A.C.E. 2/ACE CD 2.iso/FILES/DOCS/AMOSDOC.LHA/AmosV1.2Update.doc

Text File | 1994-11-27 | 20KB | 502 lines

                 AMOS THE CREATOR VERSION 1.2 UPDATER


TYPED IN BY ???. EDITED BY PARASITE.


IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT NOTES
        The AMOS Basic 1.2 Updater is copyright Manderin software, but
produced as public domain. You can (and you are encouraged to) copy
and distribute it freely. It does not mean AMOS Basic itself is public
domain. Copyright remains on the interpreter, and on the updated
version. You need AMOS Basic V1.1 to make the adaptation.


RAMOSV1.2
        This disk also contains  an  update  for  the  RAMOS  run time
system. Simply use the RAMOS Install.AMOS  program  to  create a run
time disk for your AMOS creations.


HOW TO PROCEED
        Updating your AMOS Basic will only take you a little time but
you keep to these instructions. Hard drive users should proceed on
floppydisk first, and then copy across the new AMOS files to their
hard drive.

 1    Format a blank disk.

 2    Set the protection tab of your original AMOS Programs disk to
      avoid accidental erasure of your master.

 3    Using Workbench's DUPLICATE option  (or a commercial copier such
      as XCOPY,) create a back-up of  the  AMOS Programs disk onto the
      newly formatted disk.

 4    Boot up the AMOS Update disk

 5    Double click on  the  AMOS  Update  disk  icon  and  then on the
      resulting AMOS Update program icon.

 6    The updater will load and a  small window will appear. From this
      point onwards, simply follow and answer the on screen prompts.

 7    When the updater has finished, place  the new version in Df0 and
      press Control+Amiga+Amiga keys to boot into AMOS V1.2.

 *    Please note that the  updater  will  delete  many files from the
      backed-up AMOS disk - so please don't use your original master!

 *    If everything was right, you  will  now  have  a working copy of
      AMOS version 1.2 - make a  backup  as a precaution. And never go
      back to V1.1.


HARD DISK USERS
        Once you have Version 1.2 on a floppy disk you simply have to
copy across the following files onto your hard disk:

Directory: AMOS_System
        AMOS2_1.Env   - AMOS environment file. Replaces "AMOS.Env"
        Compact   - AMOS (bug free compacter) Version 1.2.
        Replaces "Compact" file size should be 1816 bytes long

Directory: AMOS root directory (where you always load AMOS from)
        AMOS2.1   - AMOS program file. Replaces "AMOS"
        AMOS2.1.Info  - AMOS workbench icon. Replaces "AMOS.Info"

What's new in version 1.2 - by Francois Lionet
        Although we have tested AMOS during many months before releasing
it, we have missed a few  bugs.  Mandarin  and  I  are also VERY concerned
about the user's request, and we read ALL the letters you send us.
        AMOS version 1.2 is the first result of your bug reports and
suggestions. We  all  hope  you  find  this  "public  domain"  way  of
releasing new versions convenient (mostly for your purse!).


Now, let's go for the list of new things! First, the bugs:

 (1) Nasty bugs!
   * HELP accessory crashed on the A500.
   * Accessory calling  also  invited  the  guru  with certain  screen
     configurations.
   * GARBAGE collection caused a crash  if  it occurred in the  middle
     of a string expression,  and  if  the  collection  could not  get
     enough space to finish  the  evaluation.
   * GENLOCKed Amiga could not get a still picture.
   * Global variables in procedure  calls  (I could not imagine people
     would actually DO that!).
   * CLOSE WORKBENCH used  to  crash  if  a  window  was  opened on WB
     screen. Now  this  instruction  is  really  closer  to  Commodore
     specifications, so the  AMOS1_2.AMOS  program  had  to change the
     Startup-Sequence of the language disk.

