FenixVDI v0.93beta
========

This is a beta version of the fourth public release of fVDI.
It deals well with many (most?) normal programs, including the desktop.
There are some problems with text effects, which I hope to clear up before
the real 0.93 release.

Drivers are included for two and sixteen colour bitplane modes as well
as for the Eclipse/RageII in 16 bit mode (hardware accelerated).
Some monochrome graphics cards will likely work as well.


Installing fVDI
---------------
Normally the computer should be booted as usual (with or without NVDI),
but fVDI can also be run from the AUTO folder if the correct options
are set. If you run it from the AUTO folder and have NVDI available, you
can have NVDI use fVDI for everything but the actual text rendering by
making sure that NVDI runs last (this will be slower, but you'll be able
to use outline fonts and printer drivers).

The FVDI.SYS file must be set up correctly (see comments in the file).
If no 'PATH=' line is used in FVDI.SYS, fonts and drivers are assumed
to be in a directory called GEMSYS at the same place as FVDI.SYS itself.
FVDI.SYS is searched for first in the current directory, then on C:\ and
finally A:\.

Run FVDI.PRG!

If you have a computer with some kind of FastRAM (an AB040 for example)
you might want to append the word 'shadow' after the device driver
name in FVDI.SYS. fVDI will then do all screen reads from a FastRAM
buffer instead, which might improve performance (depending on the
difference in memory access time and the processor speed).


Uninstalling fVDI
-----------------
If you started fVDI manually, just run REMOVE.PRG. It's a very bad
idea to do this if there are more virtual workstations opened than
when fVDI was first started. That is, make sure the system is in
the same state as when you clicked fVDI.
Don't try to uninstall a booted fVDI!


The fVDI ACC
------------
This is currently not useful for anything but the Eclipse/RageII driver.


Help needed!
------------
If you want to help out in any way whatsoever, please contact me.

Are you interested in actually working on fVDI?
Perhaps you have some old graphics code that might be of use?
How about just testing software with fVDI?


Screen output
-------------
When it comes to drawing primitives, very little NVDI specific is
implemented (but some things are).
Compared to the normal VDI, the main missing things are wide and
arrowed lines, pies, contour fill, rounded boxes, markers and the
'VT52' functions.
Note that a function being supported only means that it will do
_something_. There may be severe limitations.

I'm very interested in hearing about which of the missing or
incomplete functions are the most important to you.


Johan Klockars  (rand@cd.chalmers.se)
990614
