🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3dsgid$4k6@access1.digex.net>, malak@access1.digex.net (Michael Malak) says:
>

>I need to create a CD-ROM for the purposes of marketing and demonstrating
>our DOS-based software.  
<snip>

>1.  Are there any competitors to Instant Replay Professional by Lifeboat
>Publishing (i.e. create demos including animation playback that run under DOS)?  
>
>b.  Display 1024x768x256 images directly if the system running the demo
>    supports it (and other important video stuff).

If you want to stay in the DOS world, why limit yourself to a program that
only makes demos?  Sounds like you'll want to use a multimedia authoring
system in order to show off your product.  While I made a decision not
to program anymore in DOS, I have looked at the authoring systems out there
and you may want to consider Multimedia GRASP from Paul Mace Software.  It
should handle your demo just fine.  While I've only used Dan Bricklin's
Demo II program (I think that's the name), I haven't used many others; 
however, I'm not sure how well they'd handle the higher screen resolutions.
It's going to be a real pain to be able to handle all the hi-res cards your
program will be playing on and if it were me, I'd feel better with a program 
that's billed as a multimedia development tool rather than a demo tool.  


><snip>
>II. I plan to ship a CD-ROM...anyone have any suggestions for the easiest-to-
>    set-up CD-ROM; e.g., is there such a thing as a parallel-port
>    CD-ROM, and if so, what is its performance?)

Trantor used to make a parallel to SCSI converter and I think they still do,
but they're now owned by Adaptec.  I've used it with a tape backup drive and
a CDROM and it was slooooooooow.  However, their new model may be faster. So,
you could hook up a SCSI CDROM to the converter and have it appear as
another disk under DOS, if you have the appropriate drivers.

>
>Michael Malak                   Washington, DC dance info: 
>malak@access.digex.net          FTP://ftp.digex.net/pub/access/malak/schedule
>                                or e-mail me to subscribe
>

Michael, here's the bottom line:  You're going to have mondo configuration
problems under DOS.  First, you'll need the right drivers for each users
hi-res video card.  Next, they'll need to load up AND TWEAK the appropriate
drivers for whatever parallel port gizmo you buy.  All this will be done
via the CONFIG.SYS and possibly AUTOEXEC.BAT files.  And then who knows
what else your customers have on their machines that will conflict with 
those drivers. Blech...

Windows tried to make life easier for programs by taking care of all these
configuration issues for you.  If you could get your hi-res card to work
with any Windows program, it will work with all of them (and vice-versa).
You're right about the video speed problem with Windows 3.1; you will
not see an improvement until Windows '95, unless you want to program your
demo in C or C++ and use the WinG video library developed by Microsoft (but
not officially supported by them).

Sorry I couldn't give you better news.

Joel Greenberg
Freelance Multimedia Developer
Austin, TX
joelg@bga.com