Note that CLOSE WORKBENCH will NOT work now if you have one CLI window
opened. If you want to  start  AMOS  and actually close the workbench,
you must use the following CLI instructions:

        RUN >NIL: AMOS
        ENDCLI

 (2) Other bugs.

 *   LDIR now works properly,
 *   Y HARD now returns the right value.
 *   SCIN does not report hidden screens.
 *   VAL works with negative floating numbers!
 *   PLOT works with  large  float  expressions.  In fact, the problem
     was in the  "double  float  evaluation"  routine. All instruction
     that required TWO parameters were affected.
 *   INT is corrected.
 *   SQR(-2) and LOG(-1..) now returns  an illegal function call error
 *   Def Fn with float  numbers  does  not  report a type mismatch
     error any more.
 *   I SPRITE and I BOB are now tokenised.
 *   AMAL PLay instruction now works fine.
 *   AMPLAY too.
 *   AMAL OR is now understood by AMAL.
 *   ERRN reports the REAL error number (it used to add TWO to it!).
 *   CONTROL+C now cuts the block under editor.
 *   CONTROL+S stores the block.
 *   You can now go from one label to another with ALT arrows.
 *   GET  FONTS  information  used  to   be  corrupted  by  a  garbage
     collection - now this is fixed.
 *   MENU TO X,Y is now in the right order.
 *   DOUBLE BUFFERED  ,  DUAL  PLAYFIELD  screens  were not displayed,
     making it impossible to use bobs on dual playfield.
 *   UNPACK works fine with portions of screens.
 *   SET TAB now works in a program.

 (3) Manual bugs.
Yes! A few mistakes in the manual  made  us think there were more bugs
in AMOS. Here are the faulty instructions in the manual.

 *   PRG FIRST needs a filter, like DIR FIRST: =PRG FIRST$("*.*").
 *   COLOUR BACK  $RGB  is  an  instruction  that  sets the background
     colour of the screen, ie the colour OUTSIDE of all screens.
 *   AMREG wants  the  CHANNEL  number  FIRST,  and  then the register
     number, and not the contrary as stated in the manual.

Well, sorry for the bugs. Each  time  a  user  found a new one, I felt
bad! Sorry for that, but you  must  realise  that AMOS source code  is
over 1 Megabyte long! The most  difficult thing in such big  programs,
is that when you change something at one corner, it may be  creating a
bug in a very far routine that you had almost forgotten!


New Features in AMOS 1.2

 (1)  The new improved File Selector

Certainly a subject  on  which  we  had  the  most  remarks and ideas!
What's new then:

 *   You can now type stuff, and  click when the directory is loading.
     As a consequence, the directory  is  not  sorted  any more, but I
     have provided a SORT button. You  can  keep clicking on it if you
     cannot stand seeing the directory in a mess!
 *   The up and down arrows are grouped in the top of the file list.
 *   The PARENT button is just over  the arrows, giving fast access to
     all three buttons.
 *   No more device list on the  right  of the files! To have it, just
     do as in  the  ARP  file   selector:  click  on  the  right mouse
     button. The device   REAL   names   (including  ASSIGNED devices)
     list will be displayed.  Just  click  on  the  name to change the
     disk.
 *   The requester is not disabled as it was before. If you ask for an
     non-existent disk, it will ask to insert it.
 *   That's it. Some major  changes  that  will  (I hope) satisfy your
     needs. Note  that  the  program  selector  has  changed  too.  No
     kidding, how did you guess I was using the same routines?
 *   The slider bar's display is now cleaner
 *   Sequential files are now 3 times  faster. I was really ashamed to
     be slower than Amiga Basic!
 *   =DIR$  now  returns  the  disk  name,  and  not  only  the device
     reference.
 *   AMOS is now even  more  multi-tasking.  The editor and the direct
     mode do not do "busy" loops any  more. You can normally run other
     tasks on the background. Of  course,  when  a program is running,
     AMOS takes as much processor  time   as  it  can to have the best
     speed. See  the   new   MULTI  WAIT  instruction  below  for more
     details.

