Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM/CAM_CD_1.iso/files/560.lha/Crystal_Lattices_v2.15/Crystals.doc

Text File | 1991-09-19 | 13.7 KB | 268 lines

                         Crystal_Lattices
                           Version 2.15

                    Stereoscopic Educational Software
                           for the Amiga

                        Software and Manual
                       by David M. McKinstry
                        Copyright 1987-1991


                 User Instructions for Crystal_Lattices

     Crystal_Lattices is a computer simulation of three-dimensional
crystal lattices written for the Amiga.  The simulations permit you to
observe stereoscopic views of any of the fourteen Bravais lattices with
a variety of orientaions.  You will be able to accomplish changes in
orientation with either a joystick in the second mouse port, or by using
the cursor keys to emulate a joystick.  Furthermore, you will be able to
move the image away from you (further behind the screen) and toward you
(so that if comes on your side of the screen).  It is hoped that this
flexibility will enable you to find a comfortable viewing position for
any lattice you are studying.  Also, once the program is executing you
may wish to adjust the intensity and contrast of your monitor to give
you the most comfortable viewing for the images produced.

     Since the simulations are done using two-color stereoscopic
techniques, the 3-D glasses are relatively inexpensive.  The glasses
simply consist of a red filter for your left eye and a green (or blue)
filter for your right eye.  Both have been used successfully.  Although
the colors used were chosen for a green filter on the right eye, a light
blue or blue-green filter works just as well.  Even if you are missing
one eye, or for some other reason do not have binocular vision, you can
still use these simulations.  Simply place either color filter (the one
with which you can see best), over your good eye, and block off vision
to your weaker eye.  The ability to rotate and move the images will
still give a good illusion of depth.  In general, it is recommended
that you keep the images in motion prevent confusion that might result
if the images are stationary.

     As already mentioned, a joystick is a desirable (but non-essential)
option.  If you have a joystick, please plug it into your second mouse
port before turning on your Amiga.  A very desirable option is sound,
since there is a fair amount of narration that is provided.  Although
duplication of much of the narration will be printed on the screen as
it proceeds, it is easier to listen while watching other things (mouse
movement, menus, graphics, etc.) than to be reading and miss something.
If you don't have your speaker hooked up, please do so before turning
on your computer.  If you don't have a speaker, you will probably have
to go through the tutorial on the use of the Amiga with this program
several times.  It is assumed that you already know enough about the
Amiga to have it properly turned on and set up for your particular use.
However, further special considerations and assumptions follow:

     It is assumed that your Amiga has at least 1 Meg of RAM.  It may
be possible to run this software with only 512 K of RAM, if nothing
else is running, and you have not added buffers for your floppy drives.
However, that is probably pushing it too much.  It is also assumed that
you have all the libraries, devices, and fonts associated with version
1.3 or 2.0 of the Amiga operating system (i.e. AmigaDOS and related
workbench with KickStart or ROM Kernel 1.2 or later).  Crystal_Lattices
will operate as intended with KickStart 1.2 or later and Workbench 1.3
or later.  Crystal_Lattices will also determine whether your Amiga is
running with NTSC or PAL and act accordingly.  That is, different
aspect ratios are provided for the graphics when you have booted with
PAL mode than with NTSC mode.  Specifically needed in your operating
system are the following items that come on the release workbench disk
for 1.3 or 2.0.

     In the fonts director of your system disk you should have:

       diamond.font and within the subdirectory diamond, 12 and 20.
       ruby.font and within the subdirectory ruby, 15.

     All of these fonts are present with the standard release workbench.
However, note that the fonts drawer on your workbench boot disk for 2.0
is empty as it comes, and will have to have the above fonts copied to
it if you are booting from a floppy drive.  In your libs directory, you
must have the translator library and the diskfont library.  These are
needed for the narration and fonts.  In your devs: directory you need
the narrator.device.  As already stated, all these exist on the standard
release system disks.

     If you have two floppy drives just place the Crystal_Lattices disk
in your second floppy drive, and boot with your standard workbench disk.
The executable file is in the root directory of the Crystal_Lattices disk
and may be accessed from CLI, or the workbench.   If you prefer to type
in commands just type in and enter the following:

                           df1:Crystal_Lattices

     If you wish to place this program somewhere other than in df1: you
will have to include the appropriate path.  Hard disk users may wish to
copy it and its icon to their hard disk.  It's easiest to do this  by
dragging the icon from the floppy disk to the drawer into which you wish
to place it on the hard disk.    Many people prefer to use the workbench.
If you do, just double click on the disk icon to open its window, and
double click on the pair of 3-D glasses to start the program.  The program
will start in the usual manner, display a title page and request you to
press S or C to set or clear the Sound Option.  Do so to continue into the
program.  A page telling what menu options are available will then be
displayed.   It is strongly suggested that you follow through the tutorial
on the use of the the Amiga mouse and keyboard as it relates to this
program.  Just use right Amiga - G to start this tutorial.  Once the
tutorial has started, do not touch the keyboard or mouse, until it's
done.  The same applies to the other tutorials under the Information menu.
These tutorials will tell also tell you how to turn off the Sound option.
Note that General takes about 6.5 minutes to complete, Options takes about
three minutes, and Animations takes about 5 minutes.  Don't attempt to
run other user-involved programs at the same time, or you may conflict
with the tutorials.  By that, I mean that you could run a print job or
compile as a background task, the tutorials are running, but don't do
anything that requires use of the keyboard or mouse.  Doing so could lock
up the mouse, and require a reboot.

