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- Graphic Workshop for DOS -- What's New
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- PLEASE READ THIS FILE BEFORE YOU PROCEED
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- Version 7.0f
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- 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.
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- If you have problems with Workshop after you install it, read the
- GWS.DOC file for information about configuring Graphic Workshop.
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- 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:
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- Mark Starr
- Unisys Corporation
- P.O. Box 500
- Blue Bell, PA
- 19424-0001
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- You can also contact him by telephone at 1-215-986-4411, and by
- FAX at 1-215-986-5721
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- 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.
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- To read this document again at a later time, type:
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- EDIT WHATSNEW.DOC
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- in your \GWSDOS directory.
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