Almathera Ten Pack 3: CDPD 3/Almathera Ten on Ten - Disc 3: CDPD3.iso/scope/051-075/scopedisk60/noah/part3

Text File | 1995-03-19 | 19.6 KB | 357 lines

  Now as the months roll by and you get to downloading various programs from
the BBS's and picking up the odd Fish disk, you're going to end up with
programs all over the place so we need to do two things in preparation.

  The first is getting our archives together.  Format four or five disks and
label them Arc1, Arc2, etc. or A1, A2, etc.  These disks are our library, or
archives.  When we download a program off a BBS, it comes compressed, as
time is money on the phone line and the smaller the file size the quicker
the download time.  This compression is called "arc'ing", and you use a
program called, surprisingly, "Arc" to do it with.  When you get an arc'd
download, you de-arc it with either Arc or a smaller faster de-arc-only
program called Pkax.  After that you look at the freshly de-arc'd files,
read the docs and try out the program.  Then, if it looks like a program you
want, or MIGHT want down the road, you copy the original arc'd version to
the archives.  You'll have directories on these archive disks and you'll file
the programs correctly, as well as have a master text file of what's where,
how many arc and program bytes, brief description and maybe where you got it
from.  Give yourself LOTS of elbow-room on those archives; they fill up
quickly and it's a bitch to expand, say, three disks to six just because of
all the copying.  I currently have fourteen two-thirds-filled archive disks
with the following catagory headings spread throughout:

ADS          DOCS           GRAPHTOOLS        MISC            SAY
AUDIO        DU             HACKS             MODEM           SCREENS
BBS          FONTS          HARDDRIVE         POINTER         TEXT
CLI          GRAPHICS       KEYBOARD          RAM             TOOLS
                                              REPLACEMENTS    WINDOWS


  TOOLS gets full real quick which is why I have a separate category for
graphic tools.  REPLACEMENTS are replacement CLI commands.  My original
SCREENS/WINDOWS directory also started pretty fat so I split the two.

  Yes, it seems silly to have an entire category just for the pointer but
I've got EIGHT programs in there, so what'ya want?

  If you don't have a modem yet but have picked up a few Fred Fish disks
down at the store, the same holds true:  Get them stored.  You can use the
original Fish disk for the storage if you want, but usually you only want a
program or two off the disks, so my advice is to store what you want and put
the Fish disks in a box in the closet to pull out six months from now and
see if you've changed your mind about any of the other programs.  DON'T use
the Fish disks, cleaned and formatted or not, as they're poor quality and if
you're using the Sonys you mustn't stoop so low as to use a generic disk.

  The other thing we have to do in preparation for the new programs invading
our tidy Amigaworld is to make a couple of specialized Benches.  If you like
icons, you'll end up with a bunch of different icon utilities, so make a
copy of BlankBench, rename it IconBench, and go through it as we did before,
erasing any file that doesn't relate to icons.  I'm just talking about Tools
and things, of course.  We obviously leave the l, libs, and devs directories
alone.  But most of the tools, really just about everything besides the CLI
and IconEd can go.  This is the IconBench, buddy.  Move what's left over to
the main Workbench window, then "Delete Utilities all".  We note that even
though we moved everything out of Utilities, the directory's still not empty
(there's still the .info file) so "Delete Utilities" without the "all" won't
work..directory not empty!

  Remember, I'm capitalizing words simply for clarity; the CLI doesn't care.
Good advice right now would be get into the habit of always capitalizing cer-
tain words: directory names, program names, c commands, whatever strikes your
fancy.  There're no strict rules on the subject.  Even Commodore's own
st-seq has their commands three different ways; not capitalized in "echo",
capitalized in "BindDrivers", and all caps in "if EXISTS".  So get your own
little system together and stick with it.  In this tutorial I'll just
capitalize everything in sight.

                                       *

  All right:  As you can see, you'll end up with a bunch of different
Benches.  You'll have a GraphicsBench where you'll have different graphics
tools for showing pics, running animations, etc.  You'll have a
FirstAidBench filled with Diskdoctor-type programs, undeleters, file-
zappers, sector editors, whatever, in case of need.  You'll have ExperiBench
for screwing up, maybe a MusicBench for music programs, VideoBench for
movie programs, NoteBench for word processing, hey, who knows??

