Editorial Note: Due to a hard drive crash sometime in September there are no archives for the period 1 Aug to 6 Sept 1997.
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 15:04:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Figaro Tea <humphret@ruby.winthrop.edu> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: _GetIndString Has anyone used _GetIndString before? Inside Mac says to use _GetResource since there isn't a trap macro for _GetIndString or a routine selector. When I use _GetResource I get a handle to the strings, but it's a list of all the strings. How can I use this OS call to get a particular string in the index? The only solution I see is to use my own code to find the string. ..._Tim_...
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 19:30:32 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: shifts Hi, Just would like to know the difference from LSR (logical shift right) and ASR (arimtetic shift right). ^^^^^^^^^ How do you spell this word? Bye, THX, Alok
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 10:07:15 -0400 From: Ajay Nath <AjayNath@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: rhapsody on intel with all the stories about motorola not committed to making PPC chips for desktop computers for more than another year or two & the talk of rhapsody on intel & apple abandoning the CHRP platform it seems like we may have to learn pentium assembly language..or at least switch to objective-c or c++ to be compatible with rhapsody will FantaC be compatible with rhapsodys headers/object system? will FantaC allow us to use apples current headers UNMODIFIED? this is an important issue if you want to be able to use the latest APIs! its not time to panic but it is time to think about where we will be in 1, 2 & 5 years in programmming for the mac
From: Per Hjeltman <leahjn96@student.umu.se> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Writing to screen memory--fast? Hi there. I was just wondering what the fastest method of writing direcly to screen memory is. As it is now, I use this: (pseudo-ish) li r3,4096 mtctr r3 label: lwzu r4,4(r5) stwu r4,4(r6) bdnz label But it seems a to be a slow way of doing things. :( As always, any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. /Per Hjeltman
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:24:37 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok Hi, first I would like to thank everyone for having answered my question abt rotations. I just read the news and have got one question: I'm currently writting applications in 68k (assembly of course) and I don't know yet how to create projects (I work with one unique file, and the macOS traps, and IO_LIB.S). What should I know do? Learn BCF? Learn PPC assembly? HOw much time will it take me? A neighbour also bought a Pascal compiler. He is inviting me to learn Pascal with him, because he finds it boring to leanr alone. What should I do? Learn Pascal? My main aims are writting games (rather rewritting old games for now) and useful applications (reallated to maths in most cases). Before I end, does anybody know the general law for rewritting games, can I rewrite Pacman, tetris, and games like that? Thanks a lot, and have a good week-end. Bye, Alok
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 14:57:37 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok Hi, I know I'm asking beginner's questions, so if anybody is getting iritated, you may filter all msgs with subject "Alok". I would like to know how to open a dialog with some text and have few bottons (OK, CANCEL, YES), all this using resources. I'm currently working on a game, which I wrote long back on the commodore 64. I would like to integrate some graphics, so if anybody could send me some caracter (people I'll be inserting in my game) I would be dilighted... (40 by 40 format). Thx, BYe, Alok
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 97 17:52:06 +0800 From: Malcolm Sharman <sharman@norex.com.au> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: C Header Files Hello All Some of you guys on the list are beta testing Fant 5 and know about the Anvil low level def files. Anyway in Fant 4.1.9 (registered) in the utilities folder there was a folder named Mac Trap calls. Lightsoft have translated most of these C files into PowerPC assembly in the low level def files. I know C++ like the back of my hand, but I never learnt plain C properly. The point of this email is this: Can anybody give some tips to translate the C header files into 68k def files. Is this possible?? Or can these headers only be used with PPC assembly Thanks Malcolm Sharman Lead Programmer Pcyclone Entertainment Software
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 97 08:49:20 +0800 From: Malcolm Sharman <sharman@norex.com.au> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok First things first!!! Since you only work with one unique file,taps and IO_LIB.s. The build system is a much better way of producing larger apps, and it is much more useful for producing good code fairly easily. The BCF commands are not hard to learn, they are all detailed in the Fantasm Users Guide. eg /a Filename = assemble file name /g filename = globalinclude file ie mac_traps_68k.s /l fliename.o = link the flie object file to produce an executable program. There are a couple more but I won't go into detail. One question though are you using a PowerPC computer or a 68k. That question will probably answer what assembly to learn, if 68k you only pretty much have one option, if PPC you have obviously due to the 68k emulator. One tip though Fant 5 will be released soon (no assurances (at lightsofts choice :-) )). And it does not use the Build control file (bcf) so don't be too stressed about learning the BCF commands as they will be obselete pretty soon. :-) Thanks Malcolm Sharman Lead Programmer Pcyclone Entertainment Software
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 17:01:05 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Reading from a file... Hi everybody, First thanks Rob for your code, but my main problem is to read the first line (and the second, and the third, and every line). My other prob is also to open a file. And find the EOF, well everything. Anyways, I think I'll write something on my own, and then send it, so that you can tell me why it doesn't work (of course it won't work :( I'm a begie). But if there's some lonely Cybernaute, ready to help me, may he pls write the code. (My first game is almost finished, I'm sure you're impatient to have it. Well I can already discribe you how it is (except from the fact that all the output goes to macsbug): Well there is a fiesta that was organnised at xxx (xxx=Mr Smith for now) place. And someone (Mr X) murdered someelse (Bill Gates). Now your objectif is to find out who's the murder!? Well thank fully everybody (8 people total) who were invited at the party (fiesta=party if you didn't get it) had to respect few rules: a) not leave the house b) always have a magnet on them So now you are in front of a screen and you are looking at a recording where you can see where everybody was. But everybody had the same magnet, so you don't know who's who. You may have a look at the hole party (40 frames) and ask questions to anybody. Only the killer (Mr X) will lie, but not allways. Now just you wait until I finsh my game ; by this week-end I hope, or by the october holidays (they are starting in two weeks time). bye, Alok
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 97 09:34:52 -0000 From: Kevin Avila <kevin@cache-computing.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Quitting all other Apps >Does anybody out there have some basic code or examples that quit all >open apps except the current one (including the finder). The best way that I have found to do that is simply send a restart appleevent to the finder, the Finder will quite everyting for you.
