System Paint Program

System Paint Program

The System Paint Program is a 3D graphics painting VidWindow program that is a fundamental part of Mainframe's utility tools located within the Archives. Oddly, this same program can also affect Lost Angles despite it being the remains of another system.

Used directly and for its intended purpose it makes minor alterations to the overall color scheme of the city, however misuse of the program's full power can have devastating results which can potentially foul up the entire arrangement and stability of the system. Consequently, whenever the system scheduled backup is initiated by the User any previous unauthorized edits performed using the program become irreversible and cannot be undone.

The program has many features such as toolbar icons, a zoom slider, crop functions and a default color palette. The window itself makes use of motion-detection allowing a person within range to freely view, select and manipulate anything within Mainframe with simple wrist movements and touches, just like on a sophisticated touch-screen kiosk.

Since the program utilizes all forms of images, pixels, graphics and rendering there is no virtually limit to what one can create, providing one has enough imagination.

The chaotic virus Hexadecimal was feeling unappreciated by the citizens of Mainframe and wanted to make an art project that would win her recognition. She launched a surprise attack and kidnapped the Principal Office CPU guards before effortlessly destroying the security field around the Archives. Once inside she found the System Paint Program but was unable to remove from the Archives itself, to solve this problem she simply attached a link between the VidWindow and an alias operating out of her Lair. As long as this link existed she had complete control over the program even outside the Archives.

Hex using the System Paint Program

It soon became apparent Hex was not content making small harmless decorations, indeed her flair of creativity was wreaking havoc on the sectors turning everything into a disorganized mess. She silenced critics such as Phong and Megabyte when they did not appreciate her talents, turning them into giant 2-D pictures suspended over the system. Bob, Dot, Enzo and Frisket were all in separate locations of the city so before any of them could even formulate a plan Hex terminated all communications and disabled Glitch. Bob told Enzo and Frisket to help Dot cut off the link on the System Paint Program while he teamed up with Mike the TV to undo all of the changes made by Hexadecimal. Timing was critical, as they had to make sure they didn't disable the link prematurely before all the damage was undone.

However, by the time Dot, Enzo and Frisket arrived in the Archives it had become a chaotic nightmare, trying to navigate it and find the paint VidWindow wasn't going to be easy. Bob and Mike weren't having any better luck as neither of them had an effective plan against Hex. They arrived in Lost Angles just in time to see Scuzzy guarding the Lair become enlarged which gave chase, although this caught Hex's attention who scolded her pet. Bob managed to convince the Queen of Chaos they wanted to interview her which delighted the virus. Once invited in the Lair, Mike cleverly spoofed a series of questions to further add to the illusion.

Bob using the System Paint Program

Whilst Hex was distracted Bob placed a cardboard copy of himself created by the program to fool the virus while he reversed the changes on the VidWindow. Mainframe began to return to normal as Dot and Enzo broke the link in the Archives. Hex flew into an insane rage once she realized the Guardian tricked her and intended to grievously harm him. Bob panicked and cut n’ paste her mask onto another Window, without a face Hex let out an inhuman scream as energy poured out of her head. The mask trapped in the Window began to multiply into its various emotions warning Bob he made a terrible mistake as Hex would overload without the masks to keep her power in check. Horrified, Bob tried to reverse what he had done, but the link had already been broken and the file suddenly closed down. The masks pleaded with Bob as Hex was nanoseconds away from exploding, Bob realized his Key Tool should also be back to normal and quickly ordered Glitch to return. With Glitch Bob issued a cut-paste command of his own and restored Hex's mask. (Painted Windows)

References

• The System Paint Program is based on a raster graphics editor computer program that allows users to paint and edit pictures interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many popular “bitmap” or “raster” formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF. These programs are commonly referred to as Paint, or Paint Program.