A Sealed Mystery From 1984 - The IBM PC Graphical File System |

[@NCommander]

Somehow, despite watching this video dozens of times, and letting a few folks see it before hand, I managed to ship it with a major overlay typo. It's "Application", past me >.

[@vwestlife]

And at 15:25, that should be "It also had *its* own special monitor"... no apostrophe. The PGC is commonly mistakenly called "PGA", if that helps you search for more information about and software for it.

[@NCommander]

@@vwestlife Yeah, current-me is frustated at past me because of all the videos on my channel to blow up, *this* wasn't the one I expected and I can't fix the typos without reuploading. PGA makes sense because I've seen BIOS that have it listed as "EGA/VGA/PGA", I think some Award/AMI BIOS do this, and its consistent; I did search that terms, but again, not much was found.

[@fredashay]

But will it run under Linux?

[@SenileOtaku]

@@cactusjackNV I think thta was meant in a humorous sense...

[@greggv8]

Get a Canon CanoScan LiDE 210 flatbed scanner. Works with Windows XP through 10. Didn't need drivers for 10, WIA supports it. Mac drivers available for 10.6 through 10.15. I did a quick search on eBay and there are some of this model being offered for cheap $ and some for are you crazy $. A very useful feature with this scanner is it needs no power supply, gets all it needs via a USB Mini B cable. It is quite fast at scanning.

[@GetOffMyyLawn]

This almost sounds like something IBM built for a big firm like Boeing to allow them to share and print designs on their different plotters and pc's... and then repackaged it as a "generic" solution.... along with consulting hours to get it working.

[@alb12345672]

IBM used to have a CAD system, it competed with AutoCAD. Around 1991 as an Engineering student we used "IBM CAD." There is very little about this product. But it certainly looked like it came from this demo. It was used in the industry at that time. Aerospace engineers had a second term of it.

[@tschak909]

The thing to really understand here: GKS was an honest early attempt at devising a cross platform retargetable graphics system. There were GKS implementations for a smattering of different systems, the common thread being that the application code and libraries were in C. You could write a graphical program once, and take it over to a SUN workstation, or to an Apollo system, or to a PC, or to a Lisa, compile it, and it would run, reformatting itself for whatever output you wished. At least, that was the theory.

[@GothAlice]

Only a little later came PostScript, and Display PostScript, which still forms the basis for macOS and iOS display rendering today. Thanks, Steve Jobs! (At NeXT, likely due to prior association with Adobe to invent proportional fonts…) That's right, Mac displays are essentially really fancy PDFs! And with QuartzGL, also OpenGL 3D surfaces…

[@dr.shuppet5452]

@@GothAlice Wasn't Display PostScript dropped in favor of Quartz in Mac OS X?

[@casperes0912]

@@dr.shuppet5452 Yes, and later the much faster Quartz Extreme that doesn't work over PCI, only AGP or PCIe

[@greggv8]

That's what was claimed for JAVA too. Write once, run anywhere. Anywhere that has a JAVA Runtime Environment, which still doesn't include Android. I can't manage some HP printers with a smartphone because their JetDirect interfaces run JAVA.

[@thequux1]

For scanning, I recommend getting either one or two (if you want to "scan" hardcover manuals) cheap used DSLR's (DSLR because the optics and sensors tend to be *much* higher quality than point-and-shoot cameras), along with a 70mm or so lens for each. You then build a jig (or even just set up a tripod) to hold the camera at the correct distance from the camera, shine a bright light at the page, and capture it at ISO 100 (low noise), f/22 (so don't lose focus as you flip through the pages) , and it's fairly easy to capture 1-2 pages per second as you flip through the book using a remote trigger. The total cost will be around €600 for one camera or €1000 for two. This is not far off from what Google Books and the Archive team do, and they've had very good success with the approach. Automated page turning is a whole other can of worms, but you're not likely scanning at a volume where that will be a problem.

[@ntrainride]

the best way to scan books and manuals is to tear up the book and stack the pages in a scanner with a document feeder. did it for many years from microfilm to dedicated kurzweil i. c. r. "reading machine" ti the various modern scanning methodologies. all that technical optic jazz you typed doesn't really matter. the software handles it.

[@Michael_Brock]

These documents have historical value in themselves. Yes the information IS more important, but if with a little fineness you can preserve the artifact do it instead.