ate: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 05:58:58 -0400 From: Stuart Ball <lightsoft@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: News from the Tower 8 Oct 97 1. Fantasm 5 demo released, full version shipping 13 Oct 97. Over the last few days we've released the demo version of Fantasm 5 and overhauled the web pages somewhat. We would like to thank those of you that have taken advantage of the pre-ordering (which are dealt with strictly in order of receipt). We will start dispatching the software Monday 13 Oct, so with any luck you should get your CD next week. We have noticed the WWW pages getting rather congested - please be patient and if you can't get through, please try again later. Via the pages you can get a demo of Fantasm 5, along with some selected documentation and examples. The demo contains 68K tools only, and does not allow you to create or edit projects. It will run for 30 days from time of installation. The demo (1200K download) is served from a high speed server in the UK, so you should get a decent transfer rate. A "lite" version of Fantasm 5 is available which contains 68K tools only - it does not allow development of PowerPC projects and is aimed primarily at the educational market via site licensing. In addition, we've started a new "Beginners guide to PowerPC assembly language" and are serializing it on the web pages. We've also upload the executable of Eclipse which is now rather a medium sized PowerPC project covering sprites, sound, wibbly wobbly bits, scrolling etc. The full project comes with Fantasm 5. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our beta testers who have done such a brilliant job over the last couple of weeks. Finally, we have determined the tools to ship with Fantasm 5 as follows: 1. Anvil - Project Manager and tool services provider. 2. Build 2 phase (4 phase available by end of year) 3. Fantasm 5 (68K and PowerPC assembler) 4. Link68K and LinkPPC 5. LibMake68K and LibMakePPC 6. DDBaccess (Dependencies Database access - used by Build) 7. Rescopy 8. AutoLaunch (the source is supplied for this one for those interested) 9. Assm_count_lines - counts how many source lines are in a given project. 10. Assm_chroma 11. AnvMOD (Mod,XM, S3M etc background music player) 12. AnvAMP (MP3 background music player courtesy of Cache-Computing) Link68KObj and LinkPPCobj are not being shipped on the grounds that LibMake makes them somewhat redundant. (These were linkers that output object files). SUPPORT Support for Fantasm 5 is provided via direct update. Fantasm 5 comes with a 12 month subscription to our update service whereby we will email you any updated tools as they become available (this does not include tools related to Fanta_C). If the update is too large to email (at our discretion), we will send you a new CD. This service is not available for the Lite version where any neccessary updates will be via public downloads. PRICING Fantasm 5 is priced at 76 UK pounds, 122 US dollars. Fantasm 5 Lite is priced at 50 UK pounds, 85 US dollars Upgrade from PowerFantasm 4 to Fantasm 5 is priced at 35 UK pounds, 54 US dollards UPDATES The next planned update is to Fantasm 5.1 set for January 1997. ------------------------- Press release follows: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Lightsoft is pleased to announce the release of the demo of Fantasm 5, a Macintosh assembly language development environment. Fantasm 5 is a major upgrade produced over the last two years. This release addresses four major areas: 1. Flexibility. 2. Ease of use. 3. Speed. 4. Modularity. Fantasm 5 is designed to allow the creation of most any kind of high speed Mac application, code resource, fragment, control panel, extension, shared library etc. Also useful for accelerating higher level C and Pascal projects. It sports a new graphical project manager which allows the use of multiple open projects, embedded projects and merged targets. It provides a new plug in architecture with publically available API. It's up to 260% faster than the version it replaces and uses processor emulation to spot pipeline stalls and dependencies in your source code making it easy to produce very high speed code. No more "black magic" needed. A usable demonstration version and selected documentation is available now. The product will be released 13th October 1997. Details, docs and working demo (1200k) are available from our world wide web pages at: http://www.tau.it/lightsoft Requirements: Fast 030 processor. PowerMac preferred as many facilities are not available on a 68K machine. 3 to 6 Megs free RAM. 256 colors or better monitor. CDROM drive required for installation. Contact information: Snail mail: Lightsoft, 55 Sidney Street, Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG31 8AZ, U.K. Email: <lightsoft@zedworld.demon.co.uk> WWW: <http://www.tau.it/lightsoft> Fantasm and PowerFantasm are trademarks of Lightsoft. All other trademarks acknowledged. -------------------------------------------------------------- Lightsoft 1100 GMT, 8 Oct 1997.
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 17:32:14 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok Hi, I need some help with the mac traps, but rather than bothering you, I would like to have some sugestions for CD's Books or Web sites that could help me. Is inside Mac worth it? (It's 60$ here). Thx, Bye, Alok
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 97 09:10:04 -0000 From: Kevin Avila <kevin@cache-computing.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok >I need some help with the mac traps, but rather than bothering you, I would >like to have some sugestions for CD's Books or Web sites that could help >me. Is inside Mac worth it? (It's 60$ here). Totaly worth it, and be lucky you can get the CD. When I bought them the CD was not out so I hand to buy the books which for all of them retailed at abround $500, but sense at the time I was an Apple employee I got a discount and they only cost me $499.50.
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 19:02:13 +0200 From: Per Hjeltman <leahjn96@student.umu.se> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok >Is inside Mac worth it? (It's 60$ here). It's worth every penny you pay, trust me. I honestly can't imagine being without it. While you're spending money, make sure to buy the Macintosh Toolbox Assistant, a handy electronic reference that you can use while programming. /Per Hjeltman
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 21:17:17 +0100 From: Rob Probin <rob@zedworld.demon.co.uk> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Quitting all other Apps >Hello All >Does anybody out there have some basic code or examples that quit all >open apps except the current one (including the finder). Any lanuage is >fine but assembly is prefered. >At the moment I am taking memory from other apps which has caused my >testing machines to crash frequently (yes I know it is a very bad thing >to do). >Can anybody help out ??? > > >Thanks > >Malcolm Sharman >Lead Programmer >Pcyclone Entertainment Software > > How about getting all the process serial numbers and work from there? Rob
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 21:17:15 +0100 From: Rob Probin <rob@zedworld.demon.co.uk> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: C Header Files >Hello All > > Some of you guys on the list are beta testing Fant 5 and know about >the Anvil low level def files. Anyway in Fant 4.1.9 (registered) in the >utilities folder there was a folder named Mac Trap calls. Lightsoft have >translated most of these C files into PowerPC assembly in the low level >def files. I know C++ like the back of my hand, but I never learnt plain >C properly. The point of this email is this: Can anybody give some tips >to translate the C header files into 68k def files. Is this possible?? Or >can these headers only be used with PPC assembly > >Thanks > > >Malcolm Sharman >Lead Programmer >Pcyclone Entertainment Software > > Check out the Fantasm manuals for translation of C headers to assembler.... Rob
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 09:47:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Figaro Tea <humphret@ruby.winthrop.edu> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok On Thu, 9 Oct 1997, Kevin Avila wrote: > When I bought them the > CD was not out so I hand to buy the books which for all of them retailed > at abround $500, but sense at the time I was an Apple employee I got a > discount and they only cost me $499.50. What did you do with all of the savings, Kev? You didn't spend it all in one place did you:)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 97 13:17:31 +0800 From: Malcolm Sharman <sharman@norex.com.au> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok >I need some help with the mac traps, but rather than bothering you, I would >ike to have some sugestions for CD's Books or Web sites that could help >me. Is inside Mac worth it? (It's 60$ here). As others have already said the books really are worth the money that you pay.They are pretty much essentail to Mac programming. However if you need to get hold of some of the books without paying up for them you can download every one of them from Apple's devworld site http://www.devworld.apple.com/ just follow the links, This is the wy i got the first couple that I needed, but a hard copy is always better :-) Malcolm Sharman Lead Programmer Pcyclone Entertainment Software
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 13:22:13 -0400 From: Ajay Nath <AjayNath@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok symantecs THINK Reference is a great resource to have too as it comes with lots of source code examples.
