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=================== M I L L E N I U M =================== - C O N T E N T S - Why? What Is It? Cost? Free? Requirements Installation Usage Problems? Preferences Copyright History Distribution Disclaimer Other Versions? Bits And Bobs Contact... ===================== (c) 1997 - Stu Mackie ===================== Why? ---- I was bored, okay?? Anyway, Millenium is my first attempt at writing a prog in Blitz Basic. Int BB2 brilliant! Written really as a programming exercise, but as it's turned out looking rather neat (is this where I'm supposed to put an "IMHO" ?), what the hell, you can have a copy. Who knows - it may just be of some use? Being caught up at work recently with the race to ensure all software won't fall down like a bag of soggy on Jan 1st 2OOO, prompted me (sad isn't it?) to write a quick Millenium countdown clock in Mainframe Rexx. This code formed the core of this suped-up Amiga version (the PC version currently being ported straight from this). It didn't take long to put together. Coding, as I've said, in BB2. Graphics and Icon in PPaint. Sounds (if any are included here?) originally from The Weird Science Multimedia Toolkit. Beer from The Coffee House, Picton. Kebabs from Honest Abdul's (extra chilli). Enjoy... Stu. What is it? ----------- Well... basically, it's a clock. "Oh bugger! Not another bloody clock?" I hear you say? Yes, okay, it's a clock. But not ya normal common or garden variety, oh no. This is a full-screen full-colour whopper of a clock that, (ahem), counts backwards. Yes, that's right - backwards. From now til Doomsday. Sorry, meant the New Millenium 1st January 2OOO. What the hell - whichever comes first! What is common or garden tho, is a feature list. This is just a very boring utility, written in next to no time, and it doesn't really have any whizzo features as such, but for techie convention's sake... o Full-screen 640x512 32 colour display. o Very large digital font-type thingy used for the counters. o Pull-down full-colour graphic Options Menu (This was a little experiment in avoiding the usual rather tired looking Intuition Menus). o Large backward digital countdown clock - Hours, Minutes and Seconds. o Large daysleft digital counter Counting down from now (Day nnnn) to 2OOO (Day OOOO). o Large workdays/weekdays digital counter Display number of working week days remaining (less holidays). o May be callibrated to any countries public holidays. o Accurate standard analogue clock showing current System Time. o System Date and Weekday also displayed o Midnite, Hourly, Quarterly and Half-Hourly beeps. o Beeps can be replaced by your own IFF sound samples. o Select which chimes sound and which are silent. o Will play ST Music Module of your choice at 2OOO. o Adjustable Process Priority. o Can be frozen and hidden behind your Workbench screen. o Doesn't halt running of Workbench. o Save Prefs option. o Gawpers. o One or two other examples of quirky coding... erm... Why, I had so much fun programming it, I... I... Cost?? Shareware? Nah... ------------------------ No annoying requesters. No demo version. The full Monty. Ahh, I see you have the machine that goes "bong!". You sure do. And it didn't cost a dime. Of course, if you've got lots of extra cash burning holes in your PROMIS software, then feel free to send me some - I won't complain. Honest. If you want to send a postcard or something, then likewise, even feel free to drag me for a pint (not that I fall into the archetypal beer-swilling fun-loving long-haired programmer category - DOH!). You can send me Bug-Reports, Comments and Suggestions (even specs if you wish) - and not being sexist or anything, I promise to answer any mail from babes first. Froo-Froo! Requirements: ------------- o An Amiga 12OO (tut). At least 1 MB free memory. However if you're thinking of multi-tasking, then the more memory the better, obviously. I haven't catered for A5OO/A6OO systems, but it should really run on anything capable of the screenmode. If there's an interest, then I'll look into it. I won't hold my breath. o Ideally a battery backed clock (otherwise you'll have to keep adjusting your System Date/Time setting each time you invoke "Millenium"). This is also helpful as Millenium is only set to handle dates from 1st Jan 1997 to 1st Jan 2OOO - if your System Date is earlier than 1997 then