
			Robot Helper
                        ------------

	Copyright 1993-1996  W.J. Montgomery VE3EC

Last changed: 11-NOV-96 (see release notes at end)

Introduction

  Robot Helper is a Mirosoft Windows 3.1 application designed to assist
in the use of a Robot 1200c color scan converter. Robot Helper (RH) permits
slow scan tv images to be stored on your hard disk and provides an easy to
use disk storage manager, complete with thumbnail previews of all images.
Images can be displayed in two on-screen full color preview windows before
uploading them to the 1200c scan converter. A separate panel allows you to
control the operation and mode of the 1200c  directly from within RH. 
Robot Helper comunicates with the 1200c through a standard 8255 based
interface. The interface port addresses are fully configurable from within
the software.
  Robot Helper will also run in the background under Windows, permitting the
simultaneous use of other Windows programs to provide paintbox and image
processing functions. Images may be also stored on remote servers and 
accessed over a local area network (LAN). Clip-art images can also be
loaded directly off CD ROMs.

  NOTICE: Robot Helper is a Shareware software product. You are encouraged
to give it a try for a short period of time and to upload it (without
changes) to any BBS or On-Line service.
If you find the program useful and wish to continue to use it past the
short (ie 10 days) evaluation period you are requested to register the
software by sending a cheque or money order for $45 US funds to:
					
		William Montgomery VE3EC
		482 Townsend Ave.
		Burlington, Ontario
		Canada.  L7T 2B3

 Registered users will receive a copy of the current release of Robot Helper
and a printed users manual. Further development of the product is supported by
your shareware registeration fees.
 New versions of Robot Helper will be made available through BBS systems and
InterNet FTP sites. Current distribution sites include:

	o The Antenna Farm BBS, SYSOP Brian Summers VE3DUO,
	  (905) 637-4026, 9600 baud V.32, &  2400 baud.

	o The 'Kookie BBS' at (419) 562-6327 [if BBS available]

	o The Dallas Remote Imaging BBS (214) 394-7438

	o ftp.cciw.ca  /pub/u124/sstv anonymous InterNet FTP site.

	o ftp.ucsd.edu  /pub/hamradio/sstv anonymous InterNet FTP site.

	o CompUServe (GO HAMNET)

 The author can be contacted via Internet email at:

	 William.Montgomery@cciw.ca



Installation Notes

1/If you downloaded RH from a BBS...
	Unzip the file to a 1.44 meg (or 1.2 meg) floppy and run the
setup program on the floppy from within the File Manager. If you have
a RH.KEY file, place it in the same directory as you intalled RH.EXE.
You should then have RH.EXE, RH.INI, RH.HLP, and RH.KEY together in the
same directory.

2/ If you registered and received a setup disk...
	Insert the disk into a floppy drive. From within the Windows File
Manager double click on the SETUP.EXE file on the floppy. Next, use the 
File Manager to copy the RH.KEY (Registration File) from the floppy
disk into the directory where you installed Robot Helper (RH).


	The setup utility will update some of the Windows DLL files 
during installation. If you receive any messages during installation that
file xxx.dll is locked or in use, you should quite out of any other
Windows programs or drivers that may be using (& locking...) Windows DLL's.


Notes:
	If your 8255 ports are not at the 'standard' 300HEX address you
should change the default port settings (Edit Menu->Setup) before
sending any images to the Robot. Just run Robot Helper and select
'Setup' from the edit menu. The ports dialog box also allows you to
increase the data delay to the 8255 interface and Robot 1200. On some
fast machines ( 486 and up...) you may have to increase the dalay
value to obtain reliable data communications with the Robot. On fast 
computers it may also have to use fast (10 MHz) 8255A interface chips
in both the Robot 1200 and the pc interface card, or add a 'wait state'
to I/O cycles using your PC's setup program (Advanced Options Menu).

Note:	If you are running in 8 bit (256 colors) VGA mode you will 
	notice somewhat long delays whenever Windows must generate
	a new color palette to try to match the real color images.
	Robot Helper is MUCH FASTER when used with a 16 bit HiColor VGA
	card or 24 bit TrueColor card. Image processing is poor at 
	best on 8 bit cards.

...........................................................................