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 23:39:46 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: S.O.S ALOK (Ghostbusters!!!!) Hi everyone, Well here is another of my msg, but I'm sure you must be feeling glad to notice how I'm improving, and to think that in few months time, maybe I'll be at the Apple's headquarters saying hi to Lightsoft (Must underline the MAYBE!!). Well anyways, I would like to thank Ajay Nath, Malcolm Sharman, Kevin Avila, Per Hjeltman, Figaro Tea, Mario, Arthur Langereis and everybody else (Oh yes, ROb and Stu too!). Anyways, here is todays quizzzz!! I'm rewritting the application called Arkencursor, for the ignorents, a simple extension that replaces the black cursor by a nice colorful one (it works like Aaron I guess). So wrote this 4 lines prog: ark: clr.l -(sp) ** Space for handle move.w #1,-(sp) ** Cursor ID dc.w $aa1b ** GetCCursor dc.w $aa1c ** SetCCursor (There is no point in having a ** (sp)+,hand(a5) followed by a move.l ** hand(a5),-(sp). rts global ark And I built it! It workes perfectly except that to see the colored mouse one must droped into macsbug and hit ESC. Than I built it into a ressource as discribed on one of the programmer's dream page (but it says that beyond Fanat4.05 there will be a direct way? Which one them? (<-- That's question number 1). And I rebooted and CRASHHHHHH (<--- That's question number 2). Well so question number 3 will be how do I do to keep the cursor colored after quitting, and what do I do to avoid crashh. Thanks a lot for helping! ***** Question 1: How to write an init with Fanta >4.05 Question 2: Why does it crash? Question 3: Why doesn't the cursor remain colored? Help me!!!! Bye, Alok
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 23:40:23 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok Hi, well I solved my last prob: I had forgotten to put the icon res (That's where you get the proof that I won't be at the Apple headquarters next month!). Anyways it works until the firt change of mouse occurs, that few seconds after startup. HELP ME! Bye, Alok
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 18:18:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Figaro Tea <humphret@ruby.winthrop.edu> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok On Tue, 14 Oct 1997, Alok wrote: > Anyways it works until the firt change of mouse occurs, that few seconds > after startup. HELP ME! Are you installing the init into the system heap? If not then it will get called at startup time, but after you exit the init the system will destroy it. I'm not familiar with the init so I'm not sure what else you'd have to do besides just installing it in the system heap. ..._Tim_...
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 14:06:22 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Misc Support Hi, Can someone pls send me the guide realted to writting extensions that's on the lightsoft web site? I had problems accessing it! Thx, Alok (Is there a guide on how to write extensions with Fantasme >4.05 ?)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 14:06:31 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: alok Hi, Well I think I found an idea on how to keep my cursor on the screen: The computer has got a handle to the cursor ressource number 0 in memory. So I change that handle with one pointing to my cursor ressource that was detached. But how do I tell him that it will be a color ressource? How do I get the system cursor handle? Bye, Alok
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 17:29:03 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok mario wrote: >Are you installing the init into the system heap? If not then it will get >called at startup time, but after you exit the init the system will >destroy it. I'm not familiar with the init so I'm not sure what else >you'd have to do besides just installing it in the system heap. > >I agree with Tim, any program running after the boot procedure may call >the same functions your program uses and modify the cursor, actually many >program do it, you may wnat to change the default cursor icon or to patch >the trap itself, but I wouldn' t suggest the second =) Well I don't know how to access the system heap. Once the init has quit, the colored cursor is still there but then it disappears once the timer cursor is called at the end of startup. If I use ResEdit to change the icon, I can't have a colored one. And agree on the fact that it's not a good idea to patch the system trap. I want it to be an extension. Anyways, have you got Arkencursor? If not, I can mail it to you. Should I mail it to the hole list? Or just to the ones who want it? (It's just 13k compressed). Bye, Alok
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 19:09:30 -0400 From: Ajay Nath <AjayNath@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok well remember that some resources are in ROM so to the system probably either reads the cursor arrow resource from ROM at boot time or from the system file & then stores it as a handle somewhere a better way to do what you are trying to is the following: 1) use one of the many free/share-ware extensions that let you change the systems default cursor OR if you have to write your own init you can 2) write an init that changes whatever data that defines the systems default cursor..look through a listing of the system globals & you should find the data somewhere if it is documented, then change the data. this may be an easy way to do what you want OR 3) you could write an app that does the same thing i.e. change data in the system heap that defines the dafault cursor & then put the app in the startup items folder in the system folder OR 4) you could replace the resource in the system file that defines the default cursor
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 16:06:05 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: alok Hi, Well after having spent over 3 hours analying Arkencursor with ResEdit and Macsbug, I have at last understood how it works. After each setcursor call, there is a setccursor call. But how was that programmed? And why is there a ressource id0 with a normal black cursor in the arkencursor file? Thx, ALok
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 17:10:45 -0400 From: Stuart Ball <lightsoft@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Misc Support - Extensions and Fant4 Alok wrote: >Hi, > >Can someone pls send me the guide realted to writting extensions that's on >the lightsoft web site? I had problems accessing it! > >Thx, Alok Hiya Alok, Below I've pasted the text from the file which hopefully explains what you want. NOTE that most of the construction process described below applies purely to Fantasm 4. In Fantasm 5 you just use the "68K extension" template to create a new project with. Many regards, Stu. <Text Snipped>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 16:56:39 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok HI, it's again me, This time, I won't trouble you with my arkencursor program, I'll simply wait unil my friend comes back. Anyways here is a easy question: What's the desktop's handle? I was told that the desktop is exactly like a window, so what's it's handle? Don't ask me why I need to know this, you'll wunder from which planet I come, and will be angry with LightsoftCR for selling their products to monkeys! Bye, ALok
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 23:02:23 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok Hi, back to arkencursor. First I think that many of you haven't understood my main aim: COPY ARKENSURSOR. This is just for educationnal use. I want to redo what my ancestors did. I want my program to be exactly like arkencursor. Anyways, I was thinking of mailing you arkencursor to you know, but I would also like to mail my project, so I first have to document it! SO just wait for half a week, and you'll get the begining of the project (my code) and the end (arkencursor). BTW if anybody here is a good detective, I wouldn't mind him (or her) to contact the autor of arkencursor. Bye, ALok STU (or Rob), what you sent me was exactly what I had. I needed the next part, because I would like to learn how to patch the traps. (Nice work on the web page, gives it a change, but has become a bit difficult to naviguate, guess it's a question of habite, I was spending over an hour everyday on it.) On the Fantasm 5 released msg, you wrote that fantasm 5.1 would be oput in Jan 1997 instead of writting jan 1998! I know 24 hours a day is little for a programmer, but... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Take that as a joke!
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 19:09:54 -0400 From: Ajay Nath <AjayNath@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok >> BTW if anybody here is a good detective, I wouldn't mind him (or her) to contact the autor of arkencursor. << Another bit of detective work that you could do would be to use resedit to disassemble the init that you are trying to copy, then you could reverse engineer it.
