun working on a new set of icons which uses a 16 color 
palette - all shades of grey excluding just one register for 
color.  The purpose you ask?  Well, imagine a 16 color 
Workbench with one color to indicate the selected window.  
What could you do with 15 shades of grey?  What do you get 
when you cross Impulse's Imagine, ASDG's Art Department 
Professional, and the Amiga Workbench 2.0??  You would have 
grey scale, photo-realistic icons on the Amiga Workbench.  
That's without a high-resolution, eight bitplane, graphics 
board and without having to wait for the programmers at 
Commodore to allow the Amiga to present the Workbench on 
third-party graphics devices.  Of course, when that does 
happen, I could just re-trace it all in color...  Anyway, 
check out the samples in the Future drawer.  The necessary 
palette file is included in the directory.


Some helpful hints:  These icons were designed utilizing the 
peculiarities of the Commodore 1950 multisync monitor.  (Does 
anyone else out there have a problem with jitter when it's 
cold?)  Most multisync type monitors don't allow manual 
control over the width and height of the screen while the 1950 
does.  My monitor's width and height are adjusted so that 
pixels on a 640x400 [high-res, interlaced display] are 
perfectly square.  This is terrific for doing desktop 
publishing stuff, and it means these ray-traced, 40x40 pixel 
(the maximum height of icons in 2.0's IconEdit) icons, also 
are square.  If you're using a normal composite type monitor 
the icons will be slightly taller than wide.  Though, these 
icons won't flicker much, since the grey scales tend to blend 
nicely.


And another thing...  We're pushing the performance limits 
here with a four bitplane Workbench screen.  This is a lot of 
data to be shuffling around.  With a dozen windows open, a 
25MHz A3000 starts to behave like an IBM on Windows.  There's 
just so much the '030 can do when Denise and Agnes are sucking 
up all the DMA time.  (Even when considering the A3000 has 32-
bit access to chip RAM.)  If you're using an overscan 
Workbench (like I normally do) of about 704x480 pixels, you 
can speed up the Workbench noticeably by adjusting the Text 
Overscan Prefs down to minimal 640x200/400 resolution.  In the 
Screen Mode Prefs don't set the screen size to default.  
Instead, set it to the original overscan size you were using.  
Now, the Workbench is still as big as it was before - you 
simply have to scroll the screen a bit to see it all.  What 
you just did was to reduce the DMA time that Denise steals 
from the 030, because the Workbench is no longer being 
displayed as overscan.  Agnes, on the other hand, is still 
using as much DMA as before, but since it only uses that time 
when it has to change things on the screen that extra time 
isn't noticeable until you get a lot of windows on the screen, 
or are scrolling text in the Shell.


Speaking of which...  In the Shell try to use colors 0, 1, 2, 
or 4 for the window background color and text.  (0 for the 
background and 1 for the text is the default, anyway.)  I 
learned the hard way that this will keep scrolling as clean as 
possible.  Why, you ask?  If you're using color 1 for text, it 
takes only 1 bitplane of data to display those pixels.  One 
block move by Agnes scrolls the data for the text in the 
window, and while block moves on the other three bitplanes 
occur, they do nothing visible in the window.  If you use 
color 3 for text and color 7 for the window background each 
block move will change the integrity of the pixel information 
in the bitplanes.  Each block move scrolls one bitplane which 
leaves the data out of sync - part of the bitplane information 
for a given line of text is displayed in one line of the 
window, while the previously scrolled information is displayed 
one line higher.  This causes a very ugly 'shimmering' when 
text scrolls.  (Sorry, but there's not much that can be done 
about the speed.  Perhaps someday when a TI 34020 become part 
of the standard equipment.  Don't feel bad, the Sun 
Sparcstation 1+ in my office scrolls slow, too.)



A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
============================================

No! No! No!  Wrong story, silly.  But now that I've got you 
here...


Once, during late 1980, Ken Jennings was seated in Marquette 
University High School's accelerated algebra class.  In rather 
short order, it became obvious to him that he would be 
hopelessly outmatched by the class.  However, around the 
classroom sat things he's never seen before.  Things bearing 
the monikers, "PET" and "Apple I".  During class the teacher 
said the students were free to come back during lunch and 
after school to use these things.  "Just a glorified 
calculator.", thought Ken, rather smugly.  Thirty minutes into 
lunch hour he had to leave in disgust (and disgrace) after 
accidentally formatting someone else's floppy disk.   Thus 
began the legend...


Not one to let any stupid machine best him, he slaved away at 
a paper route in order to afford his very own computer.  "To 
beat them one must learn about them.", he thought.  He took 
advantage of every opportunity to learn about every computer 
available: VIC-20s, PETs, TRS-80s, Apples, and Ataris.  He 
used his friends' computers.  He read magazines and books on 
his own.  He took all the classes (both of them) the high 
school had to offer.  Finally, he made his choice and bought 
his first computer; a power-graphics computer - an Atari 800, 
48K RAM (which everyone insisted he'd never be able to use), 
and a speedy 410 cassette recorder - for a mere $850.  A deal 
at the time, since the next closest mail order price was 
roughly $1000.


