[Coco] VEF Format Details

[Willard Goosey]

On Fri, Jan 01, 2010 at 06:24:25PM -0600, Joel Ewy wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> Does anybody know if it is possible to make a .VEF file with a number of 
> rows <>200?  More properly, is there a way to specify the number of 
> lines in the header, and do programs like 'view' understand that?  
> Specifically, does the standard support 192-line or 225-line images?

Unfortunately, no.  I've got the closest thing to a standard
specificiation at http://www.sdc.org/~goosey/vef.format.txt I typed it
in from the MVCanvas docs by Mike Haaland of Hyper-Tech Software,
1989, updated 03/22/90.

Briefly, the VEF header is:
A two byte VEF Header.  Header Values are in Hexadecimal

Standard   Squashed  Screen Type  Screen size   Colors
-------------------------------------------------------
0000       8000       08          320x200       16
0001       8001       07          640x200        4
0003       8003       06          320x200        4
0004       8004       05          640x200        2

16 bytes palette information

Picture Data:

I haven't had any trouble from other programs with short (24-line)
VEFs. 

View does have a command-line option to specify how many lines at the
start of the file to skip, but I don't know if that would get you to
the bottom part of a 225-line VEF or not.

For 192-line screens, it seems the standard is to ignore the first 8
lines of the VEF.

Good luck!

Willard
-- 
Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
Socorro, New Mexico, USA
I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.
  -- R.E. Howard