GIF2PCX by Robert Voit Version 1.3 GIF2PCX is a file converter. It will convert your favorite gif files to pcx files. This file converter will convert the entire gif picture. If the original gif picture size is 900 by 900, then that will be the resulting pcx picture size. ZSOFT Version 5 PCX File Format: The resulting pcx file format will be version 5. Version 5 allows for a 256 color pallete. Some viewers will see this as the number of unique colors within the picture. This is not correct. There is room for 256 colors, but the pcx file will only contain the pallete information of the origanal gif file. DOS USERS: This program may be run from the dos prompt by typing: GIF2PCX WINDOWS USERS: If you use Windows, you may run this program in a window. The painting program for Windows will not allow for gif files to be used. This program will convert those files to the pcx format so that you may use them with your windows painting program. I have included the PIF file that I use. You will need to alter it if your directories do not match mine. I have the GIF2PCX.exe file and all my gif files in a directory - G:\GIF thus, this is the way this PIF file is setup. This program will run in its' own window so that you may do other things while it is converting a file for you. ALL USERS: When the program is started, you will be at the file selection process screen. All filenames will be in small letters. All directory names will be in capital letters. All of the avialable files that may be converted will be displayed. Using the cursor keys, move to the file that you would like to convert then press ENTER. You may also move around the disk's directory structure by moving to a directory name an pressing ENTER. You may select a different disk drive by pressing the F1 key, and making a selection. I would suggest that you do not select a floppy drive, there is a good chance that you will not have enough room on the floopy disk to do the conversion. After a GIF file is converted, you will be back to the file selection process. Continue selecting GIF files to convert until you are done. Press Esc to exit the program. Why GIF2PCX is not converting a picture correctly. Some users of GIF2PCX have reported that GIF2PCX is altering the color information of the picture. After viewing the picture with a gif viewer, converting it to pcx, then viewing with the paintbrush program, they have found that the colors are no longer the same. I assure you that GIF2PCX is working fine. It does not alter the colors of the original gif picture. Here is a long explanation as to what is happening. First you must understand the graphics enviorment. Most of you are probably using a VGA card with your computer. You elected VGA for its 256 colors over EGA with only 16 colors. On a standard VGA system the 256 colors are only available in one mode. This mode is 320x200 (320 pixels (dots) across by 200 pixels down). The other modes of the VGA card only allow for 16 or less colors. With a standard VGA card Windows uses a mode that is 640x480 with only 16 colors. As a result, you can use a gif viewer to view a gif picture with 256 colors. But when you use the paintbrush, you will only get 16 of the 256 colors. I hope you can now see why a 256 color picture would not look right with the paintbrush. Color Ranges: The different modes have there own color ranges. The mode with 256 colors can select its pallete of colors from 262,144 different colors. The mode with 16 colors selects its colors from only 64 different colors. If you have a 16 color picture the colors may still be different. In a 256 color mode you could veiw a picture that has 16 different shades of grey. But with a 16 color system, only 4 of those shades fall within its range of colors. Thus, even though the picture is made up of only 16 colors, not all of the 16 colors can be represented on a 16 color system. In this example you would see the 16 color grey scaled picture as only having 4 shades of grey. Pictures that use 16 different colors (not grey shaded) have the same limits on them. If the picture uses any colors that are outside of the 64 color range, those colors will be different when viewed with paintbrush. I can not fix GIF2PCX to allow for the limits of Windows. I tried to reduce a 16 color grey scale picture to the limits of the 16 color range. Since the 16 color range only has 4 shades of grey (black and white are 2 of them). The other 12 colors showed up as blues, greens, and reds. Thus there is no way of converting colors outside of the color range to a color within the color range without changing the color. What to do... In order to get your 256 colors back you would have to upgrade your video card to what is called SVGA (S stands for Super). I have a Video 7 card with 512k of memory on the card. This allows for 640x480x256. In addition, I have a video driver for Windows that allows me to run windows at 640x480x256. The standard driver that comes with windows is "vga.drv" ( you can check to see if you are using this by viewing "system.ini" with notepad, and finding the line that says "display.drv=??????.drv", your line probably reads "display.drv=vga.drv"). If you are using "vga.drv", then you are running in 640x480x16. Because it is a 16 color mode it can not select its colors from the full range of vga colors (262,144 different colors), but rather the range of the of a 16 color system (64 different colors). There are many boards out there that support 256 colors in Windows. To take advantage of the board, you need a Windows 3.0 driver with the board (this will replace "vga.drv"). Most major board makers have all ready produced this driver. By upgrading your board, and changing the Windows video driver in "system.ini" you can run Windows at 640x480x256 instead of 640x480x16. It may be that your present board is upgradable. What I mean is that some boards just need more memory added to them to allow for this new mode (you would still need a driver). Your video board may already allow for 640x400x256 (check with the manufacturer). You will still need to obtain the video driver from the manufacturer to use this mode in Windows. Questions about viewing pcx pictures with you windows painting program: Question: I have a beautiful picture that I use as wallpaper. When I view a picture converted with GIF2PCX it goofs up all of the colors in my wallpaper picture. If I close the painting program, everything goes back to normal. If I make the painting program an icon, the colors stay goofed up. Why? Answer: On a vga monitor there are 262,144 different colors. Windows picks 16 or 256 (depending on you video setup) to use as its' set of colors. The picture that you view (with paintbrush) may use a different set of 16 or 256 colors than what your wallpaper is using. To allow your pictures to be viewed properly Windows gives the painting program the ability to change Windows' set of colors. In this way your picture will have the correct colors, but since your wallpaper uses different colors, it will now be incorrect. Windows should correct this when you close your painting program, or view a picture with the same colors as Windows normally uses. *************************************************************************** Windows is a product and registered trademark of MicroSoft. The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a Service Mark owned by Compuserve Incorporated. PCX (not sure if a trademark) is a file format of ZSOFT. *************************************************************************** SHAREWARE: GIF2PCX is user supported software. You may use it for a free ten day trial period. If you find this program useful, please license the program by sending $10.00 to: Robert Voit 17743 Evener Way Eden Prairie, MN 55346 CIS-72557,256 REVISION HISTORY: version 1 - original version 1.1 - Renamed from G2P to GIF2PCX Fixed PCX file save routine Increased speed of GIF data read by 75% version 1.2 - Fixed PCX file save for odd size pictures (If some of your pictures looked strange after using ver. 1.1, try converting them again with this version.) Added the ability to enter a drive and path to the file name version 1.3 - Uses a larger stack, some pictures were not able to be converted with the smaller stack. Converted program from Quick C to Microsoft C. (runs faster) Added menuing system to obtain GIF file name. Now allows for changing of PCX filename if the PCX filename already exists. Allows ability to enter registration number, thus getting rid of shareware information.