[@Jason-fp7vi]

You're an international treasure for archiving this and making a video about it. Great video

[@DrDavesDiversions]

3:11 lol: "Throughout the hundreds of the pages in this binder, I could not find a single simple description of what the graphical file system actually is." :) This reminds me of when I was an intern for a software company during my senior year of undergraduate college. At my manager's direction, I spent months painstakingly writing a hundreds-of-pages-long manual for the customer of my company's warehouse management (would be called "logistics software" now), in WordPerfect under VMS on a VT terminal, complete with figures in character graphics. Upon its final review by my manager, he said, "Turns out they were kind of looking for something more like a pamphlet." Ugh, the unappreciated intern's time. :)

[@alextirrellRI]

What is VMS in this context?

[@DrDavesDiversions]

@@alextirrellRI Oh, it's DEC's operating system VAX/VMS at the time, later OpenVMS: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS

[@DrDavesDiversions]

@@prozacgod I think you captured the content creator / audience relationship, and many more before it, right there! Right or wrong, for now, I am happy to do content for an audience I imagine. :) kzbin.info

[@bcarr1122]

Kudos for your dedication---surely a genuine example of "'A' for effort".

[@DrDavesDiversions]

​@@bcarr1122 Well, they offered me a full-time job when I graduated, so... yes. I have no idea if the two are connected. :)

[@tschak909]

This is literally an early implementation of GKS. Digital Research also implemented a version of this called GSX, which would become the basis for VDI in GEM. The API calls are almost exactly the same.

[@NCommander]

I did actually want to talk about GEM since they used VDI or something very close to it (the source code calls it VDI), but the video was already running very long. If you look carefully, you can see I do have GEM and publisher installed for the clips I cut for it.

[@chriswareham]

That's why it sounded familiar! My family upgraded from a Commodore 64 to the Atari ST, and I learned my C programming on that machine. The GEM environment was a great GUI to use, although a bit of a pain to program compared to the toolkits I later used on Unix machines since it was basically just a simple 2D graphics API rather than a widget library.

[@TzOk]

GEM VDI - Visual Device Interface

[@NicoDsSBCs]

I enjoyed watching this. Great content. I was a programmer in the late 90's and early 2000's. I loved it back then. I wrote a lot of code for early neural networks. Now it seems all made simple with tons of pre-written code to use, what makes it harder for beginning programmers to know what's happening behind the curtains. New sub, greetings.

[@NCommander]

It's pretty situational. For things like IBM's FORTRAN compiler, the documentation had quite a bit of examples and usage. This is in comparison to Lattice C where it's more useful to just look in the header files and read an unrelated book on C programming an 8086 memory management.

[@alb12345672]

@@NCommander Microsoft became big because of the great documentation and compilers they had at the time. Even by today's standard some of their tools from the 80s could could be considered decent.

[@marksmithcollins]

Every generation might think their knowledge is the 'real thing behind'.... Students at Aristoteles' age should had learned every knowledges starts from metaphysics philisophy basis....

[@ntrainride]

@@marksmithcollins thanks, mr. bringdown.

[@thegorn]

Ten minutes in I ask myself, “why am I watching this?”

[@doc_sav]

Man, good eye spotting the PGC from a brief glimpse in a manual, and catching that it was in that PC Reset picture. Also, as someone who works with some very big legacy systems, I am always fascinated with what gets left out of contemporary documents because at the time it seemed axiomatic and not worth putting down. Like what things are, and what they actually do.

[@BlackDragon-xn2ww]

flatbed scanners are somewhat rare these days sure can still find them at yard sales but I find a HP printer scanner combo works just as well

[@MrJest2]

You can still find them out there. I recently bought an Epson on Amazon for about $60. It works OK, although it's interface is kinda clunky.

[@BritishBeachcomber]

This really takes me back. BRIEF was an awesome text editor in it's day. With unix-like regular expressions and global search and replace!

[@alextirrellRI]

For scanning, I'd suggest trying to find a multifunction scanner that supports duplex/two sided scanning via the feeder. The latest version of Acrobat also is smart enough to let you scan all the pages on one side and then do the other and puts them in the correct order afterwards.

[@DavidHembrow]

I used to use Lattice C both on a 68k system and the Microsoft branded version for the PC. It was well thought of at the time, but we didn't have many choices. The earlier versions were strictly K&R C, so no function prototypes etc You needed something like Lint with compilers like that to check for errors which the compiler could not report, but unfortunately Lint was not available to me on the systems I was using. ANSI style C with prototypes etc was a huge improvement.