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 23:11:56 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok >>> BTW if anybody here is a good detective, I wouldn't mind him (or her) to >contact the autor of arkencursor. ><< > >Another bit of detective work that you could do would be to use resedit to >disassemble the init that you are trying to copy, then you could reverse >engineer it. My objective isn't to be a hacker nor to be a copy cat. All I want is learn. I'm juste 16 and I have got all the time in the world to copy. BBut I really want to improve my assembly. SO I don't think I'll be able to understand anything with res edit, since also it was written in Pascal. Bye, ALok
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 23:17:34 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok Hi, You have all been helpin gme so much, that it's now my turn to return: Here are some tips on how to get cheap mac hardware. I just bought a StyleWriter 2500 (color) for 200 francs instead of 600!!! Here is how I did it: I went onto Apple.CH (apple swiss) home page and got hte list of all shops near my town. Then I called each of them and one guy told me that the Basel (a town at the other end of switzerland, that's 2hours drive! didn't you know switzerland is small?) mac expo had just finished and that everything was comming to him for a second hand sale! I was really pleased. And plus, I'll try to get a summer job with in that shop next year. So the moral is: Get second hand things from expos! YOu thing they won't work? Don't worry you get a 1 year warranty! And you pay 1/3 the price. *** DO you know what's the first programming language they teach you over here in the university? JAVA!!! ERRRk that's dangerous for brsin cells! I hope I get to learn something more assembly like. BTW you know why I write these strange msgs? I'm a JAVA programmer! Haven't written much in Java, but there are few very good guides on the net which (are supposed to) teach you the ORIENTED OBJECT language in 21 days! Bye, Alok
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 22:10:41 +0200 From: Per Hjeltman <leahjn96@student.umu.se> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok >However if you want a real good diassembler, use Jasik's Nosy. Useless as it may be, I nevertheless would like to echo that. MacNosy is _the_ best disassembler I have ever seen. Nosy has got an educational value that can't be underestimated either. It's not cheap but for the money you get incredinbly much. http://www.jasik.com has got more information about Nosy. /Per Hjeltman
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 09:04:10 +0000 From: twi@pac.com.au To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Sprite scrolling Hello, I'm working with sprites at the moment,and I'm stuck :( I can draw them to screen no problem,and I can move them around,but there's this flicker... I tried waiting for a vertical retrace,which did get rid of the flicker,but now it's really slooooow :( I could put up with the dodgy speed,except every 10 or 20 moves,it seems to click or stutter for no apparent reason which gives this lovely jerky effect every now and then. I've thought about drawing it offscreen and flipping it,but would this solve the problem or just demand more code for the same end result? And does it mean I have to do the off screen draws to a virtual screen or are there multiple pages I can play with? Any suggestions greatly appreciated :) Paul
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 15:41:35 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok Hi, (bonjour!) I need an assembleur for the atari. Can anybody help me? Bye! **** J'ai bien avance en assembleur. J'ai vu que vous avez visitez ma page!? Merci! Je trouve les cours de math facile! On a refait le calendrier! Et on fait de la combinaison! (triangle de pascal). Ah quel avance on avait pris avec vous! A+ Alok.
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 15:51:46 +0200 From: Allan Lund Jensen <maccoder@post6.tele.dk> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling twi@pac.com.au wrote: > > Hello, > > I'm working with sprites at the moment,and I'm stuck :( > > I can draw them to screen no problem,and I can move them around,but there's > this flicker... I tried waiting for a vertical retrace,which did get rid of > the flicker,but now it's really slooooow :( > > I could put up with the dodgy speed,except every 10 or 20 moves,it seems to > click or stutter for no apparent reason which gives this lovely jerky effect > every now and then. > > I've thought about drawing it offscreen and flipping it,but would this solve > the problem or just demand more code for the same end result? And does it > mean I have to do the off screen draws to a virtual screen or are there > multiple pages I can play with? > > Any suggestions greatly appreciated :) > > Paul > Im just starting with the sprites thing, but heres my idea anyway (if I've understood the problem correctly): I dont know how you have set the whole thing up (GWorlds or something like that), but I would reserve some memory for a virtual screen. Plot all the sprites on that screen, and the splat the virtual screen to the physical screen using the FPU. Just a double buffer or page flipping, if you will. In case you need to preserve the background (which I suppose most people do), youll probably need two virtual screens. One for the background and one for the sprites. To make the whole thing faster and easier, you could probably use something called dirty rectangles. As far as I know, the term has originated on the PC, but its the same thing for Mac. The very quick and dirty explanation: instead of splatting the whole virtual screen to the physical screen, you just splat the areas where youre sprites will be placed and overdraw the old sprites at the same time (another term for dirty rectangles would be common sense?). I found some text on it at the FAQSYS homepage, but if youre interested I have the text somewhere on my harddisk. If anybody has some thoughts on the best way of masking sprites, or at least arrange things so that they wont overdraw the background, I would love to hear about it. My immediate solution would be some applied boolean algebra? But I have also noticed that some shareware games do it the old Amiga way, and have some 1 coloured masks of the sprites. Is this a better way, and how would you implement it? I don't know if Eclipse (the fantasm 5 demo-game) has moved away from ICL8; if they have, I imagine the answer is lurking in there somewhere. Still, some thoughts on the matter would be nice ... oh, and good collision detection is anyone feels up to it (I've read about grid-based collision detection, but the name itself suggests it to be less than perfect/imprecise) Alok wrote: >J'ai bien avance en assembleur. J'ai vu que vous avez visitez ma >page!? Merci! >Je trouve les cours de math facile! On a refait le calendrier! Et on >fait de la combinaison! (triangle de pascal). Ah quel avance on avait >pris avec vous! Indeed. As often as twice a day. Sometimes more. Sadly my language skills didn't measure up. Is this a question or a signature? I'm confused. Allan -- People think that Hell is fire and brimstone and the Devil poking you in the butt with a pitchfork, but it's not. Hell is when you should have walked away, but you didn't. - Romeo Is Bleeding
X-Listserver: Macjordomo 1b10 - Macintosh Listserver by Michele Fuortes Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 19:00:59 -0400 From: Ajay Nath <AjayNath@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Sprite scrolling try looking at the mac games programming web page for tons of info & code at http://www.wwu.edu/%7En9145339/progmac.html you could also use the "Sprite Animation Toolkit" which is a free library of sprite routines for the mac...i am not sure that you could access it from Fantasm though...perhaps you could with Fantasm 5 if the toolkit was available as a shared library offscreen drawing is really the way to go note that you can try to use "DrawSprocket", Apple library to do some sprite stuff. it was designed to help game programmers & to work across on all the different macs. perhaps someone could write a demo of a program that shows how to access it from Fantasm 5. some people claim that the performance of the code isn't that great but i know that a few commercial games use it so it can't be that bad also for a GREAT example of mac game programming check out: www.ultra-united.com & try the demo of "battle-girl", this is a fantastic arcade game that every mac programmer should take a look at to see what can be done!
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 19:04:15 -0400 From: Ajay Nath <AjayNath@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Alok >> My objective isn't to be a hacker nor to be a copy cat. All I want is learn. << the BEST way to learn is to see how someone who did a good job did it! one of the best ways to learn assembly language is to look at code listings also resedit does a pretty good job with inits, open up the code of an init with it & it can tell you which mac traps the init calls...that is pretty useful info isn't it?...it can help you figure out how a program works
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 97 20:37:55 -0700 From: James Hague <jhague@dadgum.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling >If anybody has some thoughts on the best way of masking sprites Avoid masks altogether by encoding your sprites so you can skip the transparent parts. Suppose the top line of your sprite looks like this: ..........XXXXXXXXXX.......... ("." represents a transparent pixel, "X" a pixel with "real" data) This can be encoded as the following pseudo-instructions: 1. Skip 10 pixels 2. Copy the following 10 pixels literally 3. Go to the next line. Send email if you need help. -- James Hague Dadgum Games http://www.dadgum.com/
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 14:01:08 +0000 From: twi@pac.com.au To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Thanks Thanks for the help and suggestions about sprites.It is slowly being put to good use :) Paul
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 05:13:06 -0400 From: Stuart Ball <lightsoft@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling >If anybody has some thoughts on the best way of masking sprites In addition to what James wrote (and this may be what he wrote :-)), you _may_ also want to try compiling your sprites to code (watch cache thou). This may produce less data, although I have not personally got any timing/speed tests for this under PowerPC. Stu.