Release Notes

14-NOV-93 	Version 1.0b2	Initial release. 
16-NOV-93	Version 1.0b3	Fix for port setup in b2. Last minute directory default
				shuffle caused 1.0b2 to look for the RH.INI
				file in the 'Windows' directory instead of the
				default installation directory with RH.EXE.
19-NOV-93	Version 1.0b4	Includes new (updates) to THREED.DLL,SS3D2.DLL
				and SS3D3.DLL. This should fix the Gen Fault in
				user.com error that was sometimes showing up
				when clicking on the menu bar in the storage 
				manager.
				Added bank switch buttons on the preview window
				control panel.
				* Note: If you get a "Function or Sub not
				        defined" error message, you probably 
					have an older version of 'SSTV.DLL'
					somewhere on your disk. This older
					version is about 4K and should be
					removed.

7-DEC-93	Version 1.1b2	Moved Robot controls to a separate panel.
				Added support for selecting Robot modes and
				speeds.
				Added Windows Help support. 
				Added EPROM select to setup window (ports).
				
11-DEC-93	Version 1.1	First Release Version
				Minor changes from 1.1b2
____________________________________________________________________________

05-JAN-94	Version 1.2b3	Final 1.2 beta
				1.2 includes:
					-Support for low resolution images.
					-Clear preview window buttons.
					-Brightness, Contrast, and Color controls.
					-Slide show.
					-Color Keyed Load/Save clusters.
					-Double click load support in Storage Manager.

15-JAN-94	Version 1.2.1	-fix minor shareware date timeout problem.
				-removed OLE2 references.

16-JAN-94	Version 1.2.2	-added support for a transfer delay. This should prevent very
				 fast PC's from overrunning the input buffer in the Robot 1200C.
				-if you experience lockup problems when talking to the Robot
				 you should use the setup panel (ports etc...) to increase the 
				 delay value. 386 machines can generally run with values of 0.
				-Note: fast PCs may require the use of an 8255A-2 PIA chip in
				 both the interface card and the Robot 1200C.

11-MAR-94	Version 1.2.3	-now saves positions of the four windows in the RH.INI file
				-new splash screen.

___________________________________________________________________

*** Note: Starting with version 2, Robot Helper must be run on a 386
	  or greater cpu.


7-MAY-94	Version 2.0b1	- Version 2 now based on ImageKnife VBX.
				- Improved 8 bit color support.
				- Image autoscaling to 256 X 240
				- Now does Targa (.TGA), TIFF (.TIF), PCX, GIF,
				  JPEG (.JPG), HIRes (.HRZ), GEST (.IMG), BMP,
				  and DIB images.
				  (distribution: Beta testers only)

8-MAY-94	Version 2.0b2	- Added missing JPEGIO.DLL to distribution.
				- made load image error handler more verbose.
				 (distribution: Beta testers only)

21-MAY-94	Version 2.0b3	- Revamped SetUp.EXE
				- Removed reference to DDEML.DLL in setup.
				(distribution: Beta testers only)

23-MAY-94	Version 2.0	- Frozen for release if no problems are
				  reported in the B3 vesrion.

___________________________________________________________________

01-OCT-94	Version 2.1b1	- Corrected problem with attempting to save
				  images or generate previews to R/O media.
				- Fixed scrolling problem in FO_GRID
				- Added trap for double clickers in change
				  drive control. (Double click to change
				  directories, single click to select drive.)
				- Warn if you save an image with the same name
				  as an existing image.
				- Added a brightness histogram display in each
				  preview window.
				- Added centering buttons for preview slide 
				  controls. ( these double as processing
				  indicators)
				- Added a 'sharpness' image control.
				- Fixed scroll bar corruption in sliders.
				- Added some image modifiers to the previews.
				  ( Flip H or V, Rotate CW/CCW, invert color,
				    Black&White, Blur, Clear to Black)
				- TX mode is now forced to the Robot when the
				  [transmit] button is pressed. Cleaned up mode
				  interaction.
				- Added 'turbo load' buttons to the storage
				  manager. These load both the preview window
				  and the 1200 with a single press.
				- Slideshow control cleanup.

08-OCT-94	Version 2.1b2	- Fixed Load 1200 bug in Preview 1 that
				  crept in at the last minute.
	
12-OCT-94	Version 2.1b3	- Changed B&C processing

21-OCT-94	Version 2.1b4	- Corrected Martin Mode set problem and
				  'Q' clipping in mode speed labels.
01-NOV-94	Version 2.1	-Release Version

___________________________________________________________________________


05-NOV-94	Version 2.1.1	-Fixed bug where save preview one would require
				 two clicks after changing drives.

24-DEC-94			-Fixed slide show latchup bug.
				-Minor fix for image sliders during preview.


