On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Clarence Verge wrote: > > >From the google pdftotext version of: > > >http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:LddMTROxrT8:www.deakin.edu.au/~agoodman/sci204/chapter10.pdf+dib+graphics+format+origins > > > > BMP > > The Microsoft Windows Bitmap was derived from the MSP file > > format of the (black and white) Paint program in the earlier versions > > of Windows. It shares many of the characteristics (both good and > > bad) of the PCX format: simple RLE compression, late addition of > > 24-bit support, and some degree of device-dependence. Supported > > by all Windows development environments, it is universally used > > (often in conjunction with other formats) as a sort of `lowest > > common denominator' by Windows applications. > > > > I'm sure that, like QDOS, Paint was merely something that > > Billy Boy scooped up from somewhere else and put his own > > name on, but the fact remains that in the historical > > context of the desktop computer age, BMP has "always" > > been defined as the Windows Bitmap Image format. > > My limited and possibly faulty memory has entries for TI (TI-99 ?) and > Commodore computers, plus Atari and other video game manufacturers which > used Bit Mapped Images years before Bill Gates started screwing us. But then TI-99, and Commodore computers didn't use BMPs. They used their own formats of bitmaps. You are confusing the BMP format with bitmapped graphics in general. Of course, most of the first graphic formats were bit-mapped. TGA started out as a propritary bit-mapped format for some Targa "video board." It's not compressed at all PCX is a bit-mapped format from Zsoft Paint program which uses RLE compression. GIF is a bit-mapped format which uses LZW compression. JFIF is a bit-mapped format which uses JPEG compression. Etc... for about 3 dozen more bit-mapped formats. There have always been bit-mapped formats around. BMP is the *Windows* implementation of a bit-mapped format. Arachne could technically have just as easily used any of the other bit-map formats for screen dumps. > If I may offer the following entertaining quotes: > The PrintMaster Saga > A Historical "FanFact" <snip> You illustrate the point that there have been bit-maps around for a long time, thereby amply demonstrating that the Windows Bit-Map is a relatively new format for mapping pixels. > BITMAPPED DISPLAY: pioneered by XEROX PARC, draws images by setting PIXELS in > a BITMAP which is displayed on the screen. Display needing > constant refresh uses frame buffer in video RAM. Yes, EXACTLY! Why isn't Arachne using one of those bitmap formats, or even more modern GNUish ones? Why does Arachne use Windows bitmaps? > M$oft may have introduced the Device Independant Bitmap (.DIB) but that > is no reason to associate their name with the much older general application > - although I recognize that you can find many references which do exactly > that. Why do you seem to equate Windows BitMap with Bitmap in general? A BMP is a data dump with specifically formatted headers, with certain allowed data in a certain arrangement. All I'm saying is that any data dump could be used, even one without those Windows-formatted headers. Why not use one of those alternatives? > Given enough time, we will see that this message has the 'properties' of > a Microsoft Windows .TXT file, and someone will document that fact, and > someone else will accept it. :(( The difference is that a BMP *IS* the Microsoft format of a bitmap screen dump. To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure what you're arguing any more... but to restate my position, just so I can remind myself where I am in all this, I think it started when I said that PDF's should be used only for printing documents or conveying information that must retain a specific formatting, and that BMP's should remain where they belong, on Windows. That is not to say I'm against all bit-maps! That would be ludicrous. I'm saying that the Windows bit-map format should stay on Windows machines, and other bitmap formats should be used in non-Windows applications. I know you're biased in their favor, since you like to zip them up and call them ZBMs. <shrug> You could just as easily zip up a TGA file and call *that* a ZBM. - Steve
