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Text File | 1993-11-18 | 12.8 KB | 279 lines

******************************************************************************* * * * BootPicV3.1 * * * * © 1991,92,93 by Andreas Ackermann * * * ******************************************************************************* CONTENTS:______________________________________________________________________ 1. About Freeware 2. Introduction 3. Installation 4. Theory of Operation 5. How to select a picture 6. Hints 7. Restrictions 8. Kompatibility 9. Possible sources of errors 10. History 11. About the programming _______________________________________________________________________________ FREEWARE-CONDITIONS: BootPic is FREEWARE. You are allowed to copy BootPic as long as the following conditions are kept : o BootPic mustn't be changed o This DOC-file must be included o BootPic mustn't be spread on disks which are sold for more than 3 US Dollars or more than 5 DM !!! If you find BootPic on such an expensive disk please tell me !!! If you like BootPic and if you use it regularly I'd be glad to hear from you. Please send me a picture-postcard from your home town/area or some money etc ... If you want to use BootPic as part of a commercial programm, you need my written permission. My Address: Andreas Ackermann Lorenz-Summa-Str.10 95145 Oberkotzau GERMANY Tel.:09286/6399 ________________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION When you've got an OS2.0 or higher Amiga maybe it also happens to you that you are bored by the black screen that is shown until the workbench comes up. There are already tools out ( like BootLogo, or IffBoot ) to show a picture during this time, BUT they come in much too late with their picture. This means, if you've got a slow AT-Harddisk like I have, you're left with your black screen for half an eternity. That's where BootPic comes in: It shows your picture right after you pressed <Ctrl,leftAmiga,rightAmiga>. The only black spot appears when switching on your Amiga and booting the first time as there'll be no picture at all. However it also makes sense to use BootPic without a harddisk. INSTALLATION It's just too simple ! Copy the contents of the WBStartup drawer in your WBStartup drawer and the contents of the Prefs drawer into your Prefs drawer. THEORY of OPERATION BootPic loads an IFF-ILBM file and/or a MED-Module residently into your memory so that it will survive a reset. So, of course, when starting your system the first time during a session there's no BootPic installed. But when the BootPic programm in the WBStartup drawer is executed it first checks if BootPic is already installed. If not it attempts to load the image/music de- fined in ENV:bootpic.pref. Otherwise nothing happens. [ Quite sensible. You certainly don't want to reload the picture any time you're booting your system, even if you've got a harddisk.] Next time you perform a reset you'll hopefully see your desired picture. BootPic doesn't eat any processing time while it is installed as it's only active during reset time. However the picture you selected remains in chipme- mory ( as far as I know chipmem is the only place where anything can survive a reset ! ) all the time so be careful not to load too large pictures. HOW TO SELECT A PICTURE When you start the BootPicPref programm a window will open with the following gadgets inside: o ILBM-File: Complete path of the picture to be shown. After hitting return in this gadget BootPic checks if this file can be loaded and complains if not. o Module: Complete path of the MED-Module to be played. After hitting return in this gadget BootPic checks if this file can be loaded and complains if not. MED is a Music-programm comparable to SoundTracker. V3.00 of this programm is to be found on Fish 476. Please note: When you save your Music make sure that you selected 'MED-Module' as output format. That's the only one that can be handled by BootPic. (MED also loads SoundTrackerModules and then you may save them in the MED-Module format !!!) As these modules usually are quite large, you may also load modules crunched with the PowerPackerV2.3b ( Fish 253 ). Note: Crunched Modules may need up to 10s to decrunch at each reset ! o BootPic active this one must be selected if you want a picture to be shown. o Play Music this one must be selected if you want a MED-Module to be played o No fading keeps the picture from being faded in. Especially useful with HAM or EHB pictures as fading doesn't look good at all with them. o Cancel Perform no change, leave everything as it was before you started BootPicPref. o Use Removes the currently installed BootPic and attempts to load everything according to the current settings. NOTE: The configuration won't be saved. However the changes remain effective until you switch off your Amiga or till you change them again. This is because the programm in the WBStartup drawer does only check if BootPic is installed but doesn't take care of the name of the picture-file as mentioned above ! o Save Does the same as 'Use' but additionally saves the current configuration to ENVARC:bootpic.pref. HINTS If Bootpic fails to load the picture nothing will be made resident. Note: You *must* use complete pathes for both the picture and the module. Think of the following case: You've got a picture named 'test.iff' in your Prefs drawer. If you load it, it's sufficient to simply type in its name without path, as the Prefs drawer is the current directory. Everything will do fine till you switch off your Amiga and start a new session. Cause now it's up to BootPic from the WBStartup drawer to load the picture and now the current directory is 'WBStartup' where your 'test.iff' can't be found. To remove BootPic