
       ICTARI USER GROUP             ISSUE 48                  July 1997

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                     *   m   a   g   a   z   i   n   e   *

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                       I C T A R I   U S E R   G R O U P
       G Greenway, 8 Denmark Road, Reading, Berks, RG1 5PA. 0118 756668
                 http://www.elis.demon.co.uk/ictari/ictari.htm
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                              INDEX FOR ISSUE 48                                                        
                              ==================
                              
            ASSEMBLY:       Mini word processor
            
            GFA:            NVDI settings functions
                            Pop-up menu routines
                            Alternative "Help Balloon" system
                            Bubble GEM support routines
                            
            MISC            HTML Image format FAQ
                            GIF format information
                            Xaaes, Multi-tasking AES for MiNT
                            
            STOS:           Swingshot game demo                
                                                                                                                                                               
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                                   EDITORIAL
                                   =========
                                   
  Hello Again,
    Sorry for the late apperance of ICTARI, this is starting to become a
habit. I shall be taking a short  holiday next month, so issue 49  might
take some  time as  well. What  with summer  being here,  the number  of
contributions has dried  up a  little, some arriving  rather late.  That
being said, I  only *aim* for  the 15th of  each month, so  if the  July
issue actually arrives in  July, I think that's  good enough. ICTARI  is
rather unique among disk-zines, being a hybrid magazine and user  group.
Publications like Maggie  and Atariphile,  (great though  they are)  can
rely on software  and hardware  reviews and  game hints  to fill  space.
ICTARI has a much more narrow coverage, (anything is open to discussion,
though) and its chosen  field of programming  requires time and  effort.
This makes it all the more remarkable that it has been possible to  fill
a disk every month for nearly fifty issues. Well done !

    Again, I've been  rather busy this  month, but I  did manage to  get
some coding done. No, not more  tacky fractal programs, I'm afraid  I've
actually managed to generate something usefull ! Of course, the code  is
only usefull to  me, and any  other unfortunates who  need to dabble  in
Weibull statistics. Suffice it  to say that the  whole sordid afair  was
easiest to resolve using Prospero FORTRAN on an Atari than it was on the
PCs at work...

    All is  not well  with my  attempt to  make early  issues of  ICTARI
available via FTP. The folk at  the UMICH archive are taking their  time
in moving the files to the correct directory, so the popular mirror site
at Imperial college doesn't get updated either. The last time I  looked,
both sites had the first ten issues, with a further ten in the  Newitems
directory at the Michigan site. A promising alternative would be to  use
the FuNet archive at:

            ftp.funet.fi
            
We shall have to see...

    Lastly, I've finally  managed to  upgrade to a  Falcon. Contrary  to
what I was told at the last Goodmans' show, Systems Solutions were  able
to sell me a 14Mb Falcon Mark X. Seeing CAB and Imagecopy run in  proper
colour resolutions has been  quite an experience, it's  great to see  ST
software perform this well.  (-Not that things were  too bad on the  old
ST...) Texture mapped  games like the  Doom clone Running  and the  race
game Moon Games run at an impressive speed, I can't wait to see the  Bad
Mood project finished. Unfortunately 16 / 32 systems are out of Linux CD
ROMs, running Linux was one of my reasons for upgrading. They swear that
will eventually have them in stock, and in the meantime I can always try
the earlier  distribution  from the  Compendium  CD. I'm  sure  you  can
imagine the PC set-up I  could have had for  the same money, though  I'm
sure most of you would rather not...
 
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                                CORRESPONDENCE
                                ==============                              
                        
To:	All
From:	Stephen Bruce
Re:	Monitor Cable
        
As mentioned last month, I've picked  up an Atari SC1435 colour  monitor
on the cheap from my local Cash Converter. I thought I had a bargain but
now I find I can't connect it to my ST. I have the parts to make a cable
myself and Giles supplied the pin-outs for the ST last month. All I need
now are the  pin-outs for the  monitor itself.  It has a  nine pine  'D'
connection and I'm led to believe this is configured in the same way  as
a Phillips  monitor. If  anyone out  there has  a monitor  of this  type
(Atari or Phillips, I'm getting desperate)  can you supply me with  this
info from  the manual.  I've tried  Atari themselves  and several  third
parties to no avail.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------
 
To:     Everyone
From:   Giles Greenway
Re:     Monitor Cables

    Will someone please help  the poor bloke  ! I know  a lot of  people
read, or at least download ICTARI,  most never contribute. Well, now  is
your chance to reform.
 
    ------------------------------------------------------------------- 

To:     Anyone who uses Magic and Lattice C (Probably Mark Wherry)
From:   Giles Greenway
Re:     Magic

    So far,  I'm pretty  happy with  Magic. I've  only got  a couple  of
gripes. Firstly, I can't  get Extendos Pro, the  CD ROM driver to  work.
More seriously, Lattice C's rather groovy drop-down menus don't seem  to
work ! I can't set compiler options. Surely there's a way of getting the
workbench to cooperate without having to re-boot with Magic ? Help !

