C64VIEW for MS-DOS v0.5.1
(c)1995, 1997, 2002 Cameron Kaiser.
Distributed by Computer Workshops Inc.
All rights reserved.

Visit the C64VIEW home page at http://www.armory.com/%7Espectre/cwi/c64view/

This is version 0.5.1 of this venerable utility, first appearing in 1995,
that allows you to view most major C64 image formats on your icky PC.

New in version 0.5.1 is more robust image format detection and support
for plain 8K bitmaps with some sundry bug fixes.

Please note that while C64VIEW is FREEWARE, it is NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN.
These restrictions apply, with exceptions granted only IN WRITING:

* You may in general freely copy, disseminate and distribute this original
  archive to your heart's content free of charge AS LONG AS THIS
  DISTRIBUTION IS NOT MODIFIED. In particular, do not add files to it,
  do not delete files from it, and most of all do not change files in it.

* YOU MAY NOT CHARGE MONEY FOR C64VIEW! EXCEPTIONS:
  * Magazines with a cover price less than US$10 may include C64VIEW on
    their cover media.
  * PD/shareware distributors who charge for media and copying should get
    my written consent.

* Since this software is FREE, your usage of it is AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!
  I endeavour to make this program act as advertised, but should it
  decide to destroy your system, it's not my problem.

System Requirements

Any Intel-based PC with MS-DOS 5.0 or higher (recommended at least 386SX)
512KB RAM (recommended 4MB)
VGA graphics

Older versions allowed EGA support, but this was removed as of 0.499.x.
C64VIEW has been tested on Windows 95/98/ME and NT 4.0. It has not yet been
tested on Windows 2000 and Windows XP, but should work without difficulty.

Usage

To use C64VIEW interactively, simply type

C64VIEW

and, after admiring the copyright message and elegantly minimal prompt,
enter the desired filename. Otherwise, you can type

C64VIEW [filename]

to skip the shaking hands and pleasantries, and go straight for the gold.
If C64VIEW can make sense out of the file, it will be displayed. Press any
key to return to DOS. Filetypes supported include:

* Doodle! (.DD)
* KoalaPainter (.KOA)
* Flexidraw (.FLX)
* Print Shop Screen Magic (displayed in inverse) (.PSM)
* any generic 1K colourmap (.CM)
* any generic 8K bitmap

Some representative images are included for your viewing pleasure. The
file extensions above are suggested only and make no difference to
C64VIEW, as it does not use them to determine the image type.

Since there is no colour information with 8K bitmaps, they are always
displayed black-on-white (which is why Print Shop Screen Magic images
appear reversed).

C64VIEW for DOS does not include the built-in Save feature of the Macintosh
version. Fortunately, you can simply put the screen into windowed mode
under Windows and take a screenshot that way; or, if you are DOS-only or
Windows 3.x only, you can use any of the old TSRs supporting screen capture,
such as NeoGrab (with the NeoPaint package). SimTel and other archives
should have these by the boatload.

C64VIEW has been taught to be much more tolerant of subtle munging of images
(in fact, sharp-eyed people will notice some of the included test images
are themselves mildly munged). Nevertheless, should C64VIEW choke on an
image, it will return two sometimes useful values. The first is the high
byte of the file's apparent C64 starting address (recall the first two bytes
of a C64 .prg are the file's starting address in memory, in 6502 big endian
format). The second is the length of the file, which may be zero in badly
damaged files. If C64VIEW coughs on a file that is in fact valid (please do
ensure the file is indeed valid, with no truncation or tacked-on bytes),
please include these values with your bug report. Speaking of which ...

Contact Information

Report all bugs and guileless adoration to spectre@deepthought.armory.com.

Report all venom, vitriol and complaints to binladen@bombed.cave.af.mil.
Include words such as 'Yankee' and 'imperialism' for quickest response.

Future Improvements

Perhaps some feature to save in a trivial format such as Targa. The reason
the save feature is in the Mac version and not here, besides the fact I
prefer to work harder on my Mac, is that the development system I used for
the Mac has an actual primitive for taking PICT-format screenshots. Turbo
Pascal 5.5, alas, does not. Before you ask why the heck am I using TP5.5,
it's because a) it's now free b) I'm used to it c) it makes binaries that
run on just about any PC. So there.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?