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 11:56:19 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling >>J'ai bien avance en assembleur. J'ai vu que vous avez visitez ma >>page!? Merci! >>Je trouve les cours de math facile! On a refait le calendrier! Et on >>>fait de la combinaison! (triangle de pascal). Ah quel avance on avait >>>pris avec vous! > >Indeed. As often as twice a day. Sometimes more. >Sadly my language skills didn't measure up. Is this a question or a >signature? I'm confused. i don't know if you noticed it, but the msg was also sent to pierre.jornod@span.ch, and this part of the msg was for him. Bye, Alok
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 97 13:01:32 -0700 From: James Hague <jhague@dadgum.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling >In addition to what James wrote (and this may be what he wrote :-)), you >_may_ also want to try compiling your sprites to code (watch cache thou). >This may produce less data, although I have not personally got any >timing/speed tests for this under PowerPC. Compiling to code pays off on the 68K machines, though not quite as much as you'd expect. But it is a disaster on the PowerPC. (I tried it; it's actually slower.)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 17:08:04 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: THANK YOU LIGHTSOFT FOR =?iso-8859-1?Q?POWERFANTASM=815.0?= Hi, Well I just downloaded fant 5 and it's great. I really like to look of Anvil. Bye, Alok
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 20:43:34 -0400 From: Stuart Ball <lightsoft@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling >Compiling to code pays off on the 68K machines, though not quite as much >as you'd expect. But it is a disaster on the PowerPC. (I tried it; it's >actually slower.) Clears that up then, thanks James. :-) Stu.
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 20:59:42 -0400 From: Scott Lahteine <slur@world.std.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling Are you using those sprites to do cool things? Here's a routine you will find useful for anytime you want to put a sprite's image into the background frame to make it a part of your scenery. With a little ingenuity you can use it to build whole backgrounds out of sprite images. // --- --- --- --- --- --- // S W D r a w S p r i t e T o B a c k void SWDrawSpriteToBack(SpriteWorldPtr pSW, SpritePtr pSprite) { (*pSprite->frameDrawProc) (pSprite->curFrameP, pSW->backFrameP, &pSprite->curFrameP->frameRect, &pSprite->destFrameRect); } ADVENTURES IN SPRITES Part 1 - Sprites as backgrounds A sprite library I once wrote had a flag to allow sprites to generate a collision mask without actually drawing the image to the screen. The sprites were instead drawn only once - onto the background frame. The regular sprite collision routines thus did the walls too. On another occasion I created a simple background by drawing 3 horizontal platforms. The player would walk atop these. With a long "virtual bitmap" as a playfield I made "hole" sprites which erased the parts of the platform they sat on top of. The player sprite could fall through the holes, and checking this was simply a matter of seeing if the sprite collided with the hole. The sprites had an extra line of pixels to be able to touch the player's feet. Same thing with elevators. To stamp out a sprite background we keep a simple sprite list with position, a flag for collisions, and a flag for stamping. Iterate thru the list, stamp the stamp sprites. At the end, free all the nonessential sprites. Create rich backgrounds with animating sprites as extra scenery. :-| Virtual what? |-: Ok. So you want to make a giant outerspace world and you don't need a background, just space to draw lots of sprites.... All you need is two new variables and a magic formula: ushort virtualTop; // line at the top of the window ushort virtualLeft; // pixel at the left of the window void VirtualToLocal(Rect *virtualRect, Rect *resultRect) { *resultRect = *virtualRect; OffsetRect(resultRect, -virtualLeft, -virtualTop); } The variables, of course, indicate the position of your "camera" which peers into your virtual world. The code demonstrates the conversion, bringing a virtual sprite into the SpriteWorld's local coordinates. To turn SW code into VSW code, call VirtualToLocal() any time a routine accesses theSprite->destFrameRect. For example: ... theRect = theSprite->destFrameRect; // the original code VirtualToLocal(&theRect, &theRect); // + this line = VIRTUAL ... Virtual worlds can be up to 65536 x 65536 in size. That's 102 x 136 SCREENS in lo-res. Not bad for only two little variables.... scott lahteine "being is faster than light"
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 11:03:38 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: sorry I've heard peopl say my msgs wer anoying tem & tat tey pay 4 each msg tey download. 1 I would like 2 say sorry. 2 Why do u pay each msg, when u can get free emails with Hempseed, Geocities, Chez.com ,etc... I'm sorry 4 te long sign @ te end of each msg. But I must keep it, so i shortened it a bit. But of course, in case u don't want 2 hear about me, I'll ask everybody else (who r ready 2 listen 2 me) on the list 2 giv me teir email addresses & send my msgs only 2 them. Bye (I shortened tis letter 2 save space, hope u can still get it) Yep, resed help me. Thx 4 ur help!
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 11:04:26 +0100 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Don't buy a MACOS now,today,now.Read this first!!! >Hi, > >No, stop prying, this is nor a msg against Apple, nor a msg with beginner's >question (for once). > >Apple won't be giving the licence for the clones any more next year, so the >macos clone prices will crash!!! > >For eg: 700 Mhz (2*350 mhz) + 64ram + complete (screen, mouse, keyboard, >hard disk) is now over here 3000 frs, will come down to 2000 in the >starting of december. > >350 mhz+1gb hard disk + 32ram is now 1400 frs, wil come down to 1000 !!!! > >It's incredible, it'll soon be the right time to buy a mac! (rather a clone). > Alok
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 21:38:48 +0200 From: Allan Lund Jensen <maccoder@post6.tele.dk> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling Scott Lahteine wrote: > Here's a routine you will find useful for anytime you want to put [snip] Although employing spriteworld might make the whole thing a bit easier, it would be counterproductive using a c-library to do any kinda of drawing in an assemblerprogram (thats assuming Im generating better code than a Symantec compiler, which might be a big assumption). That's what I'm thinking anyway. Am I wrong? It appears that James Hagues letter describing the, for the lack of a better word, empty-space-skipper-thingie, is probably the best and fastest thing to do. As for collision detection, the quick and dirty method might be the best: A sprites collision field is defined as its height and width. I basically just check collisions between boxes. It wont be pixel-perfect (unless the sprites are square), but Im hoping no-one will notice. The slightly slower method, depends on the fact that I only have to check for collision between the player and the rest of the sprites and the background is black (or only one colour (although I suppose there are ways getting around that)). Then before plotting the player, check for each byte if youre overwriting any colour that isnt black (in which case a collision has occured). Combining the two methods might be an idea? ... checking the hundreds of megabytes of text at Allan-HQ revealed that this is not a new idea. First check if any boxes are overlapping and then do the pixel-perfect check. Its called bounding-box collision. Ive just re-invented the wheel. Yay, me. Allan P.S. I must admit I don't know much about C (nearly flunked the course), so if I'm merely repeating what you just said Scott, I naturally apologize. BTW, did you know that C is called C, because it was supposed to be the sequal to B, another programming language? Strange but true
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 97 13:07:49 -0700 From: James Hague <jhague@dadgum.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling >A sprite's collision field is defined as its height and width. I >basically just check collisions between boxes. It wont be pixel-perfect >(unless the sprites are square), but I'm hoping no-one will notice. I've found that loose collision checking, like you describe, often feels better to the player. You don't want collisions with frivolous extremities, like antennae or hair, to count. And it can be frustrating to be killed by something that skims your knee by 1 pixel. A few years ago I worked on a side-scroller with a large onscreen character. Almost haphazardly drawn collision rectangles, one per frame, felt fine to the player, even though the character could be running, crouching, using weapons, or jumping in all sorts of non-rectangular poses. You can clean up the really odd cases by defining a bounding rectangle and _multiple_ collision rectangles inside it.
