Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Ictari Issue 48
ICTARI USER GROUP ISSUE 48 July 1997
___ ______ ___ _________ _________ ___
\__\ \ __\ \ \__ \______ \ \ _____\ \__\
___ \ \ \ __\ _____\ \ \ \ ___
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ ____ \ \ \ \ \
\ \ \ \_____ \ \____ \ \__\ \ \ \ \ \
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
\__\ \_______\ \______\ \________\ \__\ \__\
* m a g a z i n e *
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I C T A R I U S E R G R O U P
G Greenway, 8 Denmark Road, Reading, Berks, RG1 5PA. 0118 756668
http://www.elis.demon.co.uk/ictari/ictari.htm
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
INDEX FOR ISSUE 48
==================
ASSEMBLY: Mini word processor
GFA: NVDI settings functions
Pop-up menu routines
Alternative "Help Balloon" system
Bubble GEM support routines
MISC HTML Image format FAQ
GIF format information
Xaaes, Multi-tasking AES for MiNT
STOS: Swingshot game demo
-------------------------------------------------------------------
EDITORIAL
=========
Hello Again,
Sorry for the late apperance of ICTARI, this is starting to become a
habit. I shall be taking a short holiday next month, so issue 49 might
take some time as well. What with summer being here, the number of
contributions has dried up a little, some arriving rather late. That
being said, I only *aim* for the 15th of each month, so if the July
issue actually arrives in July, I think that's good enough. ICTARI is
rather unique among disk-zines, being a hybrid magazine and user group.
Publications like Maggie and Atariphile, (great though they are) can
rely on software and hardware reviews and game hints to fill space.
ICTARI has a much more narrow coverage, (anything is open to discussion,
though) and its chosen field of programming requires time and effort.
This makes it all the more remarkable that it has been possible to fill
a disk every month for nearly fifty issues. Well done !
Again, I've been rather busy this month, but I did manage to get
some coding done. No, not more tacky fractal programs, I'm afraid I've
actually managed to generate something usefull ! Of course, the code is
only usefull to me, and any other unfortunates who need to dabble in
Weibull statistics. Suffice it to say that the whole sordid afair was
easiest to resolve using Prospero FORTRAN on an Atari than it was on the
PCs at work...
All is not well with my attempt to make early issues of ICTARI
available via FTP. The folk at the UMICH archive are taking their time
in moving the files to the correct directory, so the popular mirror site
at Imperial college doesn't get updated either. The last time I looked,
both sites had the first ten issues, with a further ten in the Newitems
directory at the Michigan site. A promising alternative would be to use
the FuNet archive at:
ftp.funet.fi
We shall have to see...
Lastly, I've finally managed to upgrade to a Falcon. Contrary to
what I was told at the last Goodmans' show, Systems Solutions were able
to sell me a 14Mb Falcon Mark X. Seeing CAB and Imagecopy run in proper
colour resolutions has been quite an experience, it's great to see ST
software perform this well. (-Not that things were too bad on the old
ST...) Texture mapped games like the Doom clone Running and the race
game Moon Games run at an impressive speed, I can't wait to see the Bad
Mood project finished. Unfortunately 16 / 32 systems are out of Linux CD
ROMs, running Linux was one of my reasons for upgrading. They swear that
will eventually have them in stock, and in the meantime I can always try
the earlier distribution from the Compendium CD. I'm sure you can
imagine the PC set-up I could have had for the same money, though I'm
sure most of you would rather not...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
CORRESPONDENCE
==============
To: All
From: Stephen Bruce
Re: Monitor Cable
As mentioned last month, I've picked up an Atari SC1435 colour monitor
on the cheap from my local Cash Converter. I thought I had a bargain but
now I find I can't connect it to my ST. I have the parts to make a cable
myself and Giles supplied the pin-outs for the ST last month. All I need
now are the pin-outs for the monitor itself. It has a nine pine 'D'
connection and I'm led to believe this is configured in the same way as
a Phillips monitor. If anyone out there has a monitor of this type
(Atari or Phillips, I'm getting desperate) can you supply me with this
info from the manual. I've tried Atari themselves and several third
parties to no avail.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Everyone
From: Giles Greenway
Re: Monitor Cables
Will someone please help the poor bloke ! I know a lot of people
read, or at least download ICTARI, most never contribute. Well, now is
your chance to reform.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Anyone who uses Magic and Lattice C (Probably Mark Wherry)
From: Giles Greenway
Re: Magic
So far, I'm pretty happy with Magic. I've only got a couple of
gripes. Firstly, I can't get Extendos Pro, the CD ROM driver to work.
More seriously, Lattice C's rather groovy drop-down menus don't seem to
work ! I can't set compiler options. Surely there's a way of getting the
workbench to cooperate without having to re-boot with Magic ? Help !
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Mark Foot
From: Giles Greenway
Re: Multi-tasking
Hello again, I hope my spiel about multi-tasking did some good. I've
included Graham Chalmers' latest release of Xaaes, a multi-tasking AES
for MiNT with this issue. It's been a while since the last version, so
it's good to see that it's still being worked on. If anyone asks, I can
include the source code next time. -All suggestions for bug-fixes and
other improvements are welcomed. Do you actually have a version of MiNT
? That can be rectified as well. The trouble is, a lot of this stuff can
only be found on the 'net or on CD ROM, the last time I looked, the PD
libraries had yet to catch on. I've not tried the new Xaaes version yet,
as I've not yet got MiNT running on my Mark X. The KGMD distribution I
mentioned last time didn't install correctly, I think I might try and
download some of the files again just in case. Let me know how you get
on. Anyway, for those on the 'net, Graham Chalmers' pages are at:
http://www.i-way.co.uk/~c_graham/home.html
If that wasn't enough, a new MiNT variant is beging worked on. It's called
Fenix, and may even include JAVA support. Take a look at:
http://www.it.lth.se/~sven/fenix.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mathew Bacon (k964101@kingston.ac.uk)
To: ICTARI
Re: Graphics Formats
Hello,
May I start by saying, I was really impressed when I stumbled across
your site! (thanks to Atari Computing!) well done! - ok I'll cut to the
chase!
