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sandglass
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sandglass.doc
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1992-05-06
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============================================================================
SandGlass V1.0
© Copyrights by Dirk O. Remmelt in July 1991
============================================================================
(i) INTRODUCTION
(ii) DESCRIPTION OF SANDGLASS
(iii) STARTING SANDGLASS
(iv) FURTHER INFORMATIONS
(v) CONDITIONS OF COPYING / DISTRIBUTION
(vi) GREETINGS
(vii) TRADEMARKS
(viii) RESPONSE-ADDRESS
(i) INTRODUCTION:
-----------------
Hi to all carbon-based bipedal ape-descended amiga-addicted life
forms out there !
SandGlass is a program which animates the original Workbench-busy-
or-zz-mouse-pointer. I was inspired by the MS-Windows busy-mouse-
pointer to write a similar program for the Amiga.
The actual version is only for Workbench/Kickstart upto 1.3. If you
want to know why, please refer to chapter (ii).
(ii) DESCRIPTION OF SANDGLASS:
------------------------------
After starting SandGlass, and while a disk-device-access is taking
place, the mouse-pointer represents itself as a sandglass, purling
sand through it, turning around and starting all over again.
For doing this, the program reads out the address of the busy-mouse-
pointer-image at the first disk-device-address, saves this image,
and writes repeatedly the datas of my animated sandglass at this
address. The fact, that an access is taking place can be checked by
the value written in the variable 'Pointer' of the
IntuitionBase->ActiveWindow-structure.
In this case, the value in 'Pointer' is unequal zero. It now points
to the datas of the busy-mouse-pointer-image.
Some words about Workbench/Kickstart 2.x. The actual version of
SandGlass is only designed for Workbench/Kickstart upto 1.3, because
these two kinds of versions have different handlings of the mouse-
pointer-image.
(iii) STARTING SANDGLASS:
-------------------------
There are two ways to start SandGlass:
1. How to start SandGlass from CLI/Shell
The syntax of SandGlass is:
SandGlass [?] [D=delay] [P=priority]
Examples:
a) Run SandGlass D=4 P=-42
Set the parameters for process delay time and task priority
b) Run SandGlass ?
Print out the syntax line and exit
You may leave out any parameter as you like. The parameters do
not need to have a certain order.
NOTE:
If your parameters are not reasonable (delay must be greater or
equal than zero; priority must be out of the interval [-128,127])
the program will be exited.
2. How to start SandGlass from Workbench
Just doubleclick the SandGlass icon. If you want to change its
parameters, you can do this by editing the SandGlass.info file.
That means: select the SandGlass icon and call the Workbench
build-in function 'Info'. Now you can edit the parameter lines
process delay time : DELAY=5
task priority : PRIORITY=-10
NOTE:
If your parameters are not reasonable (delay must be greater or
equal than zero; priority must be out of the interval [-128,127])
the default values (delay=5; priority=-10) will be used.
A process delay time of 5 will be a reasonable value. In this case,
the program needs approx 4% processor time on a 68000 machine and
approx 1% on a 68030/33Mhz/4MB machine. If the task priority is held
about zero, its value won't affect the processing as much as the
delay value.
If you want to speed up the animation, you can decrease the value of
the process delay time.
IMPORTANT:
Please keep the following two points always in mind !
- A decreasing of delay will have an increasing effect on the CPU
performance.
- If the task priority is more than 10, important system tasks could
be interrupted. On the other hand, a task priority less than -80
could interrupt the SandGlass program. The effect of that would
be, that you couldn't close the SandGlass window to stop the pro-
gram. Reasonable values for the task priority are out of the
intervall [-50,5].
If you want to exit SandGlass, just close the tiny SandGlass window.
(iv) FURTHER INFORMATIONS:
--------------------------
The program needs about 2K chip and 12K fast memory. The actual
version of SandGlass is totally written in C with the Manx Aztec
C68k V5.0b Compiler/Linker.
The sources can be unpacked using lharc 1.1 or higher. The syntax is
lharc -rxa x SandGlass_Sources.lzh
LHARC will create a subdirectory 'Sources' in which the sources are
placed.
In a future release of SandGlass I hopefully will have solved the
problem about Workbench/Kickstart 2.x.
I also think about an assembler-translated main routine to speed up
the animation without decreasing the process delay time value.
(v) CONDITIONS OF COPYING / DISTRIBUTION:
-----------------------------------------
This package consists of the following files:
- SandGlass ................... the executable program
- SandGlass.info .............. its icon
- SandGlass.doc ............... this file
- SandGlass.doc.info .......... this file's icon
- Sources/ImageDatas.h ........ the include-file with 14 images
- Sources/ImageDatas.h.info ... its icon
- Sources/SandGlass.c ......... the source code of SandGlass
- Sources/SandGlass.c.info .... its icon
- Sources/MakeFile ............ the makefile for Make -CLI only-
- Sources/MakeFile.info ....... its icon
The package and all its files are NOT Public Domain. However you are
allowed to copy the package as long as ALL the following demands are
met. Exception from any of the points below can only be granted by
my expressed written consent.
1. This package may only be distributed in its intact, unchanged
form. Altering, as well as omitting, expanding or any other
change of the package or any part of it is strictly forbidden!
1. Neither this package, nor any portion of it may be included in a
commercial product.
2. Neither this package, nor any portion of it may be used commer-
cially.
3. Neither this package, nor any portion of it may appear in an
electronic mailing facility, where an additional charge to your
telephone bill is upheld.
4. The disk, this package is distributed on has to be priced below
$6 in the U.S.A. or the equivalent of DM 6 in Germany or any
other country.
5. Neither this package, nor any part of it may appear or be in-
cluded in any Public Domain series without my expressed written
consent.
No guarantees, implicit or explicit are provided. The user is res-
ponsible for all damages resulting directly or indirectly from the
use of this package.
(vi) GREETINGS:
---------------
Greetings go to
- Douglas Noel Adams for his Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
(the only trilogy of four volumes), and
Dirk Gently's detective agency
(at this moment two volumes), and
The Meaning of Liff
(the additional book to the Oxford English Dictionary).
- Thomas Geib for testing, advice and for the parameter-read-in-
subroutines.
- Stefan Boldorf for his "legal stuff text" via Thomas.
(vii) TRADEMARKS:
-----------------
Amiga, Workbench, Kickstart are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
MS-Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
(viii) RESPONSE-ADDRESS:
------------------------
Please send flames, bug reports or a list of features you would like
to have included in the next version to
Dirk O. Remmelt
Lutrinastr. 11
D-6750 Kaiserslautern
Unified Germany
Kaiserslautern, 31 July 1991
Dirk O. Remmelt