AMOS-L

>> Also, I'll use DEMOTIME to count down the demo...
> Piffle! I hate timers. We'll use my idea of one life. Then any stage
> can be tested, but the game will end when you die or complete
> that level.

So, we (stage-programmers) don't even need to worry about a
demo-mode as you'll just set LIVES=1 in the MasterCode and
that will apply to all of the stages, correct?
Sounds good, certainly makes it easier on us!!

I think a GOOD player might be able to complete my stage with
just one life, so perhaps you could add a tiny check and if the
demo-stage being played is the SideShooter, you could cut the
energy in half: BUBBASHIELD=50


I've added the support code for multiple lives, music/fx and now just
need to clean up a few things. Mainly just removing the counter in
Phase One, fps/chipram-calculation/display and all that
development-junk.

You will definitely have the final version by Wednesday as I don't
know of anything else I can do. Maybe remove the comments and
possibly clean-up the source a bit, but I think for an AMOS
program it's pretty clean right now...

Speaking of which, I seem to remember someone (Keith?)
mentioning an extension that allowed AMOS programs to use
CONSTANTS and STRUCTURES... this would be a key factor in
my decision to do future AMOS-programming, so what is the
name of this extension? All I can think of is EasyLife, is that it??

Anyone considered writing a FAST parallel-blitting routine?
I'm thinking of something that would set-up the blitter and while
that was drawing one image-bitplane, the CPU would draw the next
image-bitplane. Probably not much difference on a 68000, but with
a 68020 and certainly 68030 or higher, it could be MUCH faster
than AMOS's current Bob-routines as a FAST CPU might be able
to draw two image-bitplanes per the blitter's one.
Instead of calling WaitBlitter() and having the CPU doing nothing
while the blitter does all the work, why not actually use the CPU to
draw the next bitplane (or two on FAST processors).

Another thing I've considered is a few general purpose ASM
routines that can process a list of objects simultaneously. You
could pass the address of an array along with the number of "reps"
and the ASM-module would add/subtract a value from this array,
or you could pass two array-addresses and the ASM would add
the contents of the second array (delta-values and such) to the
contents of the first array.

When is that JADE AGA-extension to be released? If I remember
correctly that was to contain VERY FAST Bob-routines...
hmmm... since it is still in development, perhaps they could
implement the parallel-blitting design. Then the thing that has
always been one of AMOS's greatest weaknesses (Bobs/blitting)
would become it's greatest strength!!!!


Take care,
GARFIELD
_________________________
Current projects...
SideShooter(AMOS): 99% Complete
Website(http://www.sosbbs.com/~gbenjam): 25% Complete