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Text File | 1992-06-27 | 14.0 KB | 311 lines

******************************************************************************* * * * BootPicV2.0 * * * * © 1991,92 by Andreas Ackermann * * * ******************************************************************************* CONTENTS:______________________________________________________________________ 1. About shareware 2. Introduction 3. Installation of a picture 4. About the Parser 5. Kompatibility 6. What happens after resetting the machine ? 7. Possible sources of errors 8. History 9. About the programming _______________________________________________________________________________ SHAREWARE-CONDITIONS: BootPic is SHAREWARE. You are allowed to copy BootPic as long as the following conditions are kept : o BootPic mustn't be changed o This DOC-file must be included o It mustn't be charged any fee (besides fees for copying or disks etc.) If you like BootPic and if you use it regularly or if you include parts of the source in your own programms (e.g. the fading-routines) please send me a small donation of 5$ or 5DM. If you want to use BootPic as part of a commercial programme, you need my written permission. My Address: Andreas Ackermann Lorenz-Summa-Str.10 W-8679 Oberkotzau GERMANY Tel.:09286/6399 INTRODUCTION Do you belong to the group of people who think the «Workbench-hand» that appears after every reset to be boring ? Then BootPic is the right thing for you. It allows you to load (nearly) any IFF-ILBM-picture instead of the «hand». (Overscan, HAM, Halfbright, etc.) It just has to be in compressed form. (e.g. DPaint saves its pictures in com- pressed form ). The installed programme uses 1K more memory than the length of the picture- file. [ starting with V1.2 I use CHIP-Mem to avoid complications ! ] Starting with V2.0 it's also possible to load a MED-Module that is played while the picture is shown. MED is a Music-programm comparable to SoundTracker. The V3.00 of this programm is to be found on Fish 476. Please note: When you save your Music make sure that you selected 'MED-Module' as output format. That's the only one that can be handled by BootPic. (MED also loads SoundTracker- Modules and then you may save them in the MED-Module format !!!) ( A Demo-Module is provided in this drawer. ) As these modules usually are quite large, you may also load modules crunched with the PowerPackerV2.3b ( Fish 253 ). Note: Crunched Modules may need up to 10s to decrunch at each reset ! INSTALLATION BootPic can be started either from Workbench or CLI. If started from WB an intuition-style window with three gadgets will open : Load Pic&Music : If you click on this gadget a window with a stringgadget will open and asks you to enter a filename. If you press RETURN, BootPic will try to load this Picture, clicking on Cancel will stop any action. If you've got the ARP-Library installed, you'll get the ARP-Filerequester. If you selected BootPic together with another icon (see at example) you'll find its name already written in the string- gadget when opening the filerequester. After that you're asked whether you want to install a MED- Module or not. If you wanted to, the Requester (or the Stringgadget) will prompt you for another filename. After inputting a path, BootPic will try to load the picture. If an error occurs, nothing will be installed; if there's an error while loading the MED-Module only the picture will be installed. It's impossible to install a MED-Module without installing a picture. When loading a crunched module BootPic is unable to check whether it is a module or not ! Remove Picture : Does nothing but that. Check all Drives : If this gadget is active when loading a picture, BootPic will check any connected drive for a bootable disk while displaying the picture. FFS-formatted disks also will be recognized. This switch is useful with OS 2.0 which allows to boot from any drive. If it's inactive, only df0: is checked. IMPORTANT: The state of this gadget is significant BEFORE loading an pic- ture. Toggling it after loading doesn't have any effect on the picture. Color-Cycling: If it's active, it enables Color-Cycling if the corresponding information is saved with the picture ( CRNG-chunk ) Info : Displays an info-message. The error-messages are exactly the same as described below. The color used to fade to after displaying the picture is taken from the background color of the workbench screen at the moment it is being installed. EXAMPLE: To install the picture that is included on this Disk, do the following steps: Open the BootPic-drawer. Click on the demo.pic icon. Then double- click on the BootPic icon while holding the SHIFT-key. Click on the Load Picture -gadget and press RETURN. Select 'Yes' in the requester that pops up afterwards. Enter 'DemoSong.mod' and press RETURN After resetting and removing any disks in df0: you can watch the picture and enjoy the sound. When started from CLI, BootPic is controlled by commandline parameters as usual. If no parameters are specified, a window as described above will open. The syntax is as follows : BootPic -e | -l{IFF-File} [-m{MED-Module}][-s][-r][-c rgb][-k][-y] -l{IFF-File} Removes, if present, an old picture and then tries to install a new one instead. Message if it had success: «Picture successfully installed. Have Fun !» Possible faults: «Couldn't open Picture-File» «This is not an ILBM-Picturefile» «Picture is not compressed» «Warning:Couldn't find CAMG-Chunk» CAMG-Chunk not found : The viewmodes are saved in this chunk [e.g. Hires or Interlace etc.]