Some frequently asked questions: 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 Q: I think you forgot to include the sources of some programs? A: No, I just couldn't include some units where I'm unsure about the legal issues: they were once published in a magazine and I changed them a bit to fit my needs. I didn't want to get into _any_ troubles, so I decided not to publish them. Q: I'd like to understand the AniVGA-source code file ANIVGA.PAS, but unfortunately, I don't speak German! A: Learn German -or- rename ANIVGA.ENG into ANIVGA.PAS --whatever is more convenient for you... :-) Q: GRAB won't popup! A: As GRAB does disk writes, it can't popup while MSDos is in a critical section (unfortunately, MSDos isn't reentrant, as we all do know). Sometimes, GRAB doesn't even pop up, if it could. That's because of the TSR-unit I use (I think it is because the unit doesn't supply an appropriate INT28h-handler). Sorry, but I didn't found a better TSR-unit til now. If you have a more radical image grabber, then use that, save the picture to disk, use an image viewer program to display it and grab then! Q: GRAB shows a messed up capture box|screen! A: The application played some tricks to the VGA-card; reboot and start GRAB again, this time supplying "/BIOS" as parameter -- and hope the best! Q: I can't run MAKES; my machine displays nothing|a mess when I start it! A: MAKES uses a 640x400x256 video mode only available at SuperVGA cards. Although the BGI-driver tries to identify the chip-set of your VGA card, it may fail on some, even if your card would supply this mode! If it doesn't work even if you do have a SuperVGA card, then please drop me a note, specifying which brand of VGA-card you use (especially which chip-set)! I have been reported by some people that their SVGA doesn't have a 640x400x256 mode or that they do have such a mode, but the BGI driver doesn't work properly, anyway. For your convenience, I added a command line parameter switch "/480" which will invoke MAKES in a 640x480x256 mode. This mode seems to work on nearly all SVGAs. To compensate the different aspect ratio (compared to 640:400 = 320:200), you may use your monitor's controller to expand the image accordingly. If all else fails, you'll have the (ugly) MAKES of V1.0, sorry! Q: MAKES sometimes hangs when I start it or repeats an error, when I quit! A: These are spurious errors I encountered, too. It hangs when trying to initialize the mouse driver - I suppose this is a problem of the mouse driver! I couldn't track down the other error, sorry. If you find a way to reproduce the error, then let me know! Q: How may I speedup things? A: Naturally, STATIC background is faster than SCROLLING backgrounds, but you can speed up SCROLLING backgrounds, too: make sure that StartVirtualX always is a multiple of 4 (that is, StartVirtualX MOD 4 = 0), because then, AniVGA can (and will) use the VGA's write mode 1 which is a lot faster than normal write mode 0. Another idea is to shrink NMAX: if you don't need more than 100 sprites (say), then change that constant and recompile AniVGA! If you are using windowed animations: make the animation window smaller. Q: I'm using scrolling backgrounds and would like to display some items|text at the same (absolute) screen position. A: Transform your coordinates, using StartVirtualX and StartVirtualY! See EXAMPLE6.PAS for a small example! Q: I think the {line|pixel|char}-drawing routines don't work; for example, I tried a Line(0,0,319,199,PAGE) command but saw no line being drawed! A: a) Perhaps your line is offscreen? The Line()-, PutPixel()- etc. procedures work with virtual coordinates, if you really want to draw a diagonal line from the upper left to the lower right corner, you'll have to use virtual coordinates instead: Line(0+StartVirtualX,0+StartVirtualY,319+StartVirtualX,199+StartVirtualY, 1-PAGE) should do the job b) You used the wrong page! Whenever Animate() gets called, it erases the screen. Thus you have to plot lines, points and chars *after* Animate() did its job, that is: call it *after* having called Animate() and use the _visible_ page "1-PAGE" as drawing page! c) You are using an animation window, drawed to the area outside that window and forgot to update the outer area! A simple way to trigger this is to set UpdateOuterArea:=2. However, this will update the *complete* outer area, so if you are a hacker, you might come up with something better ;-) Q: Could you send me some more information about your COD-format for sprites? A: There already _is_ such information: look into the ANIVGA.PAS source, right below the IMPLEMENTATION-section. If that's not enough for you, the just use DUMP_SPR on a small COD-file (you can redirect the program's output into a file for your convenience). Email FAQs: Q: I have problems xyz using your AniVGA package A: V1.0? V1.1? ... Q: Can you please email me the newest copy of AniVGA? A: NO WAY! 1) I have an email limit here 2) I'm paying for email Q: Can you please snail-mail me the newest copy of AniVGA? A: Only if *I* have a minimum of work and don't pay for it: neither for postage, packaging, handling, disk, duty or whatever! Sorry, but there actually _were_ bozos sending me a letter just saying "please send me a disk, perhaps I'll send you some bucks, if the new version is worth it" Such inquiries will be kicked into my