Welcome to the dotView website. It is a Wheels-only (GEOS) program that can view 4-Bit files generated by GoDot and ConGo. dotView is a true switch-hitter, running in any mode, Wheels 64 - 40 column or Wheels 128 - 40/80 columns. For more information on the Wheels operating system itself, click on the CMDRKey website link.
What are 4-Bit files?!?
Glad you asked... The short explanation is that the file format simply has a bitmap of 320x200 resolution with 4-bit color depth, or more accurately, having a 4-bit brightness range. This is the native file format for GoDot, an image manipulation program for the Commodore 64. ConGo, a Windows-based program, can also manipulate these kind of files. I hope to go into detail at a later point about 4-bit files, but for now, its bitmap structure lends itself a lot of much needed flexibility in terms of image manipulation.
Sounds interesting - Show me some samples!
I refer you to GoDot's website, where you can find out more information about GoDot itself, and how it works generally as an image manipulation program. The 4-bit file format is flexible enough to support nearly all of these graphics modes. Quite impressive, eh? dotView currently only supports multi-color viewing of 4-bit files under the comfort of the Wheels operating system. The latest addition enables dotView to display 4-bit clip files generated by either GoDot or ConGo. 4-Bit clip files can be as small as 8x8 pixels to as large as 2040x2040 pixels in size.The renderizer routines are hard at work, decoding 4-Bit data...
which magically results in a very nice picture of a lady!
I'm sold. How do I get it?
Easy there on the wallet, thy Commodore GEOS Enthusiast. It's released as freeware, so that people who are currently using GoDot and ConGo can create 4-bit files and be assured that their creations can easily be viewed under the Wheels (GEOS) operating system. However, it is a BETA program and some warnings still apply:
This is a beta version. This is a disk-intensive program. While it only reads files and does not actually create or write any data to a disk device, there may be a possibility, however remote, that the dotView program will trash your disks, partitions, directories and files. I have taken every steps which I believe will promote the safety and integrity of every users' GEOS systems that it will eventually run under. You may be very well advised to try out the dotView program on partitions, directories and files that you can 'afford' to lose. The *old* caveat, even true during the heyday of Berkeley Softworks, is to always BACKUP your important files.
With this in mind, you agree to not to hold me, Arndt Dettke, and/or Maurice Randall liable for any losses that you may have incurred as the result of using the dotView program. The losses may include actual loss of file(s), loss of labor, loss of time, actual monetary losses and any possible loss that may arise from such use of the dotView program. Creating this dotView program is truly a labor of love for our Commodore machines and is not a money-making endeavor, and let's not tarnish it with any unnecessary unpleasantries.
If you accept the conditions and warnings that comes with the dotView program, please feel free to download the program and documentation. I thank you for your time and willingness to fully test out this program. I will look forward to your input, feedback, questions, comments, etc. which allows me to further refine and improve dotView for the Wheels (GEOS) operating system. Please help out by doing some of the following:
- Posting bug reports. Please try to be specific as much as you can to help me pinpoint the problem and to fix it.
- Give user interface suggestions. I may implement them or not.
- Followups, comments, Replies, bug reports, etc. must be made either by private email to [email protected] or [email protected]. (preferred) Let's not clutter other emailing lists.
I want to try out the program!
Great! Before you download the program, dotView does have some requirements:
- Wheels (GEOS) Operating System. Does not work in GEOS 64 or 128 v2.0 nor MegaPatch3 64 or 128 versions.
- At least 64Kb of free RAM in any RAM expansion device. Please note that any ram expansion device supported by Wheels is just fine with dotView, as long as 64Kb can be made available. You may need to adjust the size of your ramdisk in order to free up this room.
- 40 column monitor. Yes, dotView can run in either 40 or 80 column modes of Wheels 64 and 128 operating modes. But, in order to view 4-Bit files in multicolor format, you need to have a 40 column monitor, or a 40/80 column monitor.
If you have all of that, then all you need to do is to download the following program, dotView B0.3 to your Commodore 8-bit computer setup. You need to run an unzip utility and a convert utility in order to convert this file back to the GEOS format. The docs (in geoWrite v2.1 format) are included in the archive.
I've got it - Now what?
Here's a ZIP archive which contains fifteen 4-bit files for you to
try out with dotView. Additionally, there is a 4-Bit Clip sample archive for your viewing pleasure. For more 4-Bit graphics images and clips, Arndt Dettke hosts a 4-bit file archive at the Godot's 4-Bit Archives. Here's a description of the 4-bit files in the archive: (Arndt Dettke contributed most of the comments here.)
- mars - Was a standard multicolor demo (or game) image, don't know by whom.
- amalienburg - A famous castle, also a multicolor image, took it from an old 64'er Mag disk.
- tree - Not quite sure which image that is. (Looks like a tree and its reflection on a pond.)
- time masters - A GoDot scan from an American book about the history of Science Fiction. Can look for the painter if you like. (This is Todd's personal favorite.)
- rayhouse - Ditto.
- buckrogers - And again: Ditto.
- friends - This is a GoDot scan from a very old family newspaper of the 18th/early 19th century.
- skyscrapers - Once was a Windows clipart photo.
- spacewalk - This is famous. Don't know where I actually took it from.
- superman - GoDot scan from a Comic Magazine.
- tigress - Hehe, I got this picture as a GeoPaint image, and converted it for GoDot use with ConGo.
- astro - This must be astronaut Bean on the moon (Apollo 17?), it's actually NASA copyrighted. Don't know where I got it from (that 64'er disk?).
- eyes4u - Again a Windows clipart picture.
- handball - This too.
- street - And this too.
- cclogo - Commodore Currents logo.
- eyethcatcher - Pug Dog with a catcher's mask.
- Marlene - Picture of a woman w/ cigarette.
- Shadowman - Red Hat logo.
- toddhome - Picture of the author hacking away at his Commodore.
- wave - The WAVE logo.
What are the goals for dotView?!?
My goal is to enable dotView to display 4-Bit image information in a wide variety of graphics modes possible on a C64/128 computer, all within the comforts of the Wheels (GEOS) environment.
Enjoy using dotView!
Legalese for this website.
This page is Copyrighted (c) 2003 by Todd Elliott. The content cannot be reproduced elsewhere without express permission by Todd Elliott. Howevever, content can be used in a recognized Commodore 8-bit oriented printed publication as long as the publication does not alter the content and provides the WWW link of this website.
This website makes no express or implied warranties of any sort and is purely informative and entertaining of nature. This website recognizes all registered trademarks as belonging to their respective owners and/or licensees, and no infringement is intended.
In particular, Commodore is a trademark controlled by an exclusive licensee, Ironstone Partners, Ltd. CMD and GEOS are trademarks controlled by a licensee, Maurice Randall dba Click Here Software. If you believe this website has infringed on any kind of intellectual property, please let me know and I'll work with you on remedying such infringement.
This website has been created in WordPad, all 100% hand-coded HTML. It should work in all modern webbrowsers such as Netscape, Internet Explorer, Opera, LYNX, Hyperlink and the WAVE. Enjoy navigating and reading this website.