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                           VicShow v.09 beta              
               (c)1997 by ALBION & COLOR7 Productions!    
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1.Copyright

This is freeware program and you may use it as long as you want. It can be
also freely distributed in oryginal package as long as no payment is
charged. Disassembling,reprogramming,hacking or using any part of
executable file is prohibited without written permission of the autor!

2.Introduction

This utility was fully designed by Piotr Tracz a.k.a KaeMEGie/Albion.
VicShow allow you display oryginal Commodore 64's FLI & FLI-lace
graphic formats using any ms-dos compatible machines. It can also
save showed FLI graphic to BMP format. The engine is based upon my
VicStudio C64 - powerfull converter for C64 which can convert all
kind of graphic from C64>PC / PC>C64. The whole program is totally
written in 80x86 Assembler which made it very short and fast - I do
hate all programs which doesn't do anything special and takes megabytes
of my HDD space, Windowz'95 is my favourite :)

3.Hardware Requirments

VicShow hasn't big requirments - everything it needs is an ms-dos
compatible machine with 80386 processor and standart VGA graphic card -
monsters kinda Matrox Milenium II are strongly not recomendet! :)

4.Using

VicShow is a command-line utility designed to be used with a Norton
Commander (and all similar) program.

vicshow.exe [options] filename_of_c64_graphic_file

where options can be:
-m :enables mixed colors during viewing FLI-lace graphic
-i :enables interlace mode (like in oryginal C64!)

There is no any restrictions to the filename_of_c64_graphic_file as
VicShow will automatically decide does file is supported C64 graphic
or not. Despite, I sugest you will give all your C64's gfx files the
same extension, feg. ".f64".

Meantime,graphic is showing you can press key "Print" and VicShow
will save it as a BMP file - but only if -i option isn't used!

5.Supported Graphic Formats

FunPainter II
FLI-Designer

As the C64 graphic files has no headers it's quite hard to determine
file format - VicShow checks only the first two bytes (in C64 used
as load-address). Noting unexpected doesn't take place if you order
it to show any not C64 gfx file which it will determine as C64 gfx!

6.How To Get The Newest Version Of VicShow?

The newest versions can be founded at ALBION HQ PAGE:
http://biotop.umcs.lublin.pl/~ptracz (in download zone)
Color7 Productions On-Line:
http://biotop.umcs.lublin.pl/~ptracz/color7

Also at these ftp sites:
ftp.inf.bme.hu/pub/c64
ftp.scs-trc.net/pub/c64
replay.com/pub/c64
ftp.hacktic.nl/pub/c64
ftp.padua.org/pub/c64


7.Special Regards & Greetings

I would like send friendly waves to my all friends (especialy to
Albion & Color7 members), contacts, and all people I met during my
5 years scene experience. And to all good spirited and romantic
people around this lame world...

8.The Future Of VicShow

In next versions I would like to include the following features:
-new file formats supported (AFLI,SHI,SHIFLI,MCI,...)
-graphic interface using VESA extensions
-reading from D64 disk images
-using compresed FunPaint II files
- ... who know?!

8.Contacking The Autor

If you'd like to contact me from any reason then feel free to write
under below addys. But please notice, I'm too busy to trade stuff for
C64/PC exept quality tools and other warez (Guess what I mean?!).
I'm also interested in swapping C64/PC sound modules composed by
those all legendary and old C64's musicians kinda Vibrants,etc...


PIOTR TRACZ
ST.PKP 21A
22-361 ZULIN
POLAND

e-mail (prefered!)
PTRACZ@AJAX.UMCS.LUBLIN.PL
PTRACZ@BIOTOP.UMCS.LUBLIN.PL

irc (sometime!)
#C-64, nick: kmeg_ALB

Signed:
Piotr Tracz,10-11-97