                           Single Drive Users

     If you happen to have only a single floppy drive and no hard disk
(perish the thought), you have several options.  Just two of them are:

          1.  Copy the program Crystal_Lattices and its icon to a
          working bootable Workbench disk, or
          2.  Boot with your normal 1.3 or 2.0 Workbench disk,
          and once complete, remove the workbench disk to insert the
          Crystal_Lattices disk to execute Crystal_Lattices.

     Start up the program by double clicking on its icon, and pay
attention to the requestors.   After loading the program, the workbench
disk will have to be placed back in the drive so its devices and libraries
can be accessed.
                           Cautionary Notes

     The tutorials take over control of the mouse.  Don't attempt to use
the mouse while a tutorial is running, or the program may 'lock up' with
the result that you will have to reboot your system.  If you get into a
tutorial accidentally, or for some other reason wish to abort that tutorial,
just press the  'Esc' key.  This will break you out of a tutorial or out
of any animation sequence to take you back to the Menu Options page.  Note
that all selections must be made from the Menu Options page, with the
exeception of the Sound option which can be toggled on or off when a
tutorial is being provided.

                           Everyone

     Be certain to pay careful attention to the tutorials provided within
the program.  This is especially true if you are new to the Amiga.  However,
even if you are an expert, you will need to study the 'Options' and
'Animations' items in the 'Information' Menu.

                           Command Key Summary

     Note that the following summary can be obtained by using the Help key
from the Menu Options page.

               Key(s)        Function

               Help          Command Key Summary
               Esc           Back to Menu Options Page
               Cursor Keys   Simulate Direction of Joystick
               A             Moves Lattice Away from You
               R             Returns Lattice toward You


     If you don't like to use the mouse, or are having difficulty with your
mouse, you may use 'hot key' combinations of keys to make your menu choices.

These are accomplished by pressing down the Right Amiga key (i.e. the key
just below the lower-left of the right shift key), and then simultaneously
pressing the key listed after it.  The commands used in this program are
as follows:



          The following are under the Options Menu:

               Right-Amiga-S           Sound
               Right-Amiga-N           Non-Primitive Cell
               Right-Amiga-P           Primitive Cell
               Right-Amiga-V           Translation Vectors

The above four choices toggle the corresponding option to its opposite
state.  For example, if the sound option is on it will be turned off at
the completion of any current narration.  The sound option can be toggled
from within a tutorial, so that you can speed up the reading of
instructions.  Any of the above four options should be chosen before
beginning an animation, since they will determine the nature of the
images produced, or whether a narrative will be provided in the case of
the sound option.

               Right-Amiga-Q           Quit the program

Of course, the meaning of this is obvious.  It is also possible to
terminate the program by clicking the left-mouse button on the
'Close-Window gadget' at the upper-left corner of the Menu Options page,
as well as by using the pull-down menu for Quit.  When an option is active,
a check mark will appear beside it in the menu.

          The following are under the Information Menu:

               Right-Amiga-G           Begin the General Tutorial
               Right-Amiga-O           Begin the Options Tutorial
               Right-Amiga-A           Begin the Animation Tutorial
               Right-Amiga-C           Display Chip and System Information

          The following are under the Animation Menu:

               Right-Amiga-T           Triclinic Lattice
               Right-Amiga-1           Monoclinic Primitive Lattice
               Right-Amiga-2           Monoclinic Body-Centered Lattice
               Right-Amiga-3           Orthorhombic Primitive Lattice
               Right-Amiga-4           Orthorhombic C-Centered Lattice
               Right-Amiga-5           Orthorhombic Face-Centered Lattice
               Right-Amiga-6           Orthorhombic Body-Centered Lattice
               Right-Amiga-7           Tetragonal Primitve Lattice
               Right-Amiga-8           Tetragonal Body-Centered Lattice
               Right-Amiga-E           Simple Cubic Lattice
               Right-Amiga-B           Body-Centered Cubic Lattice
               Right-Amiga-F           Face-Centered Cubic Lattice
               Right-Amiga-R           Rhombohedral Lattice
               Right-Amiga-H           Hexagonal Close-Packed Lattice


     This software should work in any multi-tasking situation, with the
exceptions already mentioned..  However, if you are running any other
software that uses the joystick, note that this program reads the hardware
registers for the joystick and keyboard directly when within an animation
sequence.  This is done to be certain that the Esc key is aways recognized,
and provides faster response when reading the cursor keys to simulate the
joystick.  Thus, if an animation is running in this program while another
program uses the joystick, it is assumed that the lattices are to be
rotated.  Likewise, if you were to press the escape key on another window
or screen, it would be recognized and take you back to the Menu Options
page.  Obviously, running other tasks in the background will slow down
the animations.

     Note that the two custom screens used for the animations are linked
together so it is possible to drag them up and down (and if operating
under AmigaDOS 2.0 with horizontal overscan, horizontally as well).  This
would make it possible to look at a rotating lattice, while observing
the Workbench Screen in the background.

       Bugs.  None known.  (They're all features.)  However, note the
       cautions already listed.  Also note that under the Chip and
       System Information Menu, the screen will flash when CPU speed is
       being determined.  This is because all DMA is turned off during
       the short test sequence(less than 0.1 seconds).  Also note that,
       if you're fortunate enough to have a 68040 in your Amiga, the
       timing will not be true but will instead give you the clock rate
       at which a 68020 or 68030 would have to be running, to complete
       the test loop.

      I hope that you will all enjoy and learn from this program.  Please
send any comments, bug reports  and constructive criticisms to me at the
following address.

                             David M. McKinstry
                             Physics Department
                             MS #68
                             Eastern Washington University
                             Cheney, Washington  99004
                             Phone [phone]
                       or    DIMMCK on Bix,
                       or    DMCKINSTRY@EWUVMS on BitNet.


      Note that I do not log onto BitNet nearly as often as I log onto Bix.