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1991-11-21
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TrackMaster V1.0a
======================
©1991 by BrainTrace Design Software. This program is free to copy and use
as long as nobody makes any kind of profit with it, and the program is
unchanged and spreaded together with the doc- and example-files. If you
want to include it to a comercial pd-library or product, or if you want to
use it for a game, you need the written permission of Cranium Software. A
general permission for distribution is granted to Fred Fish. Mister S.O.
, Germany, will never get a permission of any kind ( I warn you ).
BrainTrace Design Software
Carsten Schlote
Egelseeweg 52
6302 Lich 1 / Germany
Phone: ++49-(0)6404-7996
Purpose:
========
TrackMaster is a small program, which will help all game coders to create
trackdisk-loading game disks. TrackMaster copies a list of files, which
are listened in a scriptfile, to a empty disk in a specified drive. The
files are written with the trackdisk.device. Also a bootblock is written,
who will load the first program on disk.
An optional feature of TrackMaster is the possibility to compact the file
before writting them to disk. By default the file are written unpacked.
Look at section 'Scripts' for additional info.
As long as the system is left intact, you can now write a trackloading
(FAST) game, without writting all files by hand to this disks.
Be sure to use only Forbid(), Permit(), Disable() and Enable(). Also use
AllocMem to get your memory.
Technical info:
===============
The first program must be a binary image and pc-relative. You can use the
included program HunkWizzard to convert an amiga executable to a binary
image. This program will be loaded and started as your game-loader.
Therefore it must handle all further loading, decrunching and so on by
itself. The pointer to current StdIOReq is available in register A1. The
maximum number of fileentries is available in d0. The offsets and lengths
of the files on disk are stored as an array of LONGs at offset 1024 ( Block
2 ) on the disk. This looks like this:
dc.l 1536, ???? ; Offset and Length of first program ( YOUR loader )
dc.l x1, y1 ; Offset and Length of second file
dc.l x2, y2 ; Offset and Length of third file
dc.l x3, y3 ; Offset and Length of fourth file
dc.l ..... ; and so on
I sugest you to do the following in the loader:
Examine how many drives are installed in the system. This can be done
simply by opening all trackdisk units and checking the OpenDevice result.
Your current bootdrive unit number you can find in the StdIoReq ( look at
exec/io.h for more info. The pointer to the StdIOReq is stored in A1 !!)
Remember that with Kick 2.0 EACH drive can be the boot drive. I know a lot
of bad-written games, which force the user to use the drive 0. If you have
two different drives installed, for example an 3.5" and a 5.25" drive, this
can become VERY nasty.
Use now your knowledge about the installed drive for your game loading
system, please !
Of course you can use the loader as the main part of your game. Then you
can use the remaining files for graphics. This is much simpler as writing
all code pc-relative or use a relocator for executable while loading.
The last program in the dirtable is an array of the filenames used by
trackmaster as fileentries before. Each filename ocupies 30 characters of
space. So you can find each filename with the following formula :
filenamestart = 30 * index
You can use the filenames for your own filesystem. This will allow you to
use filenames instead of indexes, which is fairly transparent to your
programs. It makes it possible to use a harddisk loader for developing and
a trackdisk driver for the final game or program, without worrying about
the indexes or fileordering on disk.
The script file
===============
The script file is very simple. Empty lines and lines starting with a '#'
are comments. Everything else is used as a path/filename. All files are
stored to disk in the same order as in the scriptfile. The first file must
be a binary image and pc-relative. The remaining files can be of any type
you want ( Gfx, Code, Executables, ... ).
The '#' can be a switch introducer. It must be followed by a character
and the numbers 0 or 1 ( means FALSE(0) or TRUE(1) ).
The following switch exist :
#o<num> - Continues writing of the following files at the given
disk block number. Number must be decimal.
#@<num> - Write seek offset & length for following files at direntry
<num>. This allows to skip some already written files, e.g.
if you want to update level data etc. This functions expects
the disk in drive to BE a trackmaster disk - no checks !
You must use this function in conjunction with the #o
directive - be sure to give the right offset - no checks !
You may use this function only once per script file.
The first file in table has the number 0 (Zero) - count right !
#c0 - Switch compressing for following file off.
#c1 - Switch compressing for following file on.
#r1 x - Relocate executable to address x (hexadecimal) on.
HunkWizard must be available in current path
setting.
#r0 - Relocate off
#s1<doscom <@s> <@d> > - Execute a doscommand on following files.
the '@s @d' is important. the first is a
placeholder for the original filename. The second
is for original filename with a '.rel' extention.
The placeholder can also be divided by special
keyword like 'to'. E.g. '@s to @d'. the placeholders are
optional, and they may be used in any order and in multiple
places.
#s0 - Special off
#l x filename - join the x following files to filename
Compressed files
================
For the compression the lh.library by Olaf Bartels is used. The packed data
will be proceded by three long words. The first is a pack-identifier, the
last two are the lengths before and after crunching.
dc.l 'PACK', OriginalSize, PackedSize, ... < Packed data follows >
Keep the header in mind if you call the recruncher !!!!
Usage
=====
Write your scriptfile and then call TrackMaster with the path/filename of
your script as first, and the number of the destination drive ( 0..3 ) as
second Command-Line-argument.
The rest is done by the program.