[@joshhoover1202]

I guess it is just a difference of eras, but when I hear the word graphics and kernel next to each other my brain wants to think of convolution kernels used in filtering.

[@chriswatson2407]

You didn't have the whole, only a hole. Great work.

[@CC-ke5np]

For postprocessing your scanned documents, try "Scantailor". It fixes most problems with scanned documents almost fully automatically and gives you better results with smaller file sizes. Just sort the pages by size and check the largest and smallest pages to spot processed stains or missed content. I use it with Linux and use the command " convert" to convert the output files into PDF. Scantailor can even give you good results using a camera instead of a scanner which comes in handy for large books and oversized posters and magazines. Just use a tripod and make sure the Document won't move during flipping the pages. You can "scan" a double page every 2 seconds and scantailor can split the two pages so you can print the results as a brochure. No need to buy a fancy scanner and you can get good results very fast even from large documents.

[@logsupermulti3921]

It's weird to think about that before GCC and Co. you generally had to pay for compilers. Something I take for granted now I guess.

[@agy234]

Or you do what you want cause a pirate is free

[@chriswareham]

I can thoroughly recommend Borland Turbo C for early PC machines. I have it installed on my IBM 5150 (the original PC) - it works perfectly, is ANSI C compliant and has a nice IDE. The documentation is also superb and can be found along with disk images on the WinWorld website. As for CAD on an early PC, I used a package called "Anvil 1000MD" during my work experience back in the 1980s. "Work experience" was where students in their last year of regular schooling here in the UK would spend a month in temporary job placements. I did mine in the drafting office of a government research centre where the CAD software was simply mind blowing to someone who had only used a Commodore 64 before.

[@winabagel2005]

Your channel is fantastic. Keep up the great work!

[@Lion_McLionhead]

The old man used to bring home obscure development tools like that from his day job, but that was next level obscurity from another universe. Would have wondered what was going to happen to the mortgage if he brought that home & started writing programs for it.

[@quixadhal]

One suggestion for scanning in manuals; if you can scrape up a couple hundred bucks (or less if you are OK with used), pick up a reasonably modern multi-function laser printer that has a sheet fed scanner. Most newer ones can dump over a network to a file share, so you can set it to double-sided mode, drop a small chunk of pages onto the sheet feeder and push the button, and you'll end up with front/back scans of them on your PC somewhere (if all the stars align). I'm reasonably happy with the Canon MF644C, which I got a couple years ago on a black friday sale for $300, but anything similar should do the same job. The sheet feeder is pretty reliable as long as the pages are reasonably normal. Obviously I wouldn't use it for fragile things, or stiff cardboard.

[@maximusatov4965]

You, Monsieur, truly know the meaning of perversion! This is epic. Thank you!

[@NCommander]

I legitimately thought this video would flop just because how obscure the topic was, but its one of my best performing ones.

[@redleader7988]

@@NCommander It was the mystery that drew me in.

[@ldt8904]

Perversion =/= preservation xD

[@dimkir100]

That ANSI metafile... description is hilarious, i undersrand all words separately but not clue of what the can mean combined...

[@NCommander]

Yeah, that basically sums the whole thing right then and there. Given how generic any the search terms were, I'm pretty sure I spent the better part of a week just finding information. I only established the linux between ANSI Metafile and CGM Metafile with a hexeditor, and then working from there managed to find things.

[@zoltanthehun993]

My 2 cents that it is PCem and based on my experiences emulating Flight Simulator I think it is a CPU emulation bug. You can try PCE instead of PCem, that is more accurate for early DOS stuff.

[@NCommander]

Won't be the first time I've seen one of those. 'cpuid' works on processors it shouldn't, and that causes several versions of Windows NT to have collective heart attacks.

[@BreakingPintMedia]

16:43 - One of my big "offloading some of my collection" regrets was selling my PGC, monitor, and original IBM disk set for it, back in 2014 when moving to a new house. Of all the obscure vintage computer items I've owned over the decades, that is one I should have kept.

[@anumeon]

Somewhere LGR is drooling over this video.. :)

[@NCommander]

I don't know if he watched it, but I did send the link back him via Twitter to it after asking permission to use that clip.

