In order to support EMME/2 graphics on PCs and various workstations, a standard EMME/2 graphic protocol was defined and a generic graphic interface named Emtool was developed and ported to the different graphic environments. This allows the EMME/2 modules to stay independent of the particular graphic environment by simply generating Emtool compatible output which is then intercepted by the corresponding Emtool implementation and translated into the primitives available on the particular graphic environment.
Currently, the following Emtool implementations are available:
EMME/2 was originally designed to work with stand-alone graphic terminals. As these were mostly Tektronix or Tektronix compatible terminals, the Emtool protocol includes the complete Tektronix 401x protocol and a large subset of the Tektronix 411x commands. For this reason, even if this is not its primary purpose, Emtool can also be used as a Tek emulator to run other programs which generate Tek 401x style graphic output.
EMTOOL.EXE is a TSR program which must be installed before calling
the EMME/2 modules under DOS. While it is of course possible to install
EMTOOL.EXE manually each time before an EMME/2 session is started,
it is certainly more convenient to install it automatically, using one of
the following two possibilities:
AUTOEXEC.BAT. This is the easiest method,
but has the disadvantage that Emtool remains resident all the time,
using up unnecessarily memory.E2START.BAT at the beginning of an EMME/2
session and uninstall it from E2END.BAT when the session is terminated.
The E2START.BAT and E2END.BAT are located either in the
application directory (used only for this specific application) and/or in
\EMME2\LIB (used by all applications). This method has the advantage
of not occupying any memory while using the PC for programs other than EMME/2.
When EMTOOL is in verbose mode and is called with an invalid
VESA video mode, it will display a list of all currently available VESA modes.
Since there is no VESA mode 999, the command
emtool -v -c999
will produce a listing of the type
VESA mode 0x999 not supported! Supported VESA modes: 100 640x480x256 101 640x480x256 102 800x600x16 103 800x600x256 104 1024x768x16 105 1024x768x256 106 1280x1024x16 107 1280x1024x256from which the mode with the desired resolution and color depth can be chosen.
If the list you get is empty even though the manual of your graphic card
says that many VESA modes should be supported, this is likely due to a
missing VESA driver. Check the graphic card manual for information
where to find and on how to install the VESA SuperVGA drivers. If the
driver is a TSR program, make sure to install it before
EMTOOL.
This is usually a sign that EMTOOL is not installed at all.
Check carefully if a correct EMTOOL command is contained either
in AUTOEXEC.BAT or E2START.BAT and verify that the
installation is carried out correctly, i.e. does not just give an error
message. Possible reasons for such errors include missing VESA SuperVGA
driver, invalid VESA mode number or E2FIFO being installed in
AUTOEXEC.BAT.
If you get garbage text even though you are sure
that EMTOOL is installed correctly, this might be due to
some other driver or TSR taking over video interrupt 10h or 29h, or
using the Emtool interrupt 93h. The utility program E2INT
can be called to list all interrupts currently intercepted by EMME/2
(you should see interrupts 9h, 10h, 16h, 29h and 93h listed).
In some cases, especially when using non-compatible console drivers,
it might be necessary to install the the EMCON.SYS (see section
7.1.1 of the EMME/2 User's Manual).
If EMME/2 works fine and you can generate graphics on the screen,i
this indicates that EMTOOL is installed correctly.
But if, when in text mode, the screen does not erase
when entering a new module and you see funny characters (usually a "Venus"
sign, i.e. a circle with a cross underneath), this usually indicates that
you have not installed the ANSI.SYS driver in your CONFIG.SYS
file. This way, ANSI escape sequences are not recognized. Putting the
line "DEVICE=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS" should solve the problem.
E2FIFO is a TSR program which is needed to allow EMME/2 modules
to communicate with EmtoolW. It installs two FIFO buffers (one
for each direction) into a globally assigned chunk of memory, from which they
can be accessed from the modules and from EmtoolW.
E2FIFO must be installed before Windows is started. This
is best done in AUTOEXEC.BAT (in Windows 95 this is actually
the only way it can be done).
When using the typeface Terminal (which is best readable on small
Windows), some printer drivers behave strangely when using EmtoolW's
Print Page command. Instead of displaying the characters in a
normal fixed-width font, the Script plotter font is used (simulating
some kind of handwriting). This seems to be due to a bug in the Font matching
algorithms used by these drivers and is best corrected by changing the
driver for one which does not have this problem. If this is not possible,
removing the Script font with the font manager usually makes the
printer use a more readable font, such as the Modern or Roman
plotter fonts.
There was a small bug in emtoolX which was corrected in version 3.3
which occurred only when emtoolX was started in iconic form
using the option -ic. In this case a tight polling loop in the
start up code was executing continuously
until the emtoolX window was opened
for the first time. This used up a considerable part of the workstation's
CPU time, so that the system performance was affected. The problem
disappeared as soon as the emtoolX window was opened for the
first time.
A a corrected version of emtoolX (version 3.3 or higher) is distributed
starting with Release 8.1p/8.2.
If you are using older versions of emtoolX, it is best to avoid
using the option ic and always start up the program in normal mode.