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 18:08:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Figaro Tea <humphret@ruby.winthrop.edu> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: sorry On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, Alok wrote: > I've heard peopl say my msgs wer anoying tem & tat tey pay 4 each msg tey > download. 1 I would like 2 say sorry. 2 Why do u pay each msg, when u can > get free emails with Hempseed, Geocities, Chez.com ,etc... I never really did mind your messages Alok, but this one with all the "4"s instead of "for", etc. really got on my nerves and was a pain to read. And while we're at it your signatures are rather long. Not to say that you should shorten them to 4 lines like mine, but sometimes your signatures are longer than your actual message. Aside from that, I don't really mind your messages. ..._Tim_...
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 00:13:45 +0100 From: Erik Houltz <erik.houltz@clavicula.mednet.gu.se> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: sorry >I've heard peopl say my msgs wer anoying tem & tat tey pay 4 each msg tey >download. 1 I would like 2 say sorry. 2 Why do u pay each msg, when u can >get free emails with Hempseed, Geocities, Chez.com ,etc... Keep going Alok. We enjoy reading your posts. For those who don't care to read there is always an unsubscribe to this list. Erik
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 18:12:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Figaro Tea <humphret@ruby.winthrop.edu> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling On Thu, 23 Oct 1997, Scott Lahteine wrote: > Virtual worlds can be up to 65536 x 65536 in size. That's 102 x 136 > SCREENS in lo-res. Not bad for only two little variables.... When you say lo-res exactly what do you mean? Are there different video modes, hi-res, lo-res, etc., on the Mac? ..._Tim_...
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 20:00:05 -0400 From: Stuart Ball <lightsoft@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: NFtT 24th Oct '97. News From the Tower 24th Oct '97. --------------------------------- Here's another one of those rather irregular news posts we put out from time to time, letting you know what's happening and coming up. These go out fairly infrequently so it's not exactly spam city, but if you do find this mail annoying, please get thee hence to <http://www.tau.it/lightsoft/links.html> where you may unsubscribe from this list. X-----------------X 0. Bit from Stu 1. Fantasm 5 minor bugs/corrections 2. Fantasm 5 user questions 3. Fantasm 5 Docs format X-----------------X 0. Hello all! This NFtT is brought to you tonight by Stu, back on-line after a two weeks , post F5 release, holiday (release the software and run? Nah; just well worn out more like). Firstly, thanks to all of you that have upgraded to F5. We appreciate this in two ways. Firstly, your funding enables further development for which we are grateful. Secondly, Fantasm 5 reduces our support time because it is easier to use and more prone to working correctly <g>. Also, I can take this opportunity to welcome the new Fantasm users. Thanks for your support and we hope you find the software productive. I'd like to thank Allan, Ajay, James, Kevin, all the MODule authors and anybody I've missed who gave their permission for their work to be incorporated on the Fantasm 5 CD. Thanks to our beta testers who seem to have done a wonderful job - we have received virtually no moans, zero "Hey, it crashes on my Mac!" and many "I love it!" emails. ----------- NFtT's are normally posted rather anonymously, but tonight I'll take full responsibility - call it just glad to be back to work. Before we get to item #1, I want to get "off topic" slightly because there is something that has, well, quite frankly, annoyed me. MacFormat have just published a review of Dadgum's Bumbler Bee-Luxe and there is one aspect of the review I need to rant about. >rant on I mean, can you really say (quite steadfastly) that BBL is an Asteroid's rip-off? Bumbler has nothing whatsoever to do with Asteroids IMO, but the reviewer was convinced it was, and tried to spin the point rather a lot. The reviewer made no attempt to back up this observation with an explanation of why he/she thought it was like Asteroids. I am an Asteroids freak, no doubt about it. The table top version nearly gave me permanent back disorders way back in the late '70's. I can tell you exactly how to get mega scores at Asteroids. Bumber Bee-Luxe is nothing like Asteroids. MacFormat "took to task" Dadgum's claim that their game was original. I think Bumbler is highly original - the only thing it has in common with Asteroids is the "just one more go!" grip it has on me. For the record, and in case you think I am biased by some commercial interest, Lightsoft has nothing whatsoever to do with Dadgum or their games, apart from Dadgum uses Fantasm, and we do some beta testing for them. I am ranting because I think BBL is a great, original game plus I feel MacFormat's review was a particularly bad example of the reviewers art. Making a statement and then not backing it up breaks the golden rule of reviewing IMO. >rant off X-----------------X 1. Fantasm 5 bugs and corrections. a). BUG - all machines - Version control dialog on a project window crashes Anvil. Obviously when we made up the list of things we should stop a user from doing, we missed this one. To be fixed in next update. b). IMPORTANT Correction - the project set up for a PowerPC application should have the stack size either set to the default, or 48K. In the current set up file it is set to 32K. If you have created any PowerPC projects from this set up, please edit the project and change the cfrg's stack size field to either zero (default) or 48K. To be corrected in next update. c). BUG - some machines - Minor redraw glitch in status line when Anvil is in the background. The drop shadow at the top of the status area does not always redraw correctly when uncovered by another application's window. X-----------------X 2. Fantasm 5 user questions a. How do I stop AnvAMP??? In the current version there appears to be no way of doing it. We would suggest you contact Cache-Computing (the authors of AnvAMP). b. Can I change the font Anvil uses? No. However if you were to substitute another mono-spaced font for Monaco you may get some success. c). I have the C source for xyz/dsp assembler. Can I just wrap it up in a tool shell and plug it in at phase 3? Yes. Just note that if you compile it to 68K, all the code must be in segment 1. If PPC, put the frag in the data fork. You may also need a linker. We will gladly help out with any problems or questions you may have. X-----------------X 3. LSA docs format. Some users have problems copying from the eDoc format we use. We can get you the docs in most popular WP and RTF format if you need it (the native format is Nisus). We're quite happy to email any docs you need in another format as long as we have a translator for it. Printed manuals are not available for two reasons. a. They'd be out of date within 3 months. b. We like trees. X-----------------X END Lightsoft 0030 25 Oct 97
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 97 19:25:46 -0700 From: James Hague <jhague@dadgum.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: NFtT 24th Oct '97. Hey, Stu, thanks for the vote of confidence in your "rant." I sent a nice level-headed, but obvious, letter to the editor this afternoon. IMO--and I didn't say this, of course--it's an embarrassment to MacFormat to print stuff that's so poorly written and just plain *wrong*. Ah, well. Back to one of the sixteen things I have to do :-) James
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 02:03:47 -0400 From: Scott Lahteine <slur@world.std.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Sprite scrolling >On Thu, 23 Oct 1997, Scott Lahteine wrote: > >> Virtual worlds can be up to 65536 x 65536 in size. That's 102 x 136 >> SCREENS in lo-res. Not bad for only two little variables.... > >When you say lo-res exactly what do you mean? Are there different video >modes, hi-res, lo-res, etc., on the Mac? > 65536 / 102 = 642.5 65536 / 136 = 481.9 What, indeed, is lo-res? On my old Atari 400 there was the lovely and useful 40 x 24 mode. It had 320 x 192, but of course it was one color and - well - with all that weird artifacting it could produce an apparent 4 colors. At the time the PC users had 320 x 200 in 16 lovely CGA colors. Hmm, yellow, cyan, magenta.... makes my mouth water. When that 320x200 256 color VGA card came out it seemed like a modern miracle. So lo-res was still 40 x 24 even then, I guess. The Amiga made a grand entrance with 320 x 200 as its lo-res mode, in as many colors as you could muster. The mac was - well - a quirky beast to behold then. Black and white, some weird resolution based on prime multiples of 9. OK, enter the present, and lo-res has essentially become 640 x 480. In the Mac world that means "thousands" of colors. Truly, if my original post was to be preserved for posterity my use of "lo-res" was pretty dubious, especially with things changing so quickly, and the popular mind boxed into room 525 by the NTSC standard. scott lahteine