temporarily when it's already installed ( for example if you need some extra memory ) simply deactivate 'BootPic active' and 'Play Module' and click on 'Use'. If you don't want to get it reinstalled after the next reset simply click on 'Save'. As you already now, the picture is shown until the Workbench Screen is opened, which is the case as soon as any application tries to make an output to the console window. So you should send any output in the startup-sequence to NIL:. Here's a sample of my startup-sequence: ; $VER: startup-sequence 39.9 (9.8.92) C:SetPatch >NIL: QUIET C:Version >NIL: C:AddBuffers >NIL: DF0: 15 ... ********** For experienced users only ********* When you've got lots of programms in your WBStartup drawer it's advisable to remove them and execute them in the startup-sequence because by the time the Workbench looks inside the WBStartup drawer your picture already has disappeared. RESTRICTIONS BootPic is only capable of displaying PAL or NTSC pictures. This means if you've got your Amiga 1200/4000 connected to a VGA-monitor, it won't work. The new AGA-chipset is only partially supported ( will change in the future): o none of the new modes is supported. o You *may* use up to 256 colors for each resolution, *but*: - the width of the picture must be divisible by 32 ( which is the case with all standard resolutions like 320*xxx and 640*xxx, but be careful with overscan !) as soon as you've got a picture that couldn't be displayed by the old chipset. - the new colorpalette is not supported which means that the 256 color pictures won't appear in the same quality as in Multiview. However these limitations should be easy to bear as you normally should use just pictures with 8 to 16 colors as larger ones eat too much memory. After the picture has been shown some time you'll notice it jerking to the top left corner of the screen. This is due to the execution of IPrefs that adjusts the 0;0 point of the display and cannot be helped. Further I found it impossible to get rid of the mousepointer ... [ I already tried to open a window on the screen and setting a dummy pointer but it appeared nevertheless.] NOTE: A bug has been discovered !!! Using packed modules will cause your system to crash during booting. I've searched for the reason but found no answer ! However, as this feature didn't seem too important to me I decided to release this version nevertheless. Will be fixed some day ! KOMPATIBILTY BootPic installs itself in a «kindly» way, that means that any other resident programme won't be removed, e.g. Guardian, CARD:, but also viruses. In the same careful way it removes itself. It should run on every Amiga with OS 2.0 or higher. Possbile SOURCES of ERRORS Normally a picture that was once installed, stays in memory until you remove it or till you switch off your Amiga. But there are some exceptions: a.) If you play a game that believes all the memory belongs to itsself, it is possible that the memory allocated by BootPic is overwritten. Then you won't see the picture any more. b.) Many viruses simply overwrite the reset-vectors. In this case BootPic will be gone, too. c.) Some virusdedectors (e.g. ATool) are of the opinion that every resident programme is a virus, so BootPic will be removed, too. If one of these cases should arise, it may be possible, that you get a GURU after a reset. If you can't remove it by clicking the left mousebutton, switching off the Amiga is the only thing you can do. If you should meet some trouble when using BootPic with ZKick or any other software-based Kickstart loader please tell me !!! HISTORY V1.0 - first release, only Cli-Support V1.1 - intuition-interface V1.2 - added 'Color-Cycling' and 'Check all Drives' - Resident Code and Data MUST be placed in Chip-Mem [only exception: internal expansions of 512k at location $C00000 (e.g. I've this one)]. Now it uses Chip-Mem. Sorry, I didn't know about this limitation. - There was some code that caused BootPic to guru on the A500 Plus with OS 2.0 after displaying the picture. Now it works ... - Fixed one bug that caused serious errors when loading IFF-files with more than 32 colors saved ( like the HAM-Demo-pics of DPaintIV ). - Brushes now are handled correctly. V2.0 - MED-Module support V2.0b- Delay-support V2.0c- patch for Kick 1.3 V2.0d- now should run with MultiKickstartBoards V2.1 - included bootselector for Kick1.2/1.3 V3.0 - user interface completely rewritten for OS 2.0 and modified its be- haviour to be useful with harddisks. The old replacement for the 'Workbench-Hand' no longer is possible. Not officially released. V3.1 - Removed some bugs and added the 'No fading' feature. PROGRAMMING BootPic was written with the Devpac 2.14D - Assembler in combination with EZAsm of Joe Siebenmann. Many thanks go to JM Forgeas for the wonderful editor AZ V1.50. Thanks Markus Herpich who provided me his brandnew A500+ for a whole afternoon. The code for playing the sound was written by Teijo Kinnunen. I took it from the MEDV3.0 package distributed on Fish 476. [Files: loadmod.i and modplayer.i] The decrunching code is ©opyrighted by Nico François. I took it from Fish 253. Also greetings to the 17 ( really seventeen, not more [since june 1991] !) kind people who sent me the demanded fee or bug reports. Hope there'll be more in future ... Many thanks to Markus Illenseer for his friendly answer. By the time I got your letter I had already found out myself how to determine when the Workbench opens ! ( I do it the same way like you ! ) I am very thankful for critics, propositions and BUG-reports. [ If you write, please use special stamps if possible, my Grandpa is a stamp-collector. Thanks. ] ENJOY ! Oberkotzau, october 28th 1993 Andreas Ackermann [*10.07.1974] [ excuse my mistakes !!! ]