  There is, however, another way to do all this, but it has too many
drawbacks..disks are cheap, remember?  I'll explain it to you anyway just so
you know.  Assuming you have a blank, formatted disk in df1, you can, of
course, store tools (in drawers, if you wish) on that disk and simply run
them by opening df1's window and double-clicking on the icon.  Also, because
the disk in df1 isn't a boot disk and doesn't need all the accompanying files
that Workbench does, it can hold just tons of tools, eliminating the need
for almost all of the CustomBenches.  For all of that, you REALLY want df1
free to transfer things to and from and if you start running projects and
things from df1 you'll end up being plagued by "Please insert disk so-and-
so.." requesters.  And that's only the start of some of the hassles that
might crop up, another being that paths are much more critical with
something running from an external device, be it df1 or Ram.  I tried it
for a while and gave up.  It's more fun and certainly easier to deal
with just having custom Benches for different major operations and
leave df1 free for file shuffling.

  Not to mislead you, you'll still use good ol' Workbench as your standard
boot-up disk.  The CustomBenches are just that, for custom work.  And you
you can always run a tool or whatever from df1 in a given situation.

                                    *

  So what's next?  Why, time to write a scriptfile, naturally!  Type in the
CLI "Ed s/g" and there's our buddy Ed with a Creating New File for us.  The
file is in the directory s and is called "g".  On the first line type "Ed
df0:s/startup-sequence".  That's it!  Hit Esc, x, Return.  In the CLI type
"Dir s" and see if little g is there.  In the CLI "Type s/g" and see your
fine creation right there in blue and white.  Now type "Execute s/g" in the
CLI and Lo and Behold, you've executed a script file that told the computer
to edit the startup-sequence.  Hit Esc, Q, Return, to exit the Ed without
saving anything.

  Think that was tricky?  Watch this:  Type "Copy c/Execute c/f" in the CLI.
You've just duplicated the Execute command, renaming it "f".  Now in the CLI
type "f s/g" and you've got Ed again.  Still not slick enough?  Hang on.

  The command Path draws a path into a directory for a tool to seek
out.  We'll use the ol' Clock as our example.  Move the clock into
the Utilities drawer.  Type "clock" in the CLI and the little beggar should
pop right up there.  Close the clock, then type "Path reset" in the CLI.  We
have just wiped out the command "Path df0:System df0:Utilities Ram:" we ran
in our st-seq.  Now type "Clock" and hey, object not found!  Now type
"Utilities/Clock" and there it is.  Since the Utilities directory was not in
the paths (because we reset them), you had to draw a path to the tool with
the command.  Type "Path df0:Utilties".  Now type "Clock" again..and
since you've directed paths to the directory Utilities, you only need to
type the name of the tool and it'll find it.  A little clearer?  That's why
the Path command in the st-seq; we set things up there so we don't always
have to type the "long" version when we want the tool.  And that can BE a
real "long version" when you're calling up tools that are within directories
within directories within directories, etc.

  There are two directories that have "built-in" paths, so the Amiga can get
going at boot-up.  They're the c and s directories.  You notice we didn't
put "Path df0:c" in the st-seq Path command, yet if you type "Ed" in the CLI
it doesn't come back with "Object not found" as it knows to seek for tools
in the c directory automatically.  With the s directory it's scriptfiles,
like the startup-sequence.  The first thing it does at boot-up is seek the s
directory for "startup-sequence", even though no paths have been drawn
there.  So got the point yet?  Our little file "g" is also a scriptfile, so
to edit the st-seq, we type "f g" as fast as our little fingers can go and
bang, there it is.

  We keep the scriptfiles in the s directory as the system automatically
searches the s directory for scriptfiles; it lays a path for them.  The
Path command, remember, is only for tools.  If you had the scriptfile "g"
in the devs directory, say, and typed "f g", nothing would happen.
Type "Path devs", then "f g" and still nothing happens.  Path is only for
tools.  S is the directory you keep script files in unless you plan on
spelling out the whole path during the command.  In this case, "f devs/g"
would work fine, as you specified to the Execute command the directory the
file was in.  That's "f", by the way, as in "Fire One!"

  That little file "g" is just the start, of course.  We can issue all kinds
of commands with a flip of our fingers with scriptfiles kept in the s
directory and our copied Execute command "f".  We're not going to delete the
original command Execute, by the way, as, like leaving the t and fonts dirs
on the disk even though they're empty, some future program might seek out
the command Execute by name, never believing in their wildest nightmares
that anyone would have the gall to slice up a Workbench like we're doing.