 (2) New instructions

Yes, as a bonus, for no extra cost!

 *   =DEV FIRST$("filter")
 *   =DEV NEXT$

        Like DIR FIRST$ and DIR NEXT$, but for the device list.
Note that you should remove the spaces with -" " to get the right name.

 *      MULTI WAIT

        To make REAL  multi-task  programs,  you  must  not  grab all the
processor time (as I used to  do  in  V1.1), and leave some power
to the other tasks. MULTI  WAIT  does  a MULTI-TASK wait vbl. You
should use it in  your  program's  main  loop,  when you wait for
example for a menu item to be selected.

        Note that you should not  use  this  instruction to make accurate
screen synchronisation. As  it  is  designed  to multi-task, this
instruction is NOT  ACCURATE  AT  ALL!  It  may  skip  many VBLs,
depending on the number of running task at the moment.

        If you missed it in the  manual, multitasking can be activated by
pressing Amiga+A to flick between  AMOS  and the CLI or Workbench
environments. This allows systems  with  at  least  1  meg to run
AMOS and programs like DPAINT III at the same time!

 *      PRIORITY REVERSE ON
 *      PRIORITY REVERSE OFF, When I had finished AMOS, someone told
        me that I had made a really stupid mistake: the bob priority
        display order in AMOS was REVERSED to that in STOS. Silly me!
        It made it more difficult to port programs from STOS to AMOS
        - but not impossible! I had to correct this!

        PRIORITY REVERSE ON, as it says, reverses the entire bob's
priority table. It means  that  bob  number  1  will be first, in
front of all  other  bobs,  2  will  come  in  second etc... This
priority list is compatible with STOS.

        This instruction has another really nice feature when you use
it with PRIORITY ON. The bobs are not  sorted from TOP to BOTTOM any
more, but from BOTTOM to TOP! The  highest bob on the screen will
be displayed in front of the others  - how to turn a mistake into
a nice new feature!

 *      Automatic sprite flipping  -  a  very  special  feature  - really
        crucial!

        In a great number of games,  the  main character needs to animate
left to right, and up and  down.  Up  to now, you were obliged to
keep in  the  sprite  bank  reversed  copies  of  small animation
sequences for  the  main  character.  As   the   main   character
usually has the best animation,  you  lose  an enormous amount of space!

        For the game RanXerox (out now!), which  I wrote a long time ago,
I produced a nice flipping routine  which allowed me to keep just
one copy of the main character  in  the  bank. I have grabbed and
enhanced this routines for AMOS, and it  is now a part of Version 1.2.

        I had to be clever  (who  said  I  could  not?)  to find a way of
including this feature and keep compatibility with older programs.

        How does it work? Let's imagine  your character is walking to the
left and then back to  the  right.  You  would  only have in your
bank the image of  him  walking  to  the  right.  To display this
right image, you simply refer to the  image number in the bank as usual.

        To display  the  image  reversed  in  the  X  axis  (left walking
image), you set bit number  15  of  the  image number to 1. Don't
panic, you can simply do it with:

$8000+Image number

        So, BOB 1,160,100,1 will  display  your  character walking right,
and BOB 1,160,100,$8000+1 will display  it walking left. The same
principle is used for  vertical  reversing,  for this, bit number
14 is used. Add $4000  to  the  image  number. To have a vertical
and horizontal reversing, use $C000.
        The symmetry is a full symmetry:  I  also reverse the HOT SPOT of
the bob. For example, if we had  put  the hot spot in X under the
feet of our character, the  reversed  version  would also have it
under its foot. So be careful if you  set the hot spot on the top
left corner on a bob,  the  reversed  image  will be displayed at
the top left!

