Games of Daze/Infomagic - Games of Daze (Summer 1995) (Disc 1 of 2).iso/x2ftp/msdos/libs/anivga12/faq.txt

Text File | 1993-07-11 | 12.0 KB | 241 lines

Some frequently asked questions:
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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 [phone] / [phone], 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:<MSDOS.???>
      wsmr-simtel20.army.mil
        (192.88.110.20) dto. (use "cd PD1:<MSDOS.???>")
      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:<MSDOS.TURBOPAS>ANIVGA11.ZIP (UUE" or
      "/PDGET MAIL PD1:<MSDOS.TURBOPAS>ANIVGA11.ZIP UUENCODE"  or
      "/PDGET MAIL PD1:<MSDOS.TURBOPAS>ANIVGA11.ZIP XXENCODE"  or
      "/PDGET MAIL PD1:<MSDOS.TURBOPAS>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     [e-mail]
      In USA:         LISTSERV@RPITSVM     [e-mail]
      In Turkey:      TRICKLE@TREARN       [e-mail]
      In Denmark:     TRICKLE@DKTC11
      In Italy:       TRICKLE@IMIPOLI
      In Belgium:     TRICKLE@BANUFS11     [e-mail]
      In Austria:     TRICKLE@AWIWUW11
      In Germany:     TRICKLE@DS0RUS1I     [e-mail]
                      TRICKLE@DEARN        [e-mail]
                      TRICKLE@DB0FUB11
                      TRICKLE@DBNGMD12
      In Israel:      TRICKLE@TAUNIVM      [e-mail]
      In Netherlands: TRICKLE@HEARN        [e-mail]
      In France:      TRICKLE@FRMOP11      [e-mail]
      In Chile:       TRICKLE@USACHVM1
      In Colombia:    TRICKLE@UNALCOL      [e-mail]
      In Spain:       TRICKLE@EB0UB011
      In Sweden:      TRICKLE@SEARN        [e-mail]
      In Taiwan:      TRICKLE@TWNMOE10     [e-mail]

      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 [phone].  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."