you'll have to adjust it to a valid setting before running "Millenium". If your date's invalid, the prog will let you know. Whaddaya want me to do? Cater for the last Millenium??? o A hard drive would be nice for the efficient handling of samples and MOD, but not essential. o Libraries: ---------- Uses standard Amiga libraries, however ensure you've the popular "Mathtrans.Library" somewhere in your LIBS: path. o PAL. It's necessary to have a friend in the room when running this, as it really is quite hypnotic, and it's quite possible to become so engrossed in those seconds ticking away that your eyes become fixed to the screen (due to this problem the release of this prog was severely delayed - I started it in '88). So follow these rules... * Blindfold friend to protect from hypno-effect. * Run "Millenium". * Look at screen and chat to friend about how abysmally disappointing "Independance Day" was. * Should you go quiet for any length of time, friend must thrash wildly around room in an effort to find and wake you. If your room is the one "at the top of the stairs", then ensure bedroom door is shut before thrashing begins. To liven up instances where wild thrashing takes place, liberally place items such as waste paper bins, used chamber pots, open manholes, marbles, and bear traps around the floor. Installation: ------------- Just drag the drawer to wherever you want it - that's it! No assigns required. Just double-click "Millenium" icon. Archive contains: Millenium (Drawer) Millenium Millenium.info Millenium.Prefs Sounds (Drawer) Chime Bong Bells Bells2 Docs (Drawer) Millenium.Doc Millenium.Doc.info Millenium.Guide Millenium.Guide.info Example-Prefs Example-Prefs.info The only file you really need tho is "Millenium". This will use default settings and no samples (which may be advantageous if you're short on memory). It's quite possible that the "Sounds" drawer is empty or not present, due to the strange and confusing issues of copyright. However, the original sounds used in this archive were taken from the CD-ROM "The Weird Science Multimedia Toolkit" and claimed free from copyright... How To Use It... ---------------- On running "Millenium" you'll see the title "Millenium" (oddly enough). Click on this to discover which version you're running, and which country's public holidays the prog will take account of. The "DAYS" counter will display the number of days remaining to the Millenium - this will be decremented every midnite. The "WORK" counter displays how many days there are left not including weekends (Saturday and Sunday) or Public/Bank holidays. You can click on this title to display the current holiday settings; click again to display 98's and 99's etc... See Prefs. Any displayed messages will be cleared after a short duration. Everything else will appear straight-forward, neat and tidy. Move the mouse pointer to the top of the screen and press and hold the right mouse button. This will activate the pull-down menu as usual. The "Menu Options" are as follows: ---------------------------------- 1). Midnite. This is the first of four "toggle" gadgets. You select this option to switch on/off the sound/sample to play at Midnite. If the sample is active, the symbol on the option item will be a green quavery crotchety semi-quaver whatever musical type symbol. Not a minim. And if the option is "off" then it's obvious. 2). Hours. Same as "Midnite", but for fx on the hour. 3). Quarters. Same as "Midnite", but for fx on quarter to/past the hour. 4). Half-Hour. Same as "Midnite", but for fx on the half-hour, oh boy. 5). Priority. Opens another window allowing the selection of a new running priority. It defaults to "-128". 6). Hide + Freeze. Will push the "Millenium" window to the back of all open screens on your system, and halt program execution. No drain on CPU time in this state. To re-activate the prog, switch to it using the usual screen depth gadget (that little box at the top-right of screens), or some other method, of course, I'm not trying to tell you how to run your life here! Then just click on the "Millenium" screen to start the clocks running again. This effect can also be initiated by moving the mouse pointer pointy pointing thing towards the bottom of the screen. Note: Using any other method to switch screens will not freeze "Millenium"'s processing. It's okay to do this, but remember that it'll be eating your CPU in background. 