        You might say that $8000  and  $C000  is  a  bit  weird to use. I
have provided special functions to give a better AMOS interface:

 *   =HREV(image), add $8000 to the image
 *   =VREV(image), add $4000
 *   =REV(image), add $C000

Use them in place of the hex values:

        BOB 1,160,100,10
        BOB 1,160,100,HREV(10)
        BOB 1,160,100,VREV(10)
        BOB 1,160,100,REV(10)

        To allow easy use of  the  bob  reverser  in  AMAL, I have implemented
HEXADECIMAL evaluation. So you can use hex notation to refer easily to
reversed bobs. If hex frightens  you,  just  add $8000, $4000 or $C000
before all references in your AMAL strings.

Example:

Old AMAL string:

        "Anim 0,(1,2)(2,2)(3,2)(4,2)"

New reversed string:

        "Anim 0,($8000+1,2)($8000+2)($8000+3)($8000+4)"

 or...

        "Anim 0,($8001,2)($8002,2)($8003,2)($8004,2)"

        If you use a register to  calculate  the  image  number, do not
try to modify the calculation itself, but only when you assign the register
 to the image.

Old AMAL string:

        For R0=1 To 10; Let A=R0; Next R0

 New one:

        For R0=1 To 10; Let A=C000+R0; Next R0

How does the flip routine work?
        It is really important for you  to understand how it works
internally, so that you do not ask this system to do things it is not
designed to.
        I'll make myself a little bit clearer. This reversing system is
designed to increase memory  before  trying  to  be  fast (although we
would not mind if it  was  actually  fast,  would  we?). I had to make
concessions to have it at the same time fast, easy and powerful.
        The routine actually works right in the middle of the bank, and
does not use any extra memory.
        The bobs are flipped during the UPDATE process, just before a
bob is redrawn on the screen: I look to see  if the image needs to be
flipped in the bank. If it does, I do it and set a flag in the bank. On the
next UPDATE, if the bob image has not changed, I will not need to flip
it again, thus saving a lot of time.
        If you understand the above, you will also realise one BIG
limitation: It is not wise to use more than one flipped bob pointing to
the same image. Let's see the next example:

        Bob 1,160,100,1
        Bob 2,160,150,$8001
        Bob 3,20,20,$4001
        Bob 4,20,100,$C001
        Update

        During the UPDATE process, AMOS will first draw bob #1. No problem,
it is in the right position. Then bob #2 - AMOS needs to reverse it in X.
Bob #3 needs a Y and an X reversing  (to put the bob back to normal in
X!). Then bob #4 needs an X flipping.
        On the next update, providing the bob's image has not changed, to
display bob #1, AMOS will have to flip it in X and Y, then bob #2...
        As you can see, for each UPDATE, ie every 50th of second, if the
bobs move, they need to be reversed! This will work, but will take a lot
of processor time, and the animation will be disastrous.
        So the golden rule is: Use  the  reversed  bobs for objects alone
on a screen (or be sure that normal  and  reversed images are not displayed
at the same time on the screen).  If  you  want, you can have two bobs
like this - experiment!

        I told you before that this system was for use with BOBS. Yes,
it is totally automatic with bobs. But as it directly affects the sprite
bank, you can use it with sprites.
        When a hardware computed  sprite is calculated, AMOS looks into the
sprite bank and gets the image  from  it.  If the image is reversed at
that moment, the hardware sprite  will  display  a reversed image. You
can therefore have reversed  hardware  sprites  using this method. But
you cannot do for example:

        Sprite 1,200,200,$8001

 * Pasting flipped bobs

PASTE BOB also accepts reversed images.  A  simple trick to reverse an
image in the bank without  having  to  display  a  bob is to PASTE the
reversed image outside of the screen. Example:

        Paste Bob 500,500,$C000

This will reverse image 4 in  the  bank, without any output (and quite
fast).

* Collision Detection

This is an important point, and you  have  to be very careful when you
detect collisions with reversed bobs!