[@ropersonline]

3:18: I think the key to understanding the Graphical File System is the realisation that in those early days, some PHB at IBM must have decided that calling it a graphical library was too confusing (to them, hence to everybody), so they decided to make it say "graphical file system" instead of _graphics library._

[@Richtr8]

amazing stuff, love to see big wins for software preservation. gives me hope that skills in this kind of computing are viable & important for the future!

[@toyjesus]

Very interesting stuff. Glad youtube randomly recommended this channel to me.

[@anonymoususer3835]

For scanning manuals if its not a bound book, I reccomend the Xerox Documate 3125.

[@RWebster325]

As for a scanner, why don't you acquire a copier/printer with a double-sided automatic document feeder (ADF)? Make sure that the ADF has been serviced before use, when excessively worn, they tend to eat what they are fed or jam.

[@JimLeonard]

I also suffer from MSAS (Mystery Software Acquisition Syndrome). Very nice video and demonstrations. Note: You couldn't get the PCjr graphics to work because you need to load jrconfig.sys or a similar memory driver to manage memory on PCjrs with more than 128K.

[@NCommander]

Which goes to show how little I know about PCjrs. This was the first time I've ever used a jr in any capacity, and the few YT videos I ever watched on the topic basically amount to "it's a sorta PC compatible that isn't that useful" :/

[@JimLeonard]

@@NCommander That's roughly correct, but the PCjr has a cult following because, without it, it would have taken the IBM PC and compatibles a few years longer to become considered viable for gaming.

[@NCommander]

@@JimLeonard well, my view from here it was more that Tandy basically ripped the serial numbers off the jr's graphics and sound, and god knows Tandy basically did everything IBM couldn't in home PC marketing. What's really sad is it wouldn't been very hard to modify the CGA card to basically do jr colors, but EGA didn't ship until years later.

[@greggv8]

@@NCommander People keep saying that the Tandy 1000 series graphics were PCjr compatible or were a "copy" from the PCjr. Not exactly. While the resolution and colors are identical, the way the mode is accessed/addressed is not compatible. But there's a simple and well documented hardware hack for a PCjr to make it Tandy 1000 graphics compatible. It involves cutting a trace, piggybacking a TTL chip, and soldering in a couple of wires. I did several of them in the 90's, after paying PC Enterprises $14.something for a chip, a bit of wire, and instructions. Once I had the info I could salvage the chips off dead ISA cards. I've never heard of a program with PCjr only graphics support running on a Tandy 1000 with 320x200 16 colors. Nor do I know of a hardware mod for the Tandy 1000 series to make its video PCjr compatible. Probably never was much desire to do such because the quick end to the PCjr meant very few programs supported the PCjr video without also supporting T1000, but there were tons of programs that supported T1000 but excluded PCjr despite supporting both being super simple. PC Enterprises also sold a kit for modifying the PCjr sound system to be Tandy 1000 compatible. I have never been able to find out what their sound mod was, but there's some info out there on some sound mods (which may or may not be what PC Enterprises sold) and also a program that is supposed to do some bit flipping to make it compatible, but of course would need to be run every time, and would not be proof against an ill-behaved Tandy program messing with what the sound software altered where a hardware hack would always work.

[@greggv8]

@@NCommander why did IBM restrict 4 color mode to just two horrible options instead of allowing any 4 of the 16? If only the 8088 MPH demo could be sent back to the 1980's.

[@davidk8893]

The image at 15:25 is actually an image of one of my 5175 monitors displaying a test image on a Professional Graphics Controller. I've got six PGCs and two 5175 monitors. I'd be happy to test the program on my PGC setup if you'd like.

[@NCommander]

Obviously the YT algrothmn knew you made the photo, and sent you to my video :)

[@ffieditor]

Im not in the NYC area box I have Lexmark multifunction that I can program to scan into what format you want. like PDF. I even have a program that talk to the scanner on the printer and allow to merge muilt scanners into to single PDF. with ADF on the printer, it can make fast work of the scans.

[@UnitSe7en]

Working from the description at 3:33 I'd say it's a collection of libraries to handle image processing with the goal of functioning as a universal bridge between a computer and many types of other devices with disparate standards and requirements for the formatting of their input.

[@georgeh6856]

CGA had a choice of two 4-color palettes. The strange colors in the GCA grid demo are just from one of the two 4-color palettes.

[@nrdesign1991]

A scanner with a sheet feeder and duplex unit, typically featured on copiers will make easy work of this manual. Often in copy shops you can use them to scan documents.