7). Save Prefs. This will save all current options to disk as a standard editable text file. Feel free to edit. 8). About. The customary name in lights sort of screen. Just click anywhere to make it vanish. 9). Speedbar. Will toggle the display of an on-screen Speedbar to allow you to adjust the settings of the eyes, the blipdelay, and the title strobe - See Prefs. Select again to toggle off. After setting them to a suitable rhythm, you may wish to save your Preferences. 1O). Quit. Return to Workbench. Can also be done by pointing and clicking the top-left corner of the screen. That's about it. For more info, see the Prefs Section. Troubleshooting: ---------------- There shouldn't be any problems, but... o The most common problem when using Sound Samples will be mispelling of Directory paths and sample names. The offending Path/Sample should be displayed in a recoverable guru, so you can track it down with ease. o If you really wish to test that you load the right MOD when the time comes, you can alter the System Date and Time using your Workbench Time Setting tool, to year end 1999, just to check... o If for any reason, "Millenium" locks up on loading, or the graphics get corrupted at all (heaven forbid), then it's probably due to insufficient space. Get a bigger bedroom. o Remember you should have a copy of "Mathtrans.Library" somewhere... This is usually already present, but it may be worth checking. o More problems with Samples? Are they under 128K in length? o Oh no, more problems with samples... it's quite possible that you're using a valid 8SVX file, and "Millenium" refuses to read it. If this happens (Blitz can only handle kosha 8SVX samples and occasionally grumbles about slight inconsistencies), then load the offending sample into a converter, and save out as a standard IFF. o Is your System Date between 1997 and 2OOO? o Over 3O and still single? Tell me about it... Preferences: ------------ The "Millenium.Prefs" file is a standard ascii file. Feel free to edit it and adjust the prog's options. In fact, this is the only way to adjust one or two of the options. o Any line that doesn't start with a valid keyword will be treated as a comment and ignored. o Options can be in any order, doethn't matter. o Options can be in upper or lower case, doethn't really matter. o The prog can do without a Prefs file. If it's not present, then all settings will default. o Keywords are: MIDNITE, HOURS, QUARTERS, HALFHOURS, PLAYMOD, MODPATH, SFXPATH, ALTMIDNITESFX, ALTHOURSSFX, ALTQUARTERSSFX, ALTHALFHOURSSFX, COUNTRY, PRIORITY, BLIPDELAY, GAWPERS, DATETYPE, HOLS97, HOLS98, HOLS99, STROBE. o All Keywords are followed with "=" (an equals sign). Keyword Descriptions: --------------------- MIDNITE=n --------- "n" can be either 0 or 1, off or on, and refer to the sound/sample playback at Midnite. Eg. MIDNITE=1 will play the sound. MIDNITE=0 will play the sound, but only so dogs can hear it. HOURS=n QUARTERS=n HALFHOURS=n - All same as MIDNITE=. MODPATH= -------- Gives path to your favourite SoundTracker Module for playing at the very moment of Millenium madness!!! This is completely ignored until the time is right, of course. Eg. MODPATH=Work:Sounds/Mods Best perhaps to state a full path, unless the MOD is in the Millenium drawer. A final slash "/" on the path is not necessary, but it won't hurt any, if you're a standards freak... PLAYMOD= -------- The name of the SoundTracker module used in conjunction with MODPATH=. The Module can be any length that available memory permits, but it must be a MOD, not a MED or something MID, clear as MUD? MAD! This Keyword may also contain the path to the Module, as long as MODPATH= is left blank. Eg. PLAYMOD=DH1:Sounds/Mods/Millenium.MOD Eg. PLAYMOD=Work:Sounds/Samps/MILLENIUM.MOD Eg. PLAYMOD=Sounds/Milly.MOD indicates that the drawer "Sounds" exists in the same drawer as "Millenium". Eg. PLAYMOD=Millenium.MOD indicates that the Module is in the same drawer as "Millenium" if MODPATH=. is left blank, else it's in MODPATH='s drawer. Like Keyword MODPATH=, this field will not be checked until the Millenium is reached (when it's time to load our MOD!!!). SFXPATH= -------- Same as MODPATH=, but for the alternate Sound FX. The path to the IFF/8SVX samples you wish to use for chime sound effects. Be careful to get this right, as "Millenium" won't start if a