I am a HiSoft BASIC programmer and have written several useful utilities
for the Atari ST/STe/Falcon etc. Now I realise that you do not support
HiSoft BASIC as such, but I am writing a web design suite called
"Web.Wizard" and have come up against some difficulties I'm hoping that
you may be able to help with !
The suite/integrated package will eventually consist of:
- Wizard function (similar to Home Page Penguin, but with more options!)
- HTML editor "Web.Ed"
- DTP web design (papyrus idea etc.)
- RTF to HTML converter
- Link checker
- Image map designer
The difficulty I find myself up against is that I cannot load any
picture format (GIF,JPEG,PNG) etc. so that I can manipulate it and
display it on screen.
Do you know of anyone who has the know how and would be willing to help.
I'm hoping to go semi-commercial with this (8.99), so I would be able
to offer a cut for assistance etc.
Regards,
Matthew Bacon (Cadenza Software)
P.S What computer have you designed your site with?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Giles Greenway
To: Matthew Bacon
Re: Graphics Formats
Hello.
To start with, the ICTARI WEB pages get written using Edith Pro and CAB
1.5, once using a standard 4Mb, now on a C-Lab Falcon Mark X. What do
you make of them ? The only reason there's no support for Hi-Soft BASIC
is that no-one has written any ! (Full marks to John Oaks for breaking
the embarrasing lack of assembly language in ICTARI this month.) Theo
Ross has supplied a wealth of material for GFA BASIC, perhaps you would
be well-placed to share a few tricks of the trade of HiSoft BASIC
programming ? All contributions are gratefuly recieved, including
suggestions for the WEB site. (You can have it any colour, so long as
it's black...)
As for grpahics formats, I've included a compressed HTML FAQ in this
month's issue. As you are on the 'net, it should be easy for you to
chase up the various file-formats you need. I've also included some
information about .GIF files. A word of warning, Compuserve (who
developed the format) now want all developers who create programs that
read or write GIFs to buy a special licence, even if the program is
freeware or shareware. The whole 'net community is up in arms. Maybe the
fee is a little smaller for shareware developers, I don't know, much
less your risk of getting caught if you don't cough up. I shall try to
get some information on JPEG files into the next issue. (For those who
don't know, JPEG compression is lossy, in other words, the re-created
image is not exactly the same as theo original. This is fine for
digitsed colour photographs and video stills which can really eat
memory. The method uses wavelet transfroms, which for those who know,
are similar to Fourier transforms.)
Hope that helped !
-------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jason J Railton
To: Everybody
Re: SwingShot game demo
I've sent in a demo of how far SwingShot has progressed. It now has
moving baddies. The STOS Basic code that generates the pre-programmed
paths is included. If you look at it, you'll find some data lines that
define the paths as a sequence of manouevres in the X and Y axes.
Feel free to tinker with the data to design your own paths. If you
come up with some good ones, send them in.
The sprites took some time to design. For the explosion, I drew the
basic cloud, then enlarged the orange and brown pixel patterns
separately, before overlaying them again. This makes the cloud looks
like it bursts open, but it means I have to track each pixel and re-draw
it separately.
Hardest of all was the pyramid of balls, which spins on two axes and
was very tricky to visualise and draw accurately.
By the way, this demo runs at 25Hz on my machine, so (at 4 pixels per
program cycle) it takes just over 3 seconds for the screen to scroll
from one side to the other. Is it running too fast on anyone's Falcon or
TT or whatever? If it is, I can force it to run at 25Hz.
The path generator plays out the flight paths on screen as they are
generated, and records the x/y co-ordinates in a memory bank. To make
your own paths, it's probably easiest to make a copy of the program and
tinker with the first few lines of data.
The first DATA line simply states how many paths are listed (18).
Note that the paths come in matched pairs, and are on separate lines.
Towrds the end, one of the paths is duplicated since I couldn't think of
a suitable matching sequence.
First is the x/y co-ordinates where the sprite starts. Note that this
is for the top-left corner of a 16x16 sprite, so to be off the bottom-
right it would be 320,200 and to be off the top-left it would be
-16,-16.
Next is the number of manouevres that make up the path, then the
manouevres themselves. These consist of two code words for the x and y
movement, which then require further parameters. These parameters can
all be real numbers (with a decimal point). The code words are capital
letters, as detailed in the program, that describe the mathematical
function to use. These are followed by the number of steps that the
manouevre should take, then the relevant parameters in order.
Then come the code letters for the next manouevre and so on. If
anyone can design a good path I'll include it in the game. Note that the
sprite should just move off screen before the path ends.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Giles Greenway
To: Jason J Railton
Re: Swingshot
Swingshot runs fine on my Falcon, it's a shame Buzzsaw doesn't. This
is quite a tragedy, I suppose I'll just have to experiment with the
program Backwards.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jason J Railton
To: Everybody
Re: Sound effects
As you'll notice if you run my demo, there are no sound effects. I'd
like to know if anyone has some experience of using the PSG sound chip
from machine code, or knows of any routines to produce sound effects.
I'm afraid that with the mouse and rasters already carefully
synchronised to stay stable, samples are out of the question.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