. Until Kickstart 1.3 the picture will be shown correctly despite of CAMG's missing. [RESTRICTION: instead of Halfbright, HAM will be selected.] «BODY-Chunk not found» ILBM-File didn't contain image-data (should never happen). «Memlist corrupt. Something went totally wrong» Meaning see at -e «Not enough Memory» «Couldn't open Module / Not a MED-Module» Error while loading the MED-Module:[either one of these] - lack of memory - file wasn't a module - file not found Nevertheless, the picture itself will be installed. -e Removes, if present, an old picture. Message if successful: «Removed BootPic from List» Possible faults: «BootPic not installed. Couldn't remove it» «Memlist corrupt. Something went totally wrong» BootPic discovered its memory, but it couldn't find its entry in the resident table (should never happen). The following parameters work only together with -l : -m{MED-Module} loads additionally a MED-Module. If it can't be loaded, just the picture will be installed. -s loads the file specified by -l only if BootPic is not yet installed. In this way it is possible to use BootPic in the Startup-Sequence. If BootPic was already installed it prints out : «BootPic already installed. Changed nothing.» -r BootPic resets the machine after loading the picture. -c here you can specify the color which should be faded in after showing the picture. Normally this is the background color of your Workbench-Screen. The values of r,g and b must be specified hexadecimal, so values from 0-9 and a-f are valid. [0 means that this component isn't there at all and f means that it is there at maximum idensity. (e.g. -c000 for black, -ce50 for orange). Invalid values are accepted but the result will be other than expected. Default: 05a [Amiga-blue] -k enables checking of all drives [see above] -y enables color-cycling [see above] ABOUT the PARSER All parameters may be specified either as small or capital letters. Every parameter MUST start with «-», the order is at pleasure. Between the single parmeters any number of spaces may be typed . Valid calls would be : bootpic -l :BootPic/demo.pic -R -c 7aB bootpic -E bootpic -cAE3 -S -l:bootpic/demo.pic If -e or -l aren't specified, or if something else was typed wrong, BootPic shows the usage. If -e AND -l are specified, BootPic acts as if just -e was specified. KOMPATIBILTY BootPic installs itself in a «kindly» way, that means that any other resident programme won't be removed, e.g. Guardian, CARD:, but also viruses. In the same careful way it removes itself. It should run on every Amiga with Kick 1.2 or 1.3. It also runs on the A500+ with OS 2.0, but I'm not sure about the A3000. Restriction: Truble occurs on some A2000 with Kick 1.3 and 1MB Chipmem. ( Seems to depend on the error which is patched by Setpatch -r ; as I haven't acces to such an Amiga, I can't do anything about it.) What happens after RESETTING the machine ? When BootPic was successfully installed, the loaded picture will be faded in softly whenever there's no bootable disk in df0: [or any other drive] . If you additionally loaded a MED-Module, it will be played while the picture is shown. Packed modules may need up to 10s to decrunch ! You may abort decrunching by pressing the left mousebutton. In this case the picture will disappear and the normal Workbenchhand appears. If the uncrunched file actually isn't a Module you won't hear anything ! You may toggle the sound-filter with the right mousebutton ( the filter is connected with the PowerLED so you actually toggle both ). When inserting a bootable disk the colors will be faded softly to the color specified under -c and your system starts as usual . [The fading of HAM-pictures looks a little bit curious but that's NO bug.] If you press the left mouse button while the picture is shown, the usual workbench-hand appears. Possbile SOURCES of ERRORS Normally a picture that was once installed, stays in memory until you remove it with -e [Remove Picture] or till you switch off your Amiga. But there are some exceptions: a.) If you play a game that believes all the memory belongs to itsself, it is possible that the memory allocated by BootPic is overwritten. Then you won't see the picture any more. b.) Many viruses simply overwrite the reset-vectors. In this case BootPic will be gone, too. c.) Some virusdedectors (e.g. ATool) are of the opinion that every resident programme is a virus, so BootPic will be removed, too. If one of these cases should arise, it may be possible, that you get a GURU after a reset. If you can't remove it by clicking the left mousebutton, switching off the Amiga is the only thing you can do. HISTORY V1.0 - first release, only Cli-Support V1.1 - intuition-interface V1.2 - added 'Color-Cycling' and 'Check all Drives' - Resident Code and Data MUST be placed in Chip-Mem [only exception: internal expansions of 512k at location $C00000 (e.g. I've this one)]. Now it uses Chip-Mem. Sorry, I didn't know about this limitation. - There was some code that caused BootPic to guru on the A500 Plus with OS 2.0 after displaying the picture. Now it works ... - Fixed one bug that caused serious errors when loading IFF-files with more than 32 colors saved ( like the HAM-Demo-pics of DPaintIV ). - Brushes now are handled correctly. V2.0 - MED-Module support PROGRAMMING BootPic was written with the Devpac 2.14D - Assembler. Many thanks go to JM Forgeas for the wonderful editor AZ V1.50. Thanks Markus Herpich who provided me his brandnew A500+ for a whole afternoon. The code for playing the sound was written by Teijo Kinnunen. I took it from the MEDV3.0 package distributed on Fish 476. [Files: loadmod.i and modplayer.i] The decrunching code is ©opyrighted by Nico François. I took it from Fish 253. Also greetings to the 10 ( really ten, not more [since june 1991] !) kind people who sent me the demanded fee or bug reports. Hope there'll be more in future ... Future Versions: Less bugs (I don't know any more, but there surely are ... ) Improved fading; color-cycling while fading; improved code But remember: future improvements depend on YOUR support !!! I am very thankful for critics, propositions and BUG-reports. ENJOY ! Oberkotzau, january 28th 1992 Andreas Ackermann [*10.07.1974] [ excuse my mistakes !!! ]