                       BlackTiger SMPTE Color Bars for Windows
About the program:

BTBARS.EXE is a program that displays a sizeable window containing
an industry standard NTSC SMPTE Color Bars test pattern. It is likely
to be more cute than useful. The color bars that are created for the
window are mathematically accurate but are somewhat limited by your
windows color palette. Windows will dither the pixels in order to
display colors that are not contained in its limited palette. This may
not be the case with true color video boards. The color bars 
generated by the program can be used to check the 
display on computer monitors as well as video output boards. 

Requirements:

BTBARS will run on any computer running Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later.
The Microsoft runtime library VBRUN200.DLL "MUST" be on your system for the 
software to work. To determine if you have the runtime file look in 
your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory for the file "VBRUN200.DLL" if you do not 
have this file on your system it can be found on various BBS's and is 
included with many shareware windows programs. If you wish you may send 
$5.00 to BlackTiger Software at the address below and I will send you a 
copy of the program as well as the runtime library on a disk.

Running the program:

To use the program simply copy it to your windows directory and run it as 
you would any other windows program, either through program manager or file 
manager. When the color bars window is displayed on the screen you may use 
the mouse to re-size the window to any portion of the screen or use the 
maximise, minimise and restore buttons to control the size of the color 
bars window, the color bars signal will be regenerated to fill any size 
window you choose. 

If you click the mouse button anywhere in the color bars window you 
will see a short menu. Choose Add 7.5 ire set-up to adjust the black
level of the bars created. Choose About for more information regarding
the program.

There is no on-line help for this program because it is simply not 
necessary.

Conclusion:

This program was created as an exercise in programming in Microsoft's
Visual Basic. As I said it is likely to be more fun than functional but I 
thought it might be of some use or enjoyment to someone out there so I am 
releasing it as shareware. If you enjoy this program all I ask is for 
a $5.00 contribution to help me offset the costs of its development. In 
exchange I will send you a disk with the program and runtime library on it. 

Other Products:

BlackTiger Software has other products that might be of interest to video 
professionals. If you need more accuracy than BTBARS can produce we offer 
NTSCTSTS a D.O.S. based test signal generator that can create color bars 
as well as several other popular test signals. We also offer BTFONT a DOS 
based VGA character generator that can be used to create video titles. If 
you need more information or copies of the shareware versions of these 
programs just drop me a note along with the $5.00 registration fee for 
BTBARS and I will send you along a disk of the shareware versions of 
these programs. I am sorry that I must request that you send the 
registration fee before I can mail out the shareware disks but I simply 
cannot afford to mail out the disks without the registration fee. Both of 
these programs are also available via normal shareware channels as well as 
on CompuServe.

ShareWare Statement:

BtBars is being released as ShareWare by BlackTiger Software. This software 
is NOT in the public domain it is copyrighted material. You are permitted 
to use this software as well as distribute it to others or upload it to 
bulletin board systems as long as the software is unchanged in any way 
and all the files are transmitted together as a group. You are granted 
permission by the author to use the software for as long as you like. 
A $5.00 registration fee is "requested" if you enjoy the program.

This is my third attempt at a shareware distribution. The first was a 
modestly large application program that I distributed with a 
requirement of a $25.00 fee. The second was a large complex application that 
I required a $100 registration fee for. I must say that the responses in 
the way of registrations have been extremely poor. Less than 1/10th of 
one percent of the number of downloads from CompuServe alone have been 
registered. I cannot believe that the applications have met with that 
much unfavourable response as I have got nothing but praises from those 
who did bother to register them. The sad fact is that 99% of the 
registrations that I did get were from corporate facilities, this means 
that the only people who do register shareware are those that have 
something to loose by not doing so, or have computer department heads who 
make sure that their software is legal. I feel that it is a shame that 
people would use software and not think that the people who created that 
software should be compensated for it. 

With this release I am going to try an new twist. I have not placed any 
annoying "REGISTER THIS SOFTWARE" screens in the program. I am not even 
saying that you MUST register, I am only asking that you voluntarily give 
me a $5.00 contribution. I feel that this is the least that a user could 
do and since I will not be sending out books and disks with the 
registrations I will not be forced to absorb the printing and duplication 
costs for books and packaging for registrations that may never come in. 

If you would like to register your copy of BTBARS or for more information 
on other BlackTiger products please contact:

BlackTiger Software
5839 Argonne Blvd.
New Orleans, LA 70124

CompuServe E-mail # - 73007,1521

(c)-1992 BlackTiger Software