[@vertecies]

Take your papers and go to local printing shop they do paper to digital scan with professional printers, office grade ones. It takes less than 10 minutes and maybe page is ten cents. IBM stuff is archived in their corporate archives. They got patents for that and it is their intelectual property. What you have there is desktop environment, just IBM take on it with hardware support. Terminal is in 2D. Modern hardware gives 2in1 2d and 3d. All linux depend on 2d. No hardware no display even 2d terminal text mode.

[@maedero05]

Apple, Microsoft, IBM all have there basic graphical commands like the Xerox printer menu´s wich where adopted as the GUI for mac and windows and OS/2 !

[@tschak909]

I also seem to remember that IBM's MetaWindow (an early multimedia authoring system) was built on it...

[@NCommander]

Oh how I would love to have that to (ab)use :)

[@ImHereFindMe]

Not sure if it's any less obscure. But the IBM AS/400 had a graphics mode, GDDM that worked with only one obscure terminal type. You could emulate it on old DOS PCOMM and a special version for OS/2.

[@xPLAYnOfficial]

Some modern AiO Printers have "batch scanners" that let you load a large amount of pages into the top tray and scan all of them in one go.

[@MarkMalley]

A ScanSnap or similar would make quick work of those manuals, I use mine to back up all of my manuals.

[@video99couk]

2:58 I didn't know USB to floppy interfaces were a thing. I went through all kinds of trouble to get a 5.25" floppy drive connected up to the newest machine I could find with a floppy interface that would also run Windows 10.

[@ssokolow]

Yeah. They used to be a bit niche (I own a KryoFlux which cost me quite the pretty penny for the non-commercial license) but now, you can get a ready-made Greaseweazle V4 (it's open hardware) for around $30 CAD from AmigaKit including shipping and the less awkward, more mature host tools (open-source) from the FluxEngine (also open hardware) have added support for it. They're also what are called archival/forensic floppy controllers, which means that, unlike a traditional PC floppy controller, they can image the raw flux transitions in high resolution to preserve copy protection without patching or dump things like Apple's Zoned CAV GCR formats on a fixed-speed PC drive and then convert the raw dump to a more traditional image format in software. (And, if you want to try getting a Greaseweazle V4 yourself, my AmigaKit order shipped from Cardiff and shipping all the way to Canada was dirt-cheap, so, if you're in the UK, shipping costs should be trivial over and above the £19.99 "including VAT" price they list.)

[@CraverYT]

I absolutely adore this content. Eagerly awaiting more like it :)

[@markharrison9021]

An outstanding piece of detective work.

[@NCommander]

it might have followups. Quite a bit has been found because this got people looking at certain IBM stuff.

[@losttownstreet3409]

For lose pages there are scanning services, who will do the scanning for you. I used it at work for 2400 pages. For home use I have a brother ads-1600W where you can only insert 10 pages at once (it scans both sides in one pass).

[@wrtlpfmpf]

Actually the GKS as a standard was used by about 100% of all graphical terminals from the GDR. Also it was apparently used optionally for the Videotex 2D Vector layer which was, as far as I know, only used in the French Minitel 2 and the Austrian version of Bildschirmtext.

[@klaus4040]

14:33 pretty sure you are not supposed to be able to create your own icon based UI, the one you drew in WAS the "easy to use icon interface" the box was talking about.

[@markykid8760]

8:35 running grid turned "Computer" into "😃omputer". Perfect.

[@TzOk]

For scanning a manuals or newspapers I use a photocamera and batch process the photos to the PDF format, with all the required geometry and exposure corrections. But those loose pages could have been easily scanned by a scanner with ADF, like they have in the photocopy points (don't know if you have them).

[@idahofur]

I got an Apple II+ computer again and started digging into printing graphics. Expecting to find more of a paint program. All I found was a list of printer drivers and example pictures. Fast forward to the Apple IIe and above. Now you could get a mouse, graphic programs and such. Yes I know you could get a mouse for the Apple II Plus. It was not really used as it was in the IIe or above. Most of my history is in the IBM pc clones. Started before everybody was using a mouse. My first mouse included a dos only paint program. Anyway very interesting. Oh and on a side note. I did find a modern program that would convert jpgs into the Apple II+ graphic format. But I'm fixing up the old okidata 82a printer first.

[@NCommander]

I have multiple GUI applications on my Commodore 128 (which will make an appearance soon) which use the joystick as a pointing device.