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 97 09:33:43 -0000 From: Kevin Avila <kevin@cache-computing.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Here is some fun code for ya Here is a little code snippit that I hacked out a few months ago and that you should never use, but here it is. =) This code places you in supervisor mode on (hopfully) all PCI PowerMacs and even non-Mac PowerPCs. If you don't know what supervisor mode is or how to use it, I would recomend you stay away from this code as it can be quite hazardus to your health. Pleaste Note: It is rumored that if you switch into supervisor mode while the MacOS is still loaded, Virtual Memory will do horable things to your disk. Also note again, don't use this code under Rhapsody (did everyone get there CD's? It's awsome =) because it is always in supervisor mode by default. Okey, here is the code: stw kern, 0x40(r0) stw kernelSize, 0x44(r0) * This is stuff for loading info for a operating system kernel stw vars, 0x48(r0) * in this case, OpenOS and you prooly can ignore it. =) stw theToc, 0x4C(r0) stw tocSize, 0x50(r0) stw kernelentry, 0x54(r0) * F*ck Gary and his birthday, im doing it my way. lwz proc, 0(proc) * proc is just a register pointer like bss, i like to set lis r30, 0x6000 * it to r20. Right before you call this code, set proc subi r30, r30, 0x1c8c * to the address of the function you want to call once stw proc, 0(r30) * in supervisor mode. sync @1: b @1 * We never get here. Why? Because the 'sync' issued above has the CPU jump to your code * and you take it on from there. blr Well, thats it, was that fun? Remember that to use this you have to have the MacOS out of RAM (using ShutDownProc) and that means you don't have access to ANY Toolbox calls. Have fun kiddies. =)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 18:29:26 +0000 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: PF5.0 or Inside Mac? Hi, Well I have been writting to rob few msgs and here is my conclusion: I just have enough ot buy Inside Mac or PF5.0 What shall I do? BTW Rob: I really don't mena that PF is expensive, just that sometimes I have to make choices. I bought PF4 and I haven't done much with it, so I really don't know what to do? THX FOR HELPING ME. Alok
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 97 11:20:45 -0000 From: Kevin Avila <kevin@cache-computing.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: PF5.0 or Inside Mac? I would say buy Inside Mac and then PF 5 when you get more money. Because PF 5 won't do you much good if you don't know what your doing ;)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 13:07:30 -0700 (MST) From: Harvey Hirst <mephisto@extremezone.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: PF5.0 or Inside Mac? On Sun, 26 Oct 1997, Kevin Avila wrote: > I would say buy Inside Mac and then PF 5 when you get more money. Because > PF 5 won't do you much good if you don't know what your doing ;) I second the motion whole-heartedly. Trying to program a Mac without the proper documentation is a frustrating exercise in futility. Harvey
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 97 12:16:56 -0700 From: James Hague <jhague@dadgum.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: PF5.0 or Inside Mac? Be sure to look in used bookstores, if there are any in your area. All of Apple's nonsense has resulted in a surplus of used Mac books, including IM! A local Half-Price books had Toolbox Essentials for less than $20 a few weeks ago.
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 12:51:12 -0500 From: Stuart Ball <lightsoft@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: PF5.0 or Inside Mac? Further to James's notes about cheap books, this is copied from the EvangeList: ------------------ Giles Road Press is clearing its shelves of gently used Macintosh and cross-platform computer books. Each book is available for $5 (which includes shipping to US addresses), regardless of original retail price. Many of the books include disks or CDs. For a current list of available titles, check <http://www.gilesrd.com/salebooks.html> This page will be updated regularly as books are sold. If you do decide to order from this list, order quickly; we don't expect books to last more than a week or two. ------------------- Stu.
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 12:51:15 -0500 From: Stuart Ball <lightsoft@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work Hello everybody, We have discovered that the Fantasm 5 "ifnc" directive will not work as advertised under some conditions. We have a fix to be included in the next update, but if you need to use this directive now, please contact me and we'll email you the fixed version. You may also like to know that in my spare time (ha!) I am working on an "unofficial" 68K to PPC macro translation set for F5 consisting of two macro files. The first handles common MacOS calls and each macro is split with an "if 68k" conditional to work the same under both 68K and PowerPC. The second translates 68K instructions to PowerPC instructions (not too hard with F5's string handling and such although there are some interesting challenges) - it wont handle all 68K instructions and addressing modes, just "popular" ones - 68K specific such as move 0x2300,sr are obviously not included. The idea being that you can take a 68K project and have it auto translated to PPC - obviously you have to tidy up and change callbacks and such. Comments on this work are welcome. Many regards, Stu.
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 97 11:25:37 -0000 From: Kevin Avila <kevin@cache-computing.com> To: Multiple recipients of <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work >You may also like to know that in my spare time (ha!) I am working on an >"unofficial" 68K to PPC macro translation set for F5 consisting of two >macro files. I would alo like to people know that I am working on a DRE (Dynamic Recompiltation Engine) library for PF5. This acts as a kernel if you will to your application. Your application sits on top of this code library and allows you to run your application on 68K, PowerPC, or x86 CPU's. What this does it it find out what platform your application is running on and converts byte-by-byte of your binary to be native on that platform. it's quite fun to play with. Obviously you can't make MacOS calls from a Windows machine, but it has an option to export a file with the assembly language for a differant platform which cuts cross-platform development almost in half. I also have a working (i think) x86 assembler for PF5, but I don't know the windows API's so thats a ways off still =) I have lots of toys around here that someday I might release. Most of them are low-level stuff that no one cares about, but a few months ago our buddie James from Dadgum called me "Crazy" and I think i have let that goto my head. =) I got a semi-working Mac Plus emulator going (all written in PF5), got a PPC emulator for 68K machines (god is it slow), got OpenOS booting and semi-working. As we speak I am working on a "bot" for the game Quake. Always fun. I encorage everyone (after they read inside mac =) to read about the low-level hardware stuff. Even if you never need to use it, you always find interesting stuff that puts a little grin on your face. For example did you know that the CUDA (the chip that controls the ADB bus) is actually the same MCU used in those hand-held games from Tiger that we all loved to play back in the late 80's. ops. I'm rambling. well, have fun coding! =)
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 20:55:27 +0100 From: Per Hjeltman <leahjn96@student.umu.se> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work >I got a semi-working Mac Plus emulator going (all >written in PF5), Release it! I'd love to play MacLanding on my Mac. (It's written by that guy at Apple, Avie Tevanian). /Per Hjeltman
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 18:15:23 -0500 From: Stuart Ball <lightsoft@compuserve.com> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work Kev wrote... >did you know that the CUDA (the chip that controls the ADB bus) is >actually the same MCU used in those hand-held games from Tiger I may be wrong, but I think it's a Motorola 6811 running at 2MHz. Just for laugh's the C64 used the 6810 at 1 MHz as it's main processor, even though it really didn't have to do much, what with all those nice graphics and sound chips. Stu.