He typed in programs from magazines, only to discover they 
wouldn't run as printed.  So, he fixed them.  And then 
improved them.  He learned assembly language - without an 
assembler.  He converted assembly code to pages of hex numbers 
and then converted those to decimal values and then typed them 
in as DATA statements - all by hand.  He joined the Milwaukee 
Area Atari User Group and wrote games for their public domain 
library.  He found it great fun to take dull Commodore and 
Apple programs and then pump modified display lists and 
display list interrupts into them on the Atari.


Then 1983 rolled around and he first heard about the Amiga 
corporation and the Lorraine.  A bunch of Atari wizards had 
defected and formed their own company.  What's more is that 
all the Atari magazines and some multi-platform magazines were 
calling this new machine "The Next Generation Atari".  Ken 
hadn't seen one, but he knew he had to have one.  After 
college, maybe...


In early 1985, unable to afford more than six months at North 
Central College, Naperville, Illinois, he was forced to become 
unemployed in a most untimely manner.  At least he had been 
able to teach himself C and UNIX (in addition to the normal 
Intro To Computers For Morons 101 classes he was forced to 
take) on his own time using the school's VAX 11/780.  
Milwaukee, he found, was not the best place in the world to be 
a programmer with a high-school diploma and roughly a 
bachelors equivalent in five years of self-taught, year-round, 
continuous computer science.  In fact, after several limiting 
and dead-end jobs (only one related to computers - too bad 
that company went belly up, since they did use Amigas) he 
decided that Milwaukee was the consummate technological black-
hole.  He tried writing for a while, and even got a big 
article published in the April 1987 Computer Shopper.  But, 
there were bills to pay.  So, he joined the Air Force.


As the only person in a room of twenty to pass the Air Force 
EDPT required to become a programmer, he knew he was destined 
for big things.  In Programming Tech School he achieved honor 
graduate status - rare for a pipeline student straight from 
Basic Training.  Where would he go?  What would he do?  
Kirtland, AFB - Computer Programming Central for weapons 
testing and development?  There was even a base right in 
Silicon Valley!  You can be sure these nifty places and other 
choice spots were on his dream sheet.  Then he discovered why 
they use the term, "Dream", to describe those sheets.  As a 
non-volunteer for overseas duty he was sent to Ramstein AB, 
Germany.


Depending on who you talk to, his current job could be 
described using any (or all) of the following: Command 
Intelligence Systems Software Development Programming 
Technician.  Basically, he writes software to support the 
Intelligence gathering branch of the US Air Force in Europe.  
He's worked with IBM mainframes, doing database development 
and conversions.  He's worked with UNIX workstations custom 
designed for the military.  He's currently engaged in 
programming and user support of PCs and VAX micro-hosts on a 
classified, X.25 packet switching network which ranges from 
the UK to Turkey.


He owns a 3000 -  bought mail order the day they were sent to 
the dealers.  (He was the second person to get his from that 
particular dealer.)  Now, there is roughly $12,000 invested in 
the ultimate Amiga 3000.   10Meg of RAM, a JX-100 scanner, 
XETEC CD ROM, a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III, 200 Meg Hard 
Disk, thousands of dollars of graphics software.  He is 
president and newsletter editor for one Amiga User Group, a 
member of a second, and a member of NCGA.  His current Amiga 
hobbies involve programming, ray-tracing, graphics, multi-
media, desktop publishing, and contemplating the questions: 
"When can I get a 68040?" and "Why do IBM and MAC users put up 
with so much drivel?"


His pet peeves include ugly user interfaces (which explains why 
he's not [purposely] used the Amiga Workbench 1.3 since July 
16, 1990) and computer piracy.  His philosophy is that 
software worth having is software worth paying for.  With this 
in mind he's formed the un-official organization: ESP - 
Emasculate Software Pirates (because people stupid enough to 
steal software shouldn't be teaching their lack of values to 
children.)


Jan 14, 1993 he will be released to the civilian world with 
six years of real-world programming experience behind him 
which includes manning a technical help line and (the 
apparently rare skill of) writing end-user documentation.  
Also, with a roughly eight year, near zealous commitment to 
the high-performance graphics platform known as "Amiga" he 
hopes to become an integral part of a respectable company 
producing Amiga products.  (If there's a developer near 
Milwaukee he'd appreciate hearing about it.)  Or, any job that 
will let him continue buying more toys for his Amiga will be 
more than acceptable.



The author is available for comment 
or consultation via the following:
===================================


The Intrepid Postal System

Sgt Kenneth Jennings
1856 CSGP
PSC 2, Box 6489
APO AE 09012


MILNET

hqusciip@ramstein.af.mil

(Theoretically, you could get me here from ARPAnet, or so they 
tell me...)


Phone from US - Hours listed are Central European Time

Home: 011-49-6371-17557   1600-2200

Work: 011-49-6371-47-2826 0700-1600
   Or 011-49-6371-43057   0800-1600

Fax:  011-49-6371-43057   1800-0800



-= FINITO =-
============
