GRASP
The GRASP animation system and file format was one of the first animation formats shared across the world wide web. Being smaller in size than full motion video formats allowed a reasonable transfer speed between a BBS and a user's home computer. However, this came at the cost of a limited number of frames, with GRASP animations resembling modern PowerPoint presentations. GRASP media could also be interactive, with UI button and mouse support to navigate menus or animations.
The GRASP animation player (GRASPRT.EXE) was initially released for MS-DOS and has been unofficially partially ported to the X Windows System. Later versions of the GRASP animation player were officially made for Microsoft Windows.
File format[edit]
GRASP animation files have a .GL file extension. This GRASP animation file always starts with a 16-bit number which is the size of the .GL file header in bytes. The rest of the header is an array with each element of the array representing a file location and filename for each file used in the animation.[1]
| Header structure | |
|---|---|
| Size in bytes | Description |
| 2 | Header size in bytes |
| Header size - 2 | File location array |
Each element in this file location array contains 2 sections; first, a 16-bit number describing the memory offset of the file location and, second, 13 bytes reserved for the filename.
| File location array element | |
|---|---|
| Size in bytes | Description |
| 2 | Memory offset of file |
| 13 | Filename (With .PIC/.CLP/.TXT/.SET/.FNT extension) |
After the header is a .TXT file containing the instructions for the GRASP animation player as well as the relevant image files (in .PIC or .CLP format) and font files (in .SET or .FNT format).[1] .PIC refers to a Pictor PC Paint image file and .CLP refers to another image file which could be generated using early versions of Pictor PC Paint.[2]