desktop backgrounds

[walter_J64bit]

I have a 1040STE with TOS rainbow "I think" but anyway, what do I need to do so I can get desktop backgrounds setup?

Edited June 19, 2016 by walter_J64bit

[Zogging Hell]

TOS won't do backgrounds out the box, there were a few programs that allowed you to put a pic in the background though that ran from the autofolder. The names, however, escape me.. I vaguely remember a program to do it on either an early ST Format or ST Review cover disk - might be worth having a look through their archives. Just remember the picture will need to match the resolution you are in, so in ST Low you will be limited to a 16 colour 320 x 200 picture, mono will be a 2 colour 600 x 400. Also in ST low and medium you will need to make sure the palette of the picture you use matches the standard GEM palette as either the picture or GEM will get some weird colouring.

 

Some desktops (Neodesk, Magic and Ease, plus some more) allow you to use a desktop background as well, but as you only have 1mb they will probably swallow to much memory to make it worthwhile.

 

Personally I don't think it is worth it on an ST. On the Falcon onwards it's fine, but on the ST the pics look like crap, and use a fair bit of that valuable memory. Not to put you off though

[frank.lukas]

Try Thing 1.29 as Desktop ...

 

You can find it on the FireBee Setup.

Edited June 19, 2016 by frank.lukas

[Zogging Hell]

I quickly checked the ST Formats on Exxos' page - Deskpic might do the job from what I remember (ST Format Coverdisk 60) http://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/STF/index.htm- I vaguely remember using this years ago

 

There is also DeskFX on number 56, which seems to allow some customisation - I haven't used this one though so not positive.

[walter_J64bit]

Thanks I'll check it out!

[Grizaptimus]

When I was messing around with the Warp9 screen accelerator, I recall seeing an option for desktop backgrounds in the config panel. I didn't mess with that particular feature though so i'm not sure how well it works.

[+Sauron]

Bright neon green is all I need for a background.

[Zap!]

TOS was probably an update or two away from having the ability to do desktop backgrounds. A real shame me never got to see it evolve into the mid 90's and beyond.

[Amimitl2]

TOS was probably an update or two away from having the ability to do desktop backgrounds. A real shame me never got to see it evolve into the mid 90's and beyond.

All you need to have is DeskPic really, which you run as an accessory, plus you need to have the DESKPIC.PRG in the AUTO folder. Not much of a big deal for me. For converting images to the .img format I use a combination of GIMP and Smurf. GIMP on the Linux side, where I scale the images down and Smurf on the Atari side, where I convert the image to the same palette, as is used in the current resolution you're using, where I then save it as an IMG file. I use the medium resolution, which only has 4 colors, where the colors I use on the desktop are black, white, grey and red. I use ordered dither on the images, so I get more details.

 

If you're running it in low resolution, you can get a pretty decent image with ordered dithering. As you can see here on one of my videos:

 

https://youtu.be/RAHUnyIDwDc

 

Here's another video which shows DeskPic in use in higher resolution:

 

https://youtu.be/phPOUTo2fNg

[Amimitl2]

I have uploaded both DeskPic and Smurf as attachments, in case someone should ask for them. I also noticed that Gerhard Stoll's site is now down, so Smurf is not easy to get a hold of, unless it lies on some ftp servers.

deskpic.zip

smurf_106gpl.zip

[walter_J64bit]

WOW! Thanks!