  The ONLY other command I "shorten" is EndCLI, just because it's hard to
type quickly.  You "Copy c/EndCLI c/e" and now "e" is your "EndCLI".  Got a
loose DOS window cluttering up the place, hit e, Return and bang, it's gone.
To be accurate, no program's going to be looking for "EndCLI", so you could
just "Rename c/EndCLI c/e" instead, and save the byteage, but it's only 732
bytes, so what the hell.

  Here are some of my s script files:

         g   - Ed df0:s/startup-sequence

         gg  - Ed df1:s/startup-sequence

         ff  - NewCLI con:0/0/640/400/  ;pops up big CLI window

         b   - Run df0:CLI-Buster   ;my name for the Directory Utility I use

         format - FailAt 25
                  Format drive df1: name empty noicons      ;just being lazy

         dr  - Delete Ram:#? all    ;deletes everything in Ram

         m   - Delete Ram:#? all    ;deletes everything in Ram and quits
               Fac -q                FaccII to get me back most of my memory

         mm  - deletes Ram, stops as many sub-routines (like FaccII) as
               possible, gets me back as much memory as possible

  Now some, like mm, execute a list, or script of commands, and that's why
script commands are needed.  Others, like "b", just fire up my Directory
Utility (if you don't know what a DU is, you've got a real surprise coming).
I could just rename the DU "b", then simply type "b" in the CLI window and
up it would pop, but frankly, that's a stupid name for a tool.  Not to
mention how quickly it could get out of hand, renaming commands, script files
AND tools with single letters.  We'll leave things just as they are.

                                    *

  All of this business about script files and just flashing in a little
"f g" for a quickie Ed st-seq is fine...you'll have a lot of fun with
it...but slowly, slowly it dawns on you that there's something, well, missing
in the whole scheme of things.  The icon to run the script file with!
That way, it you're just hangin' around the ol' Bench and you want a quick
little Ed st-seq or press-a-button memory restoration, a timely little
double-click with that ol' mouse button and you got it!  But...but...you start
trying to puzzle it out, naming diffent icons the name of the script file,
making a drawer icon for the poor defenseless little s directory, and, natur-
ally, nothing works.  They forgot a program!  Call it the Missing Link.
The program's name is Xicon, and you need one, bad.

  If you don't have a modem (what have you been doing, reading??), you'll
have to hoof it down to HT or whoever near you has Fred Fish files, decipher
your way through the index and pick up which of these (or substitutes, if
you dare) you can.  The disks are only a couple of bucks each, you get a
whole bunch of needless crap on each one, and best of all you get the honor
of personally throwing away the junk generic disk when you've taken what you
want off them.

                                       *

  If you just happen to HAVE a modem...well THANK GOD!!  Can you believe
that other guy I was just talking to?  Doesn't even have a modem yet and
says he has, get this, a "computer"!  Har! Har! Har!  What that guy has is
the "preparation for a computer", as tremendously hip people like ourselves
know.  So, call up one of the gang:

               HT       (408's) 737-0900 (call HT after 6/Sun)
               Institute        353-3802
               DigitBox         258-5463
               Rancho           683-2534
               Homebase         988-4004


               FAUG     (415's) 595-2479
               RSVP             659-9169
               JC               961-7250
               Addicts          222-9416
               Nerd's Nook      672-2504


and download:

          arc bytes  program bytes

Blitzfonts   8,131      7,096  -speeds up text output
Conman      14,277      1,100  -CLI line editor, a must
DU-VI       50,220w/c  35,456  -best DU I've found, also a must
File        14,035     16,608  -file identifier
gShow       17,408     15,712  -shows pics
Icon+Ed     22,919     32,424  -Icon editor and saves icon's alternate image
IconLab1.2  55,428     68,768  -handy icon tool
Inter       18,232     25,995  -my Interlace tutorial
KindOf      10,372     11,772  -file identifier
Lace         1,981      2,716  -Interlace switch, another must
Less        17,384     22,364  -replaces Type, much better
Pkax        20,393     18,652  -de-arc's files fast
PrefCh      14,034   4,112/212 -change Prefs while booted-up, a must
Mackie      19,361      7,488  -pops up a CLI window at the press of 2 keys
Runback      4,877      3,268  -replaces Run in many cases, a semi-must
Select       8,413      5,412  -select your st-seq at boot-up, a must
SetBeep     47,855      6,392  -changes error beep and screen flash
Sview        5,248      5,916  -another pic viewer
WhatIs      20,354     12,516  -file identifier
WhereIs     29,539     12,328  -finds lost files
Xicon201    33,392      8,432  -runs script files with icon, a must
Unix (Zoo)  70,140     41,428  -like Arc, decompresses Zoo files, a must


