[amsat-bb] Re: Instant Trak and Windows XP

[Paul Williamson]

At 9:07 PM -0400 10/7/06, W4UPD wrote:
>I believe that has been asked in the past but I do not remember the
>answer or fix if there was one. The characters in the map section of
>Instant Trak are all garbage characters in map mode. The rest of the
>characters in other modes appear to be fine. Does any know if there is a
>fix for this? I have tried various screen setting changes including
>fonts, but to no avail.

InstantTrack 1.50 and later default to VGA resolution, which is not 
subject to this bug. If you're running an earlier version of 
InstantTrack, the recommended solution is to upgrade to 1.50 ($ to 
AMSAT) and probably to the latest beta version 1.55. You'll want to 
upgrade anyway for Y2K fixes. If you're running 1.50-1.55, edit your 
IT.INI file and make sure your vga_resolution variable is set to 2.

There IS actually a workaround for the EGA mode used by InstantTrack 
1.00 and in the vga_resolution=1 mode of later versions. It involves 
loading a font that's missing in the ROM of certain later-vintage 
video adapter cards. Search for a file called FNT8X14.COM from 
Matrox. It installs a little TSR that replaces the font that's 
missing from the ROM. This same Matrox file probably works on 
non-Matrox video cards with the same issue, but there's no guarantee 
of course.

Note: this is often cited as a Windows XP problem, but it is not. It 
is a problem with certain video cards that came out around the same 
time as Windows XP. A lot of people bought a new machine with Windows 
XP and it came with one of these video cards, so it looked like an XP 
problem.

If, despite all that, you're seeing garbage characters on the map 
screen in VGA mode, then you're seeing a new problem that needs 
investigating. You can verify that you're in VGA mode by where the 
mouse cursor initially appears on the map screen. If it's almost all 
the way down in the lower right corner of the graphics part of the 
map, you're in EGA mode. In VGA mode, the mouse cursor starts out 
about a third of the way up the right side of the graphics part of 
the map.

73  -Paul
kb5mu at amsat.org