Agreed. HIDE interphase could be much more useful.
But I hope, abilities of pictconv and libpipi are added too. These conversion algorhythms create very nice results but usually little retouches are needed. Instead of drawing a picture from the scratch, the utility should load a picture from PC, convert it to oric-style screen and let us edit it with HIDE-like interphase..
When I am creating a picture for the Oric, first I load the picture with modern times graphic editor like paintshop etc. Then I resize it to 240x200 and decrease the colour palette to 8 with predefined oric colors. Then I load that picture with libpipi, convert it to tap image, open oricutron, load HIDE and edit & retouch it under oric emulation.. So diffucult steps..
Maybe creating such an utility is too diffucult for one person but collaboration with creators of pictconv might be needed..
The idea might be utopic but I hope it would come true one day
Orixel seems to be really really effective program and gave me hope for such advanced programs ...
I have another suggestion with Orixel if its going to use BASIC conversion. Instead of creating many lines of DRAW, CURSET, CURMOV, CIRCLE commands, the code can be simplified and shortened by graphic drawing data. For example
Code: Select all
5 HIRES
10CURSET115,97,3:CIRCLE51,1:CURSET75,68,1:DRAW81,0,1:DRAW0,59,1
20DRAW-81,0,1:DRAW0,-59,1:CURSET110,99,3:CIRCLE27,1:CURSET110,74,1
30DRAW-24,29,1:DRAW45,12,1:DRAW-20,-43,1
40 W=6:T$="Oric":CURSET105,133,3
50FORI=1TO LEN(T$):CHAR ASC(MID$(T$,I)),0,1:DRAW W,0,3:NEXTI
INSTEAD
Code: Select all
5 HIRES
10 READ C$
30 IF C$="S" THEN READ X,Y,FB:CURSET X,Y,FB:GOTO 10
40 IF C$="M" THEN READ X,Y,FB:CURMOV X,Y,FB::GOTO 10
50 IF C$="C" THEN READ X,FB:CIRCLE X,FB:GOTO 10
60 IF C$="D" THEN READ X,Y,FB:DRAW X,Y,FB:GOTO 10
70 IF C$="T" THEN GOSUB 83 :GOTO 10
75 IF C$="F" THEN READ X,Y,X1,Y1,C:CURSETX,Y,3:FILL X1,Y1,C:GOTO 10
80 END
83 READ T$,X,Y:CURSETX,Y,3
85 FORI=1TO LEN(T$):CHAR ASC(MID$(T$,I)),0,1:DRAW 6,0,3:NEXTI
87 RETURN
90 DATA S,115,97,3,C,51,1,S,75,68,1,D,81,0,1,D,0,59,1
100 DATA D,-81,0,1,D,0,-59,1,S,110,99,3,C,27,1,S,110,74,1
110 DATA D,-24,29,1,D,45,12,1,D,-20,-43,1,T,"Oric",105,133
120 DATA END
For easy drawings there's no problem but think of hundreds of lines with cursets, curmovs etc, such simplification really shorteN the resulting code.