The collision detection uses the shapes in the bank at the very moment
it is called. Let's see an example that will never work:

        Bob 1,160,100,1
        Do
          Bob 2,XScreen(XMouse),YScreen(YMouse),$8001
          Wait Vbl
          Exit if Bob Col(1)
        Loop

        Why doesn't it work? We have two reversed images of the same
definition in the bank. After the  updating  process, the image in the
bank is left reversed. So the Bob  Col instruction will take bob shape
1, the reversed image, and this will not work!

        So remember what uncle Francois tells you:
THOU SHALL NEVER USE COLLISION  DETECTION  WITH MORE THAN ONE REVERSED
IMAGE ON THE SCREEN!

How is it coded into the sprite bank?

I use two bits in the Hot spot  X definition of each image in the bank
(at SPRITE BASE+6).

        Bit #15 for X: 0 if normal, 1 if reversed
        Bit #14 for Y:" " " "

        Before RUN and SAVE, the bank is restored to its normal state,
so that it is still compatible with version 1.1...

* Block Flipping

Yes, I had a really nice routine, I  had to use it for the blocks! Two
new instructions:

 HREV BLOCK number, flips horizontally
 VREV BLOCK number, flips vertically

* Bank Swapping

A new and very needed instruction:

   Bank Swap number1,number2

This instruction will swap the  pointers  of  the two banks. Useful if
you want to turn an icon bank into a sprite bank. Example:

   Bank Swap 1,2

or have more than one music bank at the same time, for example:

   Bank Swap 3,5

 etc...

(3) New Programs

The AMOS1_2.AMOS updater has also saved  a  few new programs onto your
disk:

 *   CONFIG1_2.AMOS - the  new  configuration  program.  Note that the
                configuration file in the AMOS_System  directory  is not the same
                as the version 1_1 file.

 *   MENU_EDITOR.AMOS - a new one,  as  AMOS had some annoying bugs in
                fonts handling and ERRN functions.

 *   LOCK.AMOS program! Yes, now you can lock your procedures, as said
                in the manual. To proceed:

   1)   Make a backup of your program, with OPENED procedures
   2)   Close all the procedures you wish to definitely lock
   3)   Load the LOCK.AMOS program, as an ACCESSORY
   4)   Run LOCK.AMOS using the RUN OTHER Menu option from the editor

Your procedures are now locked, and you cannot open them back.

NB: Do not try to load a  program with locked procedures in AMOS1_1 as
it will crash  the  computer!  Version  1_1  is  designed to disappear
quickly!

I am offering a bottle of (GOOD) French champagne to the first one who
will send me a  program  that  unlocks  another  AMOS program, and the
LOCK.AMOS program unlocked. I wish you some happy hours trying to find
out how I did it! Hahaha!

AMOS USERS CLUB
Issue 1 of the AMOS Newsletter  is  now available. The club has really
taken off with over 700 members having  joined - this is more than the
STOS club did in a year! Adding  a  high  score to Magic Forest, How I
wrote Cartoon Capers, Public Domain Update,  A500 Blues and an article
on Sprites, form the  main body of  this  first issue.  Join now - you
won't regret it and  you'll  get  all  the  latest AMOS  related news.

SOUNDTRACKER FIX
If you've experienced problems with the Soundtracker to AMOS converter
(found on the EXTRAS  disk),  then  have  a  look  at the listing  and
ensure that line 61 is the same as below:

        OF_MUSIC=$43C

Without this change the music tended to play out of sequence on one of
the channels.

AMOS'S FUTURE
A look to the future! In the next few months, I will program:

 *   A COMMS  extension,  to  handle  all  RS232  and parallel   ports
                directly

 *   An AREXX interface

 *   The COMPILER!!! it is  still  time  to  send to Mandarin all your
                ideas and suggestions for  this  important  product. We will read
                all the letters, as usual.

I look forward to seeing what you  have  done in AMOS. Think about the
PD library, and do not keep  your masterpieces for yourself only! Send
them to the club. I have already seen some amazing stuff...

That's all folks! I wish you as much  fun programming in AMOS as I had
programming it!