serious error is found in the Prefs file. Unlike MODPATH=, SFXPATH= will halt prog execution if invalid. Checked at startup. Any errors will (should) be displayed. ALTMIDNITESFX= -------------- The name of your alternate 8SVX sound sample you wish to use for the Midnite chime. This sample can not be over 128K in length and must be a valid 8SVX datatype. Eg. ALTMIDNITESFX=Chime.iff This Keyword may also contain the path to the sample, as long as SFXPATH= is left blank. Eg. ALTMIDNITESFX=DH1:Sounds/Samps/Chime.iff Eg. ALTMIDNITESFX=Work:Sounds/Samps/Chime.iff Eg. ALTMIDNITESFX=Sounds/Chime.iff indicates that the drawer "Sounds" exists in the same drawer as "Millenium". Eg. ALTMIDNITESFX=Chime.iff indicates that the sample "Chime.iff" is in the same drawer as "Millenium" if SFXPATH= is left blank, else in SFXPATH='s drawer. If used, then this data will be checked on prog startup. Any errors, or invalid file types will be flagged and execution halted. ALTHOURSSFX= ALTQUARTERSSFX= ALTHALFHOURSSFX= - All same as ALTMIDNITESFX=, but for the other chime types. COUNTRY= -------- Specifies which set of Public holiday figures to use in Weekday calculations. At present it can be set for either "ENGLAND" or "SCOTLAND". Eg. COUNTRY=ENGLAND . See Other Versions. PRIORITY= --------- Sets Millenium task priority between 0 and -128. This is set inside the prog in stages of 16 (0, -16, -32 etc...), but here you can enter any figure, and "Millenium" will round it up or down to the nearest stage between 0 and -128. The default setting is -128 as it's really not high-priority is it? BLIPDELAY=nnnn ---------- As there are no wait-delays in "Millenium" (for the sake of speed and accuracy, honest!!), the speed of the pips flashing on the digital clock may vary from system to system. Use this setting to slow the buggers down!! Valid values are 0 to 9999. Default 400. GAWPERS=n --------- Lord knows why I put this in, but it was simple enough to do, so why not? Valid values are 0 and 1. All it does is put a pair of eyes on the screen to watch your every mouse move. May have to adjust BLIPDELAY if it slows it down any. DATETYPE=n ---------- If you're the type that like the date in MM-DD-YYYY format then set this to 1, else it'll default to 0 and DD-MM-YYYY. HOLS97= HOLS98= HOLS99=n1 n2 n3 n4 n5 n6 n7 n8....nX ------------------------------------ If you wish to change the current public holiday settings, then use these options. Fairly straight-forward - If you're setting the hols for 1997 then put them on the HOLS97= line, and likewise for 1998 and 1999. The numbers n1, n2 etc., must be in the range 1 thru 365 and refer to the day number of the public holiday. For instance, say we wanted to tell Millenium that in 1998 we want our "WORK"days counter to ignore the 1st of January and the 25th of December as they're public holidays; then we'd use the command "HOLS98=1 359". Geddit? The 359 because 25th December is the 359th day of the year. These settings are already included for ENGLAND and SCOTLAND (See above). But outside of these countries you may want to enter your own set of holidays. There is a limit to the number you can enter, but what it is, I'm not going to tell you. A valid line for England would be... HOLS97=1 87 9O 125 146 237 359 36O Delimit each daynumber with a space. STROBE=nnnn ----------- Adjusts the speed of the colour-strobe effect of the title. Settings of O or 1OOO will switch the effect off. Else use 1 for fastest and higher for slower. Copyright: ---------- Millenium V1.1 - © February 1997 : Stu Mackie. Docs(s) and Graphics likewise. Compiled using Blitz Basic 2.1 from Acid Software. Any samples/MODs present are copyright of the original creators. The original samples attached to this archive (if still present) are owned by "Weird Science Multimedia Toolkit" and are as far as I know exempt from legal wranglings - How the hell you can copyright a "blip" sound or the chimes of "Big Ben" I'll never know!!! Due to the current MOD copyright crisis (kinda puts excellent progs like OctaMED in the cack???), no Module was included in this archive. However, you may wish to add a nice rendition of Wagner's "Ride Of The Valkyries", or even Beethoven's Ninth (The Deep Purple version of course - let's keep things traditional eh?). History ------- A kind of perverted fascination with the past. Distribution ------------ "Millenium" is