Saxonia Issue 01 Part 003

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

Saxonia

 · 5 years ago

  

Amiga 500 compatibility 
By Rumrunner/VOID 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

I once read in a mag (I think it was in Eurochart), that Zerox requested 
mags that didn't need too high specifications to run. 
I agree with you, Zerox, and that's why I have made this mag totally 
Amiga 500 compatible. It needs some fastram in addition to the 512k's of 
chip, but I think that that was more or less common long ago, so I'm 
satisfied with it. 

And later on, when I have the time, the mag will use even less memory. 
I will write a new textroutine so that I can keep only next and 
previous line of text in ram instead of the whole article. Also a 
diskloader for the modules is planned. That way, we can include big 
modules and it will still be possible for people with little ram to 
run the mag. 

I will also consider adding more colours to the text. With memory 
savings as described above, this will be no problem, even on a 500. 

 
You might also have noticed that the top screen and bottom screen run 
in 320*256 with 5 bitplanes, while the text screen uses 640*256 in 
one bitplane. It is old news that Amiga can have several resolutions on 
screen at once, but I still think that this still is a fine feature. 
This saves memory, as there's no need to run the top and bottom line in 
640*256, after all the pictures were drawn in 320*256. 

So, Zerox, I hope that you are satisfied with this result. And to 
everyone, if you have suggestions for improvements, send them if you 
like.