[@idahofur]

@@NCommander I did look it up. Pretty much 1 mouse paint program on the apple II plus. But mostly the mouse is used with the apple iie and up. I do know of a few kids programs / print programs that use a joystick but I don't think the mouse. I had to edit this post. I looked in one of my program books. I found another program for the apple II that uses a mouse. But since the apple ii mouse is not standard serial. The price is a bit high for the card and mouse to be used with the apple II+ compared to a IIe or above.

[@MichaelPohoreski]

_Print Shop, Dazzle Draw_ and _Mouse Paint_ were the de facto standards on the Apple ][+, //e, //c. You'll want to check out the various Apple 2 emulators such as AppleWin, etc. Apple made the mouse standard on the Mac, then the //c about 4 months later. It was never really popular on the //e, ][, or the ][+ even though the Apple II Mouse card came out in 1982. Ironically the _Koala Pad_ (drawing tablet) was more popular then the mouse on the early Apple 2s.

[@greggv8]

@@NCommander got a Koala Pad?

[@piratk]

Did you solve your manual scanning issue? Most larger office printers can do this, and if you don't have one ready, look for any local print shops, they may provide this service.

[@PeterSmith-rv3jz]

The name makes sense when you look at it sideways. It's not a graphical (file system) -- it's a (graphical file) system, as in a system for dealing with graphical files. FWIW, I implemented support in the old BBN RS/1 statistical package for CGM (computer graphic metafiles). They did a couple things really wrong: there were two versions of the format: one binary and the other text. You might think this is good, but twice the file types is three times the work. I had to get special permission to buy a bunch of graphical programs to test my output, and then work around their obvious bugs. One particularly neat feature of my RS/1 GKS (CGM) output: I carefully crafted the output so that the binary data never included a CR or LF character. In those days, transmitting binary data often ruined those characters unless you were very careful. By specially crafting the files, I could avoid them entirely.

[@henriksundt7148]

14:37 I guess "easy-to-use icon interface" refers to the software itself, not something you can make with it. It's the icons at the right of the editor, where you can select mode.

[@NCommander]

Possibly, but the wording in both the box and manual suggest you can use it to draw icons on the screen for another program. The interactive interperator in fact does just that.

[@keigezellig]

My father used to develop FORTRAN programs (some 30+ years ago) with another graphical library called GSS or something which has similar features (i remember that this whole VDI layer described in the video was also present) Actually he asked me to prepare an old 486 PC and to see if the stuff still works :)

[@aegisofhonor]

I am shocked that software sealed was only $80, those would be quite rare today and in it's day would have been quite expensive from IBM (most of their development kit packages started at around $500 and some went as high as $3000) and looking at what it is, it looks like some kind of development kit, so you got a good deal.

[@SireSquish]

For scanning those old manuals, you might have an easier time using a duplex sheet feeding scanner that can accept at least a small stack of pages at a time.

[@staticfanatic]

i trust given the sofa in the background that you're the one who uploaded this to winworldPC? you should put that in the description, archiving should be celebrated.

[@antdah]

In my country, we can scan/copy documents at the local library. They have enterprise machines with document feeders. If not the library, then perhaps a local school or university could help you out?

[@richardestes6499]

Change your scanner settings to black and white at 200dpi. That's typically the ideal settings for standard form documents and most public and private sector jobs that do document preservation. If that's still not quite right, switch to gray scale.

[@greenconscious210]

Find a mid to large sized company with a full sized copier. Pretty much all of the ones still working can function as a scanner with an automatic document feeder, which is just the first part of making a copy. I'm on the wrong end of the continent or I would totally help you with that. You can also try your local libraries to see if they have one, or something similar. Librarians would probably be very interested in preserving old documentation.

[@NCommander]

I've gotten a few leads, but it basically boils down to "wait for COVID to be over", at least for anything that's bound and needs a large document scanner (like a large stack of NetWare books I have).

[@CapnSlipp]

3:32 I don’t know, seems pretty clear to me. It looks like a competitor/precursor to PostScript and PDF. It’s a file format you can “print” into, then later send to a printer (either an individual device, or “printer” as a company that does mass printing). Edit: Kept watching, and yep, looks like I was at least partially right. I guess it’s one of those things that only makes sense to programmers/techies who have also spent a long time working with computer graphics tech (print & screen).