___________________________________________________________________________

20-MAY-95	Version 2.2b1	-added buttons lock out during TX operation
				 and 'ON AIR' display
				-fixed bug where thumbnail scrollbar would 
				 not show.
				-during slide shows Preview 1 is now brought
				 to the front.
				-fixed autoscale in preview 2 in 1024 X 768
				 VGA mode.
				-added user settable 'Auto Grab' feature.
				-corrected histogram display generation
				 algorithm.
				-added code that forces the top few lines to
				 be filled with grey scale bars when selecting
				 'Scotty' or 'Martin'.
				-some users have reported that if an older 
				 version of file VBRUN300.DLL is present, the
				 'newer' VBRUN300 that comes with Robot Helper
				 will not get installed. If this should occure
				 you should delete the 'older' VBRUN300.DLL 
				 file on your hard disk and reinstall Robot 
				 Helper.
				-slide show now causes the thumbnails to 
				 track with the show.
				-added Copy and Paste functions in previews.
				 This currently only supports copying DIB
				 (Device Independant Bitmap) clippings. These
				 are the most common clipboard objects when
				 dealing with image processing and (advanced)
				 painting programs. Future versions may
				 support DDB clippings also.
				    If no selection rectangle is drawn, the
				 whole Preview image is the source or target
				 of the Copy/Paste operation. When pasting into
				 a preview window clippings are scaled to fit
				 the selection rectangle (if any).
				- Note: I would like to have Robot Helper
				 run under Windows 95 in the future. The 
				 current versions are mostly functional under
				 Windows 95 final Beta with the following
				 exceptions: 1/ the installer may complain a 
				 bit but seems to work, 2/ selection rectangles
				 are not visible (may be the VGA driver on my
				 Win95 test machine.)

22-MAY-95	Version 2.2b2	-fixed slide show problem. (Not related to 
				Windows 95. )

26-May-95	Version 2.2b3	(internal)
				-fixed problem with display of directories with
				only one image.
	
31-MAY-95	Version 2.2	Release Version

05-SEP-95	Version 2.2.1	Release
				This is basically a 'bug-fix' version.
				A somewhat nastey bug was introduced in version
				2.2 whith the addition of the [ON AIR] display
				and lockout of buttons the could talk to the
				Robot 1200. The basic idea works but RH had to
				read the front panel status during TX to
				determine when TX was done. This seemed to
				work fine (or at least the beta testers
				didn't catch it...) but some clones had major
				problems with slanted pictures during TX.
				On further investigation it appears that all
				1200s have increased 'jitter' in the image
				during TX. It appears that the 1200 gets
				upset when you request front panel status on
				a regular basis while it is trying to TX.
				Version 2.2.1 changes the TX lockout routine
				so that instead of requesting status from the
				Robot it uses a simple timer to determine the
				TX status.

				Bill DeWitt W2DD has also pointed out that RH
				will not handle all of his HiRez (.HRZ)
				images. It appears that there is a second
				HiRez image file format that is similar to the
				GEST C1 format and uses about 138K instead
				of the (Raw) 184K. Bill is sending me some
				files for testing and I expect to support
				the compressed (packed) HiRez files in a 
				future release.

22-FEB-96	Version 2.2.2	Release
				This is just a bug fix release to address the
				preview window selection rectangle problem.
				Under Windows 95 the copy/paste selection
				border would not show up. This has been corrected.

21-AUG-96	Version 2.2.3	Release
				This is just a bug fix version tha corrects a problem
				when saving minimized window locations under
				Windows 95.

11-NOV-96	Vesrion 2.2.3a	Install Correction
				When building the setup program for version 2.2.2 and
				2.2.3 several DLL's used by setup were replaced by the
				newer Windows 95 versions. This caused problems when 
				installing RH under Win 3.1 or 3.1.1. 
				The DLLs have now been replaced with their Windows 3.1
				versions which should work fine when installing under
				Win 3.1, 3.1.1 (Workgroups), or Win95.
				The DLLs involved are: (compressed form)
							COMMDLG.DL_
							SHELL.DL_
							VER.DL_
				For those wishing to 'update' their RH 2.2.3 distribution
				disk without downloading the full .ZIP file you can just
				FTP the above .DLLs from ftp.cciw.ca/pub/u124/SSTV and
				copy them over the files on your distribution disk (or a 
				copy of your disk...)
				NOTE: This problem does not affect Windows 95 users.



 
