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Program : BFont
Purpose : Convert BBCFonts to BASIC source
Author : (C) Jon Ripley, 1999,2000
Version : 0.04 (15th October 2000)
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Introduction
BFont is a command line utility which converts BBCFont files to BASIC
source code, text or an ARM executable. The resulting program can be run to
redefine the VDU characters.
To install BFont, simply move the file "BFont" into your
library directory.
To convert a file, use the command:
BFont <input> <output> [options]
where <input> is the name of the BBCFont file to be converted. The
resulting source is saved as a BASIC, Text or Utility (ARM code) file named
<output>.
Options are used to modify the standard behaviour of BFont, and are
introduced by a hyphen, the option name, and any allowed parameters. Each
option can be abbreviated to just it's first letter; all options are
case-insensitive.
Option Effect
-line <number> Set the first line number of the program, by
default this is line 0.
-inc <number> Set line number increment, by default this is
1.
-arm Save an Utility (ARM code) program, which
redefines the character set. [See note 1]
-bfont Copies <input> as <output>.
-rev[basic] Save the program in reverse BASIC tokenised
format, this will allow the program to be run
under the 68000 and Z80 versions of BBC BASIC.
-text Save the program as a text file.
-quit <* command> Executes the command when the program has
finished.
-help Produce a brief help text for the BFont
syntax and options.
Examples
BFont Gothic S/Gothic
will convert the BBCFont named Gothic and produce a BASIC source
program S/Gothic.
BFont fonts.Outline sources.Outline -revbasic -line 10 -inc 10
will convert the file fonts.Outline and output a BASIC source program
in reversed tokenised format named sources.Outline, the first line number will
be 10 and the line number increment will be 10.
Notes
[1] There is a useful side-effect of the way a BBC Font file is made into an
ARM Utility. You can take a *Spooled file - which could contain text or VDU
command sequences - or a text file with CR+LF (or LF+CR) line terminators and
use the following command to make an ARM Utility which will display the
contents of the file. This feature may not be supported in future versions.
BFont <input> <output> -arm
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