[@NCommander]

Yeah. I don't know if it really came across, but while I got the general jist of this package fairly quickly, it seemed like it was remarkably useless until I was able to put the broader Graphical File System pieces in place.

[@MichaelPohoreski]

Can't believe the IBM marketing team just spews words and got funding for this hot garbage. Even _after_ a paragraph of buzzwords they _still_ couldn't explain it with a _simple_ description: **Device Independent Graphics & File Format.**

[@greggv8]

@@MichaelPohoreski they should have put the PCjr manual team on it. While that computer was pretty lame, it had some of the best manuals ever.

[@mywave82]

The divide overflow is probably due to your emulated machine being WAY to fast. Many programs from this era would count how many cycles the CPU uses between two ticks on the real-time clock, in order to calculate how many cycles it needs to idle to provide this function to the program: Delay(TimeGivenInMiliseconds)

[@NCommander]

This is running as a cycle correct 286 6Mhz machine, and not at native software speed. I suppose I should have used an XT 8086 4.7Mhz, but I suppose it *is* possible that it infact that stupid/sensitive.

[@JeffTiberend]

This sounds like what Display Postscript did on Next Computers. It was to make sure everything on screen matched what was printed.

[@mad_circuits]

You had me on the *sigh* just before the buy! :-) Subscribed.

[@NCommander]

Will sigh more for subs! :) *sigh*

[@ImHereFindMe]

If you want to try writing code against GKS, there is a good book on it called "Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics"

[@lycanananas_sq5fox]

Wow! This video is great! I can't believe that you have only 751 subs! Greetings from Poland :D

[@NCommander]

So, um, when this video went up, I was just going past 500. The YT gods appears to have smiled upon me because the graph for this video just became a straight line.

[@evergriven7402]

@@NCommander I subscribed ..Great Video ( I'll have to watch it about 10 xs to understand it , I think )

[@VertegrezNox]

Gratz ^^ hope it keeps climbin steady for ya

[@telengardforever7783]

Borland C++ 3.1 was my Compiler! I still have the install disks! That was a damn good compiler.

[@DrDavesDiversions]

Happy holidays! I added this to a "Programming #DOScember" playlist - please let me know if you see others that I missed! kzbin.info/aero/PL2O6RH1Isy65nD8P400NpobCHsWB7Do7T

[@davidfrischknecht8261]

While I live in New Brunswick, NJ, I only have a flatbed scanner with no automatic feeder.

[@crazyedo9979]

Hello and thank you very much for your efford doing this video. All this metafile stuff reminded me of a cad program named "Dynacadd" which maybe derived from this software. For archiving manuals I use an autofeed scanner like the person from Canada mentioned below in the comments. When it came to booklike manuals I use an old "A3" flatbed scanner which was once donated to me. And keep in mind that IBM always has one bit more than the others. PC junior💪

[@wesmatron]

"That was a perfectly good waste of an explanation" :) Brilliant

[@SenileOtaku]

It was pure IBM-speak.

[@nickwallette6201]

Yes. Every single IBM product has text like this on it, where you step away from it and think, “how can I have read so many words and still have no more information than when I started?”

[@ZachTandyMitchel]

I own a Fujitsu fi-6110 and share your interest in archival. Have you found anyone local to help you scan old manuals? My scanner makes quick work of batch scanning and I would recommend having one for sure.

[@douro20]

The 5272 high-resolution display sold with the 3270 PC is also compatible with the Professional Graphics Controller as it was used with a special version containing a 3270 font and icon set.

[@NCommander]

That only just went from "entirely unobtanimium" to "mostly made of unobtanimium" :/. Supposedly it's possible to rewire one to a multisync VGA monitor without too much effort, but I'd still need the actual card itself. I also just got outbid on a large lot of IBM development shit including the Kernel System and more.

[@douro20]

@@NCommander I used to have a complete 5271 system with the extended keyboard and high-resolution color display. It was our first PC back in the early '90s and was bought from a personal friend of my father.

[@Vladimir_Kv]

3:35 from that graphic and explanation, it looks akin to the idea of PDF: a way of storing and representing graphics accurately no matter the medium.

[@stephendavis4241]

Back in 86' I was buying discontinued PGA monitors from a IBM insider for $1. I got 20 monitors and thought I had a great deal. The problem was I couldn't find any video cards, so I had to give them away to get rid of them. Live and Learn.

