AG Sistemas

Orbis

ORBIS is a library that contain routines for use with Clipper (Summer'87 and 5.x), C/C++ (tested with Borland, Microsoft and Watcom), and 80x86 Assembly. It is the result of five years in software development, with more than a hundred of functions written in Assembly and C for maximum performance. The ORBIS was launched in 1992, is in use for several big companies and independent developers, and was placed in the public domain in 1996.

The ORBIS is called “universal” because it includes functions to manage graphics, data communication, text processing, and support for special peripherals, data compression and multimedia, in all the supported languages, in the same package.

It is in use until today because the Clipper applications park is still very large.

Graphics

ORBIS graphical routines support CGA, Hercules, EGA, VGA and SuperVGA (VESA), either color or monochrome, up to 1027x768 pixels, 256 colors, with automatic detection of the video adapter. It presents TIFF/PCX/BMP images, and automatically constructs commercial graphics (pie, lines, bars, etc).

Data Communication

The ORBIS data communication routines allow the use of up to 4 compatible serial interfaces at the same time, and modems with complies with the Hayes standard. Detects and uses UARTS of high speed (16550A), and correctly operates under Deskview, OS/2 and Windows, up to 115.2Kbps.

Data Compression

The ORBIS data compression routines implements the LZW and RLE codification algorithms for achieve high compression rates. Especially suited for data communication, they are capable to compress entirely in memory, without using intermediate disk files.

Multimedia

The ORBIS is able to present FLI/FLC animations in any video VGA (or better), and to reproduce WAV sounds in any Soundblaster compatible adapters.

Support and new functions

ORBIS software was placed in the public domain. We do not offer to plans of support or maintenance. Use the library at will, but for your own account and risk.

Many people wrote to us requesting changes or new features in the Library, specially for the Clipper environment. Unhappily, to us these tasks are practically impossible, since we do not have even to test these changes. Clipper is a language that is not known nor used by none of our current technician team.

Summarizing: the last version of the Orbis is the one that is available in this site. The sources are in the public domain.

Go get Orbis:

Via HTTP: http://www.agsistemas.com.br/orbis

Via FTP: ftp://ftp.agsistemas.com.br/pub/orbis