  I include the arc'd bytes to compare with the file on the BBS and the prog
bytes so you can see if you have the same program or version of the
program as me.  Not only to avoid confusion in the future but to make sure
you got the right one; the names are sketchy at best (sometimes the name's
already been taken on that particular BBS so you HAVE to name it something
else) so check to make sure.  A good example would be "Lace", a "switch" to
switch you back and forth between the Interlace mode and non-Interlace mode.
I've tried at least four of them, all with names like Lace and SetLace and
the like, and this one (2,716 bytes) is the best.  The arc'd byteage is only
a guideline; shameless hackers like myself will actually add documentation
to some of these programs before uploading to a different board, might even
have the temerity to include a Zzenpad.foo file to protect the arc file dur-
ing the upload/download proceedure.  You know, that kind of impudent action.
And we, the hapless victims, can only hope and pray we're downloading a
different program this time and not just the same one some wanton Amigalite
has changed and renamed.  I've now downloaded the same damn 200,000 byte
animation THREE times under three different names; two arc'd files with
slightly different byteages and a ZOO version!  It happens.

                                       *

  NOW you see why I had you making bench space left and right...we need some
room for these guys!  The three file identifiers are all pretty much
worthless..they might help you to identify some odd file you've got, but
don't count on it.  The definitive WhatIs program has yet to be written.
Remember, you can rename anything you want, so you could just tuck the three
identifiers away in a drawer somewhere on FirstAidBench and call them WhatIs,
WhatIs2 and WhatIs3.

  Try to find the Directory Utility DU-VI; most of the DU's around are
single-screen and this one's a double.  You'll also notice the occasional
file with a .zoo on the end rather than a .arc.  That's a Unix/Zoo file and
you need that hefty ol' Unix file to "de-arc" the zoo file.  Just a
different method of compression; they both work about the same.

  Another thing to note is that you can't tell in the sightest how many
bytes a program is by the arc size.  There are two good examples above.  The
DU-VI is some 50,000 bytes arc'd, which might lead one the think that by the
time it's unarc'd it'd be HUGE..but it's not.  As you can see, the actual
program is only 35 Kbytes, very modest for all it does.  The bulk of the
arc file is the "c source" documentation included in the file.  And look
at SetBeep.  The actual program is only 6,300 bytes with a 2,000-byte sound
file.  I like SetBeep because it gets rid of that awful green error screen
flash..and the "ow.snd" is hysterical.  Just another case of love-at-first-
byte.

  After you've got that gang, the next ones to get are:


                  arc'd bytes
      Arc23          46,378   -arc's files, a must
      DL             11,941   -better List command
      Edible         14,395   -removes binary from text
      Filter          3,555   -gets out what Edible doesn't
      IconType        4,648   -changes type (tool, project) of icon
      IFFencode       6,540   -"snapshots" screen, saves as pic
      Melt           13,193   -maybe the greatest screen hack of all
      NewZap3.1      31,744   -lets you edit binary things like tools
      NewFont         9,946   -lets you change font for Bench/CLI
      NewFonts       52,001   -collection of neat fonts for paint & processor
      Zoomlens        6,344   -just a cute Bench tool

                                    *

  You'll also want to, of course, get anything else that looks intriguing;
it obviously depends on where your interests lie.  There are, for example,
some GREAT nudes on the BBS's.  There are some decent games (my favorite at
the moment is Tetrix) and game editors.

  If you're into audio you'll want to pick up some Play programs and start
unraveling the IFF/DMCS/SMUS/SONIX enigma.

  There are some great graphic demos around, such as Colorful, Dazzle,
Multiscope and Nemesis.  There are some nice animations about, such as
Froggy, Bthrows and MarbleFac.  The two premiere ones I've seen are Stamp
(for StampCollector) and NotAgain, both by the esteemed Dr. Gandalf.  If
you're going to get NotAgain, dig up Boing first, just so you'll know..

  You'll also see the occasional list of various BBS numbers, yours to try
as you will.  The above list, assuming you live in the Bay Area, should keep
you quite busy.  As far as uploading goes, most of the above stuff is
already available on most of the boards, but you can always Search the files
while you're on the BBS and see.  If you want to do your share of uploading,
the trick is to look at New files when you first get on, and those are the
ones most likely to be needed elsewhere.  I have uploaded easily more than
four million bytes myself.  Just call me the old file shuffler.

                                    *