[@mightwilder]

this was used on later CPM computers as graphics standard, also on amstrad pcs

[@synthoelectro]

I would imagine that back then, it took a group of software engineers (via the IT dept) to figure out software like this so the office workers could have smooth systems running. Software has changed so much now that anyone can use a computer.

[@jessebrown233]

Nobody in IT will agree with that last statement.

[@neilvanrooyen7196]

This warmed my Heart... Good 'ol Fortran, Basic, and the Awesome Config.sys and *.bat files. Oh The sweet Memories!! Hahaha!! Couldn't get "Hello World" to work... It's because you tried it with 'C'... I Hated 'C'. 'C' Never Compiled bugger all for me.

[@Magnus11011]

Which adapter are you using at min 3:00 ? I cant find it on Ali, ebay or amazon. Thank you! :)

[@tibfulv]

If you ever have to digitise a book again, there are diy book scanners that use high-resolution cameras to achieve a much faster result. Only downside is you have to build it, lol.

[@Ucceah]

see if you cant find somebody, with an officejet pro or so. most of those can scan sheafs wads of paper. (the 8600 is a great machine to buy used, btw. you can find the dirt cheap)

[@Time4Technology]

Amazing video, great work! Keep it up!

[@oslsc]

Please put an image of this up somewhere so we can download it

[@D.G.M.]

Are Windows Metafiles related to this earlier standard?

[@TheNefastor]

After the first two minutes I had to check if this video wasn't released on an April 1st :-D

[@lyonadimral]

Hello from the frozen white north of Plattsburgh... you said reach out to help with scanning? Anyone who has a Konica or Kyocera copier that has dual sided scanning in the automatic document feeder. I've scanned quite a few of the 3 ring IBM binder documents this way; save as a color PDF onto a USB drive which can be inserted into a copier. A library or office store perhaps?

[@steffennilsen2132]

Oh wow this looks painful. Digital archelogy at its finest

[@NCommander]

What kept driving me crazy is I got close to finishing the video, then I'd either find something new, or something would be discovered. The first draft of this script, and what actually became this video are two very different things with the month of headbanging this caused. I actually had to put it up which is why the 486 Restore Part 1 went up before this video because I was just waiting for the heavens to open and tell me I gotten my conclusions wrong again >.>;

[@pawanyr360]

I think "icon interface" was probably referring to the icons in that viewer program. Rather pitiful to put that on the box, but that's probably what they meant.

[@AKSoapy29]

What GUI are you using? I like it, it's slick.

[@yamakawa511]

Interesting. I wish I could help you with your scanning but I'm on the other side of the planet. I have an old PC with inbuilt 5 1/4, 3 1/2 and Iomega built in drives that I need to resurrect one of these days. Do you have any ideas about software to emulate the look of HP pen plotters for scientific graphs? Y

[@Jason-fp7vi]

Hey NCommander, in this video you have some images of old software magazines, such as the one at 17:33 . Do you mind me asking where I can access these sorts of vintage magazine articles? I'd really love to dig through them. I have seen a vintage audio youtuber named Techmoan bring up some old newspaper and magazine articles in his videos as well. I've always been curious how the hell people find them!

[@NCommander]

They're on Google Books, which is where I found them. Have fun: books.google.com/books/about/InfoWorld.html?id=KzAEAAAAMBAJ

[@Jason-fp7vi]

@@NCommander THANK YOU so much!

[@ubermenschstream6765]

what OS are you using?

[@Sparkette]

That description at 3:32 makes perfect sense to me.

[@WalterGreenIII]

ANSI Graphics (characters) were used to display graphics on terminals and text screens, the rest???

[@temporarilyoffline]

Very interesting video. I *think* that the wording might be tripping you up. It doesn't seem like a traditional coding library like SDL, but more like a "reference" type tool to aid you in developing something. I guess the closest analog I can come up with would be a flow chart. A flow chart is still a tool/library of tools for making a program, but you wouldn't expect to "compile it it" or "include" it. Who knows /shrug Great idea for a channel BTW!

[@NCommander]

No, it's actually intended for programming with functions and more. It just needs the other pieces (which I just got outbid on eBay, argh) to work.

[@temporarilyoffline]

@@NCommander there is that old joke about how IBM makes good products, but can't figure out how to show them to people. Seems to apply to this IBM product as well

[@aLinuxIce]

6:19 what OS are you using there ?

[@brittman914]

I have a compaq portable II with an EGA card if you wanted me to test this out on my Compaq Portable II