dustbin, promised! Q: What's the best way to get the newest version of AniVGA? A: FTP it from a Simtel20-mirror in directory ../turbopas/ or download it from the Fido-BBS I'm on! (Note to the latter: 2:241/7451 will be mail-only for some months; you can try 2:241/7557 instead. However, as both BBSes did not give in to the German FIDO-putsch, you won't find them in the official nodelist for a freq. However, normal download are still possible: their tel# are +49-7251-87289 / +49-721-757034, respectively.) Q: How can I access Simtel20? A: 1) with anonymous FTP: Use your nearest site from the list below, issue "FTP" to that address (either using the name of the site or its IP-address), login as user "anonymous", give your complete email-address as password. Use "cd" to change to the dir you want, "dir" or "ls" as usual. If you want to download a text file, type "ASCII", if it is a binary file, type "BIN". Then type "GET myfile.ext" and you succeed. (Some machines distinguish upper-/lowercase!) sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (129.206.100.126) Uni Heidelberg (Germany), /pub/msdos/simtel/??? ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de, tupac-amaru.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (134.130.52.1) Uni Aachen (Germany), /simtel/msdos/??? (137.226.112.31) Uni Aachen (Germany), /pub/simtel, /pub/msdos, /pub/rz.archiv/simtel/msdos/??? ftp.uni-paderborn.de (131.234.2.32), Uni Paderborn (Germany), /pcsoft/msdos/??? WSMR-SIMTEL20 (26.2.0.74), New Mexico, USA (GMT-7h), PD1: wsmr-simtel20.army.mil (192.88.110.20) dto. (use "cd PD1:") oak.oakland.edu (141.210.10.117), Michigan, USA, /pub/msdos/??? wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4), Washington University, St. Louis, USA, /mirrors/msdos/??? uunet.uu.net (137.39.1.2) /systems/msdos/simtel20/??? ftp.uu.net (137.39.1.9) /systems/ibmpc/msdos/simtel20/??? (192.48.96.2) dto. ??? (128.255.16.175), Iowa, USA, /simtel.msdos/??? sol.deakin.oz.au, sol.deakin.edu.au (128.184.1.1), Australia, /pub/PC/simtel-20/??? rana.cc.deakin.oz.au (128.184.1.4) Australia, /pub/PC/simtel-20/??? grind.isca.uiowa.edu (128.255.19.233) archie.au, plaza.aarnet.edu.au (139.130.4.6) Melbourne, Australia, /micros/pc/simtel-20/??? (BTW: this is a GARBO-mirror, too!: /micros/pc/garbo/pc/??? ) nic.funet.fi (128.214.6.100) Finland, /pub/msdos/SIMTEL20-mirror/??? relay.cs.toronto.edu (128.100.3.6) Canada, /pub/pc/wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/msdos/??? src.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.3.7) UK, /ibmpc/wsmr-simtel20.army.mil/??? (146.169.2.1) /computing/systems/ibmpc/wsmr-simtel20.army.mil/??? gdr.bath.ac.uk (138.38.32.1) UK, /simtel-cdrom/msdos/??? gatekeeper.dec.com (16.1.0.2) /.2/micro/msdos/simtel20/??? nic.switch.ch (130.59.1.40) Switzerland, /mirror/msdos/??? pinus.slu.se (130.238.98.11) Sweden, /msdos.nfs.sunet.se/mirrors/msdos/??? nctuccca.edu.tw (140.111.3.21) world.std.com (192.74.137.5) /src/Simtel20/msdos/??? 2) by email: Create a mail with empty subject and contents like... "/PDGET MAIL PD1:ANIVGA11.ZIP (UUE" or "/PDGET MAIL PD1:ANIVGA11.ZIP UUENCODE" or "/PDGET MAIL PD1:ANIVGA11.ZIP XXENCODE" or "/PDGET MAIL PD1:ANIVGA11.ZIP (SF" (use the last format "(SF" only if you are on a BITNET machine that can handle that weird format!) send it to... a) your nearest list server b) your nearest trickle host Some (of very very very many) nodes are: Location EARN/BITNET Internet -------------- ---------------- ---------------------------------- In USA: LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU In USA: LISTSERV@RPITSVM LISTSERV@VM.ITS.RPI.EDU In Turkey: TRICKLE@TREARN TRICKLE@EGE.EDU.TR In Denmark: TRICKLE@DKTC11 In Italy: TRICKLE@IMIPOLI In Belgium: TRICKLE@BANUFS11 TRICKLE@CCS.UFSIA.AC.BE In Austria: TRICKLE@AWIWUW11 In Germany: TRICKLE@DS0RUS1I TRICKLE@RUSVM1.RUS.UNI-STUTTGART.DE TRICKLE@DEARN TRICKLE@VM.GMD.DE TRICKLE@DB0FUB11 TRICKLE@DBNGMD12 In Israel: TRICKLE@TAUNIVM TRICKLE@VM.TAU.AC.IL In Netherlands: TRICKLE@HEARN TRICKLE@HEARN.NIC.SURFNET.NL In France: TRICKLE@FRMOP11 TRICKLE@FRMOP11.CNUSC.FR In Chile: TRICKLE@USACHVM1 In Colombia: TRICKLE@UNALCOL TRICKLE@UNALCOL.UNAL.EDU.CO In Spain: TRICKLE@EB0UB011 In Sweden: TRICKLE@SEARN TRICKLE@SEARN.SUNET.SE In Taiwan: TRICKLE@TWNMOE10 TRICKLE@TWNMOE10.EDU.TW BTW: Send these commands to the server to get its help files: for LISTSERV: GET PDGET HELP for TRICKLE : /HELP The server will send you one or several mails with the files you requested, but broken up into reasonable sized parts and encoded the way you did choose, (recommended: uuencoded). Use an editor to delete mail headers and the like and run the appropriate decoder (for example UUDECODE) on it - voila! WARNING: Ordering files this way will produce tons of email! Someone has to pay for it, be nice! 3) by download from a BBS: "If you cannot access them via FTP or e-mail, most SIMTEL20 MSDOS files, including the PC-Blue collection, are also available for downloading from Detroit Download Central (313) 885-3956. DDC has multiple lines which support 300/1200/2400/9600/14400 bps (103/212/V22bis/HST/V32bis/V42bis/MNP). This is a subscription system with an average hourly cost of 17 cents. It is also accessable on Telenet via PC Pursuit and on Tymnet via StarLink outdial. New files uploaded to SIMTEL20 are usually available on DDC within 24 hours."