Important Notice

The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software, purely for historical purposes. If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming, you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully out of date.

  ◄Programming Tasks►   ◄Graphics►   ◄Contents►   ◄Index►
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Statements and Functions Used for Displaying Graphics Images
 
                        Statement or
Task                    Function                        Action
 
Setting                 SCREEN        Specifies a BASIC screen mode, which
screen-display                        determines screen characteristics such
characteristics                       as resolution and ranges for color
                                      numbers
 
Plotting or erasing     PSET          Gives a pixel on the screen a specified
a single point                        color using the screen's foreground
                                      color by default
 
                        PRESET        Gives a pixel on the screen a specified
                                      color using the screen's background
                                      color by default, effectively erasing
                                      the pixel
 
Drawing simple          LINE          Draws a straight line or a box
shapes on the
screen                  CIRCLE        Draws a circle or ellipse
 
                        DRAW          Combines many of the features of
                                      other BASIC graphics statements
                                      (drawing lines, moving the graphics
                                      cursor, scaling images) into an
                                      all-in-one graphics macro language
 
Defining screen         VIEW          Specifies a rectangle on the screen
coordinates                           (or viewport) as the area for
                                      graphics output
 
                        WINDOW        Allows the user to choose new view
                                      coordinates for a viewport on the
                                      screen
 
                        PMAP          Maps physical pixel coordinates to
                                      view coordinates specified by the user
                                      in the current window, or vice versa
 
                        POINT(number) Returns the current physical or view
                                      coordinates of the graphics cursor,
                                      depending on the value for number
 
Using color             COLOR         Sets the default colors used in
                                      graphics output
 
                        PALETTE       Assigns different colors to color
                                      numbers. Works only on systems
                                      equipped with an EGA or VGA.
 
                        POINT(x,y)    Returns the color number of a
                                      single pixel whose screen coordinates
                                      are x and y
 
Painting enclosed       PAINT         Fills an area on the screen with
shapes                                a color or pattern
 
Animating               GET           Copies a rectangular area on the
                                      screen by translating the image to
                                      numeric data and storing the data
                                      in a numeric array
 
                        PUT           Displays an image on the screen
                                      that was previously copied with
                                      GET
 
                        PCOPY         Copies one screen page to another