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Celestin Apprentice 4
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Apprentice-Release4.iso
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Fantasm™ 3.21
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***Read me first***
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1995-09-16
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8KB
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155 lines
Fantasm V3 is fast becoming the de facto development system for writing Mac
machine code.
V3.2 produces code at least twice as compact as MPW, and many times faster.
V3.2 is a large upgrade to Fantasm, with many internal changes, specially the filing
system which now works across disks - for more details read the User manual (just
double click it). There are no known bugs in V3.21, and it has been extensively tested
on a variety of machines.
Fantasm is suitable for complete beginners, those that want to write Mac
programs as quickly and cheaply as possible, developers using high level languages,
but need some machine code for the "fast bits", hardware designers who need
a fast development system to create code for downloading or EPROM burning,
hardened games writers used to the likes of the wonderful Devpac or GENAM etc etc.
Fantasm V3 can create stand alone applications, code resources for control panels,
extensions etc, Atari ST programs. It can also create Fantasm V2.xx applications
(allowing the use of position dependant code), can output a straight binary
dump for Eprom burning or downloading to another system and can output the
code to RAM for fast testing and developing quick hacks.
It comes with a revised beginners guide to Mac machine code, lots of examples
and largely revised manuals.
Fantasm comes complete with an integrated caching linker, a Librarian which can
display on line function documentation, and a set of libraries. At the heart
is an integral "build" manager which controls both the assembler and linker
to produce your application/code in the fastest possible time whilst generating
extensive and educational error messages when things don't quite work out as
you planned.
Redistribution
——————————————
See the unregistered licence in Fantasms' manual.
To run Fantasm you need:
————————————————————————
A Mac with at least an 020 processor - PPC's are fine.
A few megs of RAM - 4 megs is ok. 6 megs is great.
System 7.xx
At least a 640 by 400 screen - Power Books are generally fine.
A couple of megs free on your hard disk.
You may also find you need the following software:
Macsbug © Apple - available from BB's, PD and shareware libraries or your local Apple dealer.
Resedit © Apple - again available as per Macsbug.
An editor such as BBedit or Edit II - Lots of good editors are available via shareware.
-x-
This unregistered shareware distribution has been slightly modified to reflect
the fact that it is an unregistered version.
We don't like
doing this, but we hope you'll agree with us when we say the shareware marketing
method can work, and with your support will work. There are far too many distributors,
marketing agencies and middle men who really contribute nothing to the program
the end user gets - why should you pay their wages. We really don't believe that
hyping prices, so you think a product is "quality" has any moral standing - hence
we keep the price fair and within reach of all. However if we can't make Lightsoft
software viable via shareware - then logical business sence indicates that we would
have to move to another distribution method.
We are very heavily subsidising Fantasm at the moment - the cost of development is
huge - work it out for yourself - over 4000 hours at 20 ukp per hour is 80000 ukp
purely in man power, not to mention hardware and software costs.
Why do we do this? Because we honestly believe that Mac software is way over priced -
ok so it takes longer to develop Mac software than say PC software, but not that much longer.
We also firmly believe that our system will be the best in any given arena. At the
moment it's machine code - but logically assemblers lead to compilers - a
C compiler is under development, and, being written in 100% assembler, should just
about be the fastest compiler on the earth. Not many other people write compilers
for the Mac in machine code (because you have to be completely insane?), but
Fantasm gives us the ability to do this via its macros and libraries.
We also think that development should be fun - "A programmer with no sense of humor
will not be a programmer for very long, specially a !@£$ing Mac programmer!" - SB 020195
4:45 am CustomGetFile call back procs - (Don't you just love being in control!).
If you do have a specially tricky problem, drop us a note email- we live on-line and it's
quite possible we've had the same problem you've had (also known as the "How the
*?-! am I supposed to do this?" syndrome - normally occurs about 3 am Saturdays.
We'd most probably welcome the break from macro writing!
We want to make our systems available to anybody - not just pro's who can afford
over 600 ukp for the latest all singing all dancing system. The idea is to allow you
to develop Mac programs which run as fast as is possible, but without having to
worry about niff naff and trivia. We aim at complete beginners, through to converts
from other machines, right upto professional R&D and games programmers.
We also enjoy interacting with our customers, and believe that information should
be a shared resource. Ask us a question and we'll answer without hiding any "trade
secrets".
-x-
There are a few delays and annoying alert boxes and the following restrictions:
1. The Librarian cannot delete a function. However the librarian can replace a function
for you, and so this should not be too much of a problem. The librarian in this
release is less crippled and smarter than the previous unregistered release, but not significantly
different.
2. Code production is limited to 5k which should be enough to build the
examples and try out some small programs of your own
3. Two of the output options are disabled (Binary and ST), some of the commands
are disabled and after 15 days you will start to get annoying alert boxes
4. The Fantasm reference manual is missing - this is not a cripple, simply a fact that
we have to keep the size of the distribution down somehow!
Apart from that everything is pretty much intact.
The beginners guide to Mac machine code programming has been revised and chapter
6 has been totally rewritten as an example to using library functions and generally
using Fantasm V3.
We strongly suggest you read the User manual cover to cover before doing anything else
as Fantasm V3 is quite diferent to previous versions, although we have tried to keep
the interface pretty much the same. The user manual has been extensively rewritten
for V3.2.
We do hope you enjoy using Fantasm V3.2 and that you will buy the real version rather
than try to hack the restrictions out of this demo. It is cheap for what you get,
specially with new upgrades planned all the time. We prefer users grow with us.
Fantasm V3 has taken a huge amount of time to program, document and debug - please please
please if you use it - then register.
Bugs: If you do find a live one, please contact us as soon as possible in the
interest of all users - thankyou. See the manual for more information on bug reporting.
Have fun!
The Lightsoft Dev team.
We can be contacted at:
lightsoft@zedworld.demon.co.uk for Internet users.
Compuserve: 100625,720 - Stuart Ball
Maclincs BB in the UK - 01427 718950 (Login as "fantasm" with a password of "fantasm")
courtesy of (and many thanks to) Paul Carter who runs Maclincs.
or write to:
Lightsoft,
55 Sidney street,
Grantham,
Lincs,
NG31 8AZ
U.K.