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WHATSNEW.DOC
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1995-08-22
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Graphic Workshop for DOS -- What's New
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PLEASE READ THIS FILE BEFORE YOU PROCEED
Version 7.0f
PNG SUPPORT
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This release of Graphic Workshop supports PNG files, the new
lossless compression standard which replaces GIF. While Graphic
Workshop 7.0f looks cosmetically similar to earlier versions, we
had to power up every sneaky trick we knew of to get the
extensive PNG code into the restricted real estate available
under DOS.
A lot of things work differently inside Graphic Workshop now.
While this shouldn't affect your use of this application, it's
possible that some of this new functionality will have introduced
bugs into the software that scuttled past the beta testers. If
you have problems with Workshop, please get in touch with us.
Graphic Workshop requires an 80286-based system or better to run
-- it will not run on a machine with a first-generation 8088,
8086 or 80186 processor. A minimum of 640 kilobytes of memory is
essential -- a few megabytes of extended or expanded memory will
speed up Workshop's operations a lot.
If you have problems with Workshop after you install it, read the
GWS.DOC file for information about configuring Graphic Workshop.
THE UNISYS GIF TAX
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This new release of Graphic Workshop and the new PNG file format
exist because of the Unisys GIF Tax. Unisys is a large computer
company which holds a patent on the LZW compression algorythm
that GIF and LZW TIFF files are based on. While the patent was
issued in 1985, Unisys appears to have kept its existance quiet
until fairly recently -- until GIF was widely in use -- and then
demanded royalties from software developers who have implemented
GIF or LZW TIFF in their applications.
Unisys makes banking systems, network servers, PCs and other
sorts of business hardware. If you are in a position to purchase
or advise on the purchase of the sorts of products Unisys sells,
we urge you to consider using another supplier. If you wish to
contact Unisys to hear their side of this, or to voice your
opinions about their business practices, we recommend that you
contact Unisys' corporate council:
Mark Starr
Unisys Corporation
P.O. Box 500
Blue Bell, PA
19424-0001
You can also contact him by telephone at 1-215-986-4411, and by
FAX at 1-215-986-5721
NOTE: As of this writing, it's our understanding that if you
bundle shareware which will read or write GIF or LZW TIFF files
with a commercial, for-profit product, Unisys may demand a
royalty from you based on the price of your product. Should you
wish to include Graphic Workshop with a book, CD-ROM or other
commercial entity, please contact us about an LZW-free version of
this package.
To read this document again at a later time, type:
EDIT WHATSNEW.DOC
in your \GWSDOS directory.
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