Date: 28 Oct 97 19:16:21 -0500 From: "Chris Johnson" <jinx6568@sover.net> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work On Mon, Oct 27, 1997 6:25 AM, Kevin Avila <mailto:kevin@cache-computing.com> wrote: > I have lots of toys around here that someday I might release. Most >of them are low-level stuff that no one cares about, but a few months ago >our buddie James from Dadgum called me "Crazy" and I think i have let >that goto my head. =) I got a semi-working Mac Plus emulator going (all >written in PF5), got a PPC emulator for 68K machines (god is it slow), >got OpenOS booting and semi-working. As we speak I am working on a "bot" >for the game Quake. Always fun. Well, if you like crazy, I'd like to offer a humble suggestion... I regret greatly that I haven't been able to get anywhere with PF. However, that doesn't mean I don't have dreams! And one of those dreams is this- I would like to be able to boot into Applesoft Basic (more or less) on the Mac Plus. This is of course totally mad- there is enough difference that graphics, for instance, would be a perverted HGR that was at Mac Plus resolutions instead of Apple II+ resolutions, and furthermore would be monochrome. Not only that, playing Choplifter wouldn't even be possible as it would be far from an emulation- it would be talking Applesoft Basic file language, but would be writing Mac disks, or possibly PC format if that is easier (seeing as the resource fork would be meaningless and so would some of the ROMs.) An amusing note is that the Apple II+ filenames were still better than DOS 8.3 which to this day is the default Windows filename standard... I understand that this is never going to happen, no matter how much I might want to turn my pet Mac Plus (800K floppy, 1M, no HD at all) into an Applesoft Basic playtoy. After all, I could run Chipmunk Basic if I really wanted- I have a bootable disk that boots into Chipmunk Basic. I just have an irrational desire to see those little retro fonts again and to boot into that inverse screen white-on-black experience of my youth, and have it be as if the Plus was a II+, at least enough to play with Applesoft again... ...and I couldn't help but think how 'crazy' it would be for Kevin to grab the code off somewhere (back then it was all very open and published) and actually implement this so he could use it to test _his_ Mac Plus emulator :) Ah, now that would have _class_ ;)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 97 16:25:58 -0000 From: Kevin Avila <kevin@cache-computing.com> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work >I may be wrong, but I think it's a Motorola 6811 running at 2MHz. hmmm. I think you might be right. I would have used the C64 as the example, but due to the loyalty I still share tward the TRS-80, I hate the c64 ;)
ate: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 07:51:41 +0100 From: Allan Lund Jensen <maccoder@post6.tele.dk> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work Per Hjeltman wrote: > > >I got a semi-working Mac Plus emulator going (all > >written in PF5), > > Release it! I'd love to play MacLanding on my Mac. (It's written by that > guy at Apple, Avie Tevanian). > > /Per Hjeltman > Have you tried vMac? As far as I could tell, it's a Macintosh Plus emulator. Find it at www.emulation.net (and check out MacMame while you're at it) Allan
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 97 07:59:48 -0000 From: Kevin Avila <kevin@cache-computing.com> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work >Have you tried vMac? As far as I could tell, it's a Macintosh Plus >emulator. Find it at www.emulation.net (and check out MacMame while >you're at it) ah yes, you can always use vMac. I talk with the main author of it almost everyday. They got a good thing going on that. Also, Stu, witht his cool macro your making, is it safe to assume you will use this to make a PPC native version of fantasm? =)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 97 17:47:18 -0000 From: Kevin Avila <kevin@cache-computing.com> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: Fantasm 5 "ifnc" does not work >I understand that this is never going to happen Your prolly right about that =) However if you want to tinker with your old Apple II stuff, Apple sells (or used to) an Apple IIe card that you pop in an empty expansion slot and it is a compleate Apple II system on your mac. quite nifty.
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:29:00 +0000 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: PF5.0 or Inside Mac? >Be sure to look in used bookstores, if there are any in your area. All >of Apple's nonsense has resulted in a surplus of used Mac books, >including IM! A local Half-Price books had Toolbox Essentials for less >than $20 a few weeks ago. Well if I can find IM on the net, can I download it and save it on a CD ? If yes, I'll do that, and it'll cost me only 2.75$ and I'll also be able to buy PF5.0 ! Hey that would be great!! But then can I read and write Mac CD roms on a PC???
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 22:00:07 +0000 From: robot@writeme.com (Alok) To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Alok: Basic Hi, If you haven't been able to understand the last msg due to the high level of language, read this! Everybody has dreams, so do I. Mine is to write a Bas2Asm. Basically translate a Basic program into assembly. (Btw STu or ROb have been working on something like that). but as you may have already noticed, I'm really not a good programmer, and I'll need help. If anybody is ready to work with me, it'll be really good, as it'll allow me to progress. ANd some good news! From now on, everymonth, I'll be setting up an article on IDEA (on my hompage). basically something for you guys who don't have neurons any more because of maths and physics (and C++ too) but just the machine code knowledge and would like some ideas!! Most games demand some algorithm coding rather than solving long 3d grphics problem,s so I guess it'll allow you to spend a week-end. Bye, Alok
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 09:43:41 +0000 From: twi@pac.com.au To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: cd burning >>But then can I read and write Mac CD roms on a PC??? No.Not using the Mac file structure. If you're going to burn the cd on a PC,you need to use the ISO9660 format so it can be read on a mac.A bonus is that you can read it on just about any computer with a cd rom drive too. The downside is that ISO9660 uses the 8.3 dos filename structure which sucks if you want long filenames. I'm sure there's some other format you could use (anyone?),but ISO9660 is good because of its platform independance. Paul
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 18:40:31 -0500 (EST) From: Figaro Tea <humphret@ruby.winthrop.edu> To: Multiple recipients of Fantasm <list-fantasm@mail.tau.it> Subject: Re: PF5.0 or Inside Mac? On Wed, 29 Oct 1997, Alok wrote: > Well if I can find IM on the net, can I download it and save it on a CD ? > > If yes, I'll do that, and it'll cost me only 2.75$ and I'll also be able to > buy PF5.0 ! You can download all the IM books here: < ftp://dev.apple.com/devworld/Technical_Documentation/Inside_Macintosh > When you're in the Inside_Macintosh directory there's another directory called "Inside_Macintosh_DocViewer" that contains the same thing except in docviewer format. You'll need the docviewer program to read them which is in /devworld/Utilities. Depending on how long it takes you to download them it might be cheaper for you to just buy the books. > But then can I read and write Mac CD roms on a PC??? If you can write a CD in HSF format then you could burn the CD on a PC, you may not be able to read it, but you could at least format it. ..._Tim_...