freely distributable. It may be put on any media which is used for the distribution of free software, like Public Domain disk collections, CD-ROMs, Aminet (I can't put it there myself - no Net access I'm afraid)...etc... o This package should be made available to anyone free of charge, whenever possible. o If it appears on any CDs, PD libraries, disks etc., then just do me a favour and let me know - no need to send me a copy of the media unless you're feeling generous. o Hey! This doesn't mean you can rip off me graphics or source for another platform - holy moley!!! Well at least not without asking. o Try and keep the files together, space permitting. Disclaimer: ----------- There is no warranty for this software package. Although I've tried (oh how I've tried) to prevent nasty bugs, I can't guarantee that it is 1OO% reliable. It's written in an Amiga-friendly way. and hasn't caused me any problems, but it's customary to cover one's back, is it not? So you use this package at your own risk. I can't be held responsible for misuse, or having to reformat your hard-drive coz it fall down go boom. I'm no expert whizkid Amiga coder so there! Follow the instructions properly, and you should have no probs. Other Versions? --------------- Porting this to a PC version, which would go down really well at work, no doubt? - Amiga-free zone I'm afraid. How little they know... You could, of course, get your Boss to purchase a 12OO to sit in the corner of the office as a countdown clock!! Public Holidays... ================== Versions to take account of Public Holidays in other countries? Well I've included the option to change the holiday settings (See Prefs). So as long as you're PAL oriented... No problem. You know how difficult it is to get a decent calendar with correct Public Hols? I think Wales, is pretty much as England, but I couldn't get two calendars to agree for Northern Ireland and The Republic Of Ireland! Any other country, and they're like golddust. So... this'll probably be the first and last release of this strange but different prog. It's pretty much complete as it is. But I'm always open to suggestions. Boring... ========= This prog may be useless and low-tech, but putting it together on such a friendly system as Amiga really was refreshingly enjoyable, & for a "first program", I was surprized at how easy it is to get into - get your hands on Blitz Basic, Amos, CanDo, whatever - who knows? It may just capture your imagination. Perseverance fellas... But... Don't have much spare time these days, what with beer an' all (have I mentioned that?), and there are more important things than programming (aren't there? Oh yeah, like beer for instance), and whoever said computing is better than sex, obviously had no genitals. But who knows? Maybe I will get time to churn something else out? Now if I can just get past this level of Breed 3D-II... Thanks And Stuff... =================== o Gimme Gloom-2. Please? I lost count of the number of pairs of boxies I filled playing the first one! Scariest game ever (alongside AB3D-II). If Mark had've included a level-editor on this one... o Dunno where I'd be without the quality Amiga software that graces my shelves (I use PC's, and they're still in the dark ages when it comes to affordable high-spec stuff). Thanks also to those PD programmers who never fail to find and exploit new ideas. Special thanks to the many Amiga mags (well, in the past), without which I'd never get to see most of this software - not having Net access. o Thanks to beer, for being, well, just plain wonderful. o Thanks to a recent Panorama TV documentary (was it Panorama?) that proved that beer doesn't addle your memory. Stopped my Dad complaining about me going for a pint after work (bless him). o Thanks to beer, for being, well, just plain wonderful. We Have Contact... ------------------ If you wish, you can reach me thru this address: Stu "Mine's A Lager" Mackie. 9O Oakwood Road, Halewood, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, L26 1XH. As this is only a contact address, please don't place obscenities on any postcards/envelopes, as the old guys'll only ask me what it all means. Not that any self-respecting Amigan would behave in such a manner? So keep all obscenities INSIDE the envelope. Bye. See ya. Don't Forget Me Now... Actually, all the beer gags are just a joke. No! Really they are!