    -------------------------------------------------------------------

To:     Mark Foot
From:   Giles Greenway
Re:     Multi-tasking

    Hello again, I hope my spiel about multi-tasking did some good. I've
included Graham Chalmers' latest release  of Xaaes, a multi-tasking  AES
for MiNT with this issue. It's been  a while since the last version,  so
it's good to see that it's still being worked on. If anyone asks, I  can
include the source code  next time. -All  suggestions for bug-fixes  and
other improvements are welcomed. Do you actually have a version of  MiNT
? That can be rectified as well. The trouble is, a lot of this stuff can
only be found on the 'net or on  CD ROM, the last time I looked, the  PD
libraries had yet to catch on. I've not tried the new Xaaes version yet,
as I've not yet got MiNT running  on my Mark X. The KGMD distribution  I
mentioned last time didn't  install correctly, I think  I might try  and
download some of the files again just  in case. Let me know how you  get
on. Anyway, for those on the 'net, Graham Chalmers' pages are at:

            http://www.i-way.co.uk/~c_graham/home.html
            
If that wasn't enough, a new MiNT variant is beging worked on. It's called
Fenix, and may even include JAVA support. Take a look at:

            http://www.it.lth.se/~sven/fenix.html
          
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From:   Mathew Bacon (k964101@kingston.ac.uk)
To:     ICTARI
Re:     Graphics Formats 
                         
Hello,

May I start  by saying, I  was really impressed  when I stumbled  across
your site! (thanks to Atari Computing!) well done! - ok I'll cut to  the
chase!

I am a HiSoft BASIC programmer and have written several useful utilities
for the Atari ST/STe/Falcon etc. Now  I realise that you do not  support
HiSoft BASIC  as  such, but  I  am writing  a  web design  suite  called
"Web.Wizard" and have come up against some difficulties I'm hoping  that
you may be able to help with !

The suite/integrated package will eventually consist of:

- Wizard function (similar to Home Page Penguin, but with more options!)
- HTML editor "Web.Ed" 
- DTP web design (papyrus idea etc.)
- RTF to HTML converter
- Link checker
- Image map designer

The difficulty  I find  myself up  against  is that  I cannot  load  any
picture format  (GIF,JPEG,PNG) etc.  so  that I  can manipulate  it  and
display it on screen.

Do you know of anyone who has the know how and would be willing to help.
I'm hoping to go semi-commercial with  this (8.99), so I would be  able
to offer a cut for assistance etc.

Regards,

Matthew Bacon (Cadenza Software)

P.S What computer have you designed your site with?

    ------------------------------------------------------------------- 

From:   Giles Greenway
To:     Matthew Bacon
Re:     Graphics Formats

Hello.

To start with, the ICTARI WEB pages get written using Edith Pro and  CAB
1.5, once using a standard  4Mb, now on a C-Lab  Falcon Mark X. What  do
you make of them ? The only reason there's no support for Hi-Soft  BASIC
is that no-one has written any !  (Full marks to John Oaks for  breaking
the embarrasing lack of  assembly language in  ICTARI this month.)  Theo
Ross has supplied a wealth of material for GFA BASIC, perhaps you  would
be well-placed  to share  a few  tricks  of the  trade of  HiSoft  BASIC
programming  ?  All  contributions  are  gratefuly  recieved,  including
suggestions for the WEB site.  (You can have it  any colour, so long  as
it's black...)

As for grpahics  formats, I've included  a compressed HTML  FAQ in  this
month's issue. As  you are on  the 'net, it  should be easy  for you  to
chase up  the various  file-formats you  need. I've  also included  some
information about  .GIF  files.  A  word  of  warning,  Compuserve  (who
developed the format) now want  all developers who create programs  that
read or write  GIFs to buy  a special  licence, even if  the program  is
freeware or shareware. The whole 'net community is up in arms. Maybe the
fee is a  little smaller for  shareware developers, I  don't know,  much
less your risk of getting caught if  you don't cough up. I shall try  to
get some information on JPEG files  into the next issue. (For those  who
don't know, JPEG compression  is lossy, in  other words, the  re-created
image is  not  exactly the  same  as theo  original.  This is  fine  for
digitsed colour  photographs  and  video stills  which  can  really  eat
memory. The method uses  wavelet transfroms, which  for those who  know,
are similar to Fourier transforms.)

Hope that helped !
        
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From:   Jason J Railton
To:     Everybody
Re:     SwingShot game demo

   I've sent in a demo of how  far SwingShot has progressed. It now  has
moving baddies. The  STOS Basic code  that generates the  pre-programmed
paths is included. If you look at  it, you'll find some data lines  that
define the paths as a sequence of manouevres in the X and Y axes.

   Feel free to tinker with  the data to design  your own paths. If  you
come up with some good ones, send them in.

   The sprites took some time to  design. For the explosion, I drew  the
basic  cloud,  then  enlarged  the  orange  and  brown  pixel   patterns
separately, before overlaying  them again.  This makes  the cloud  looks
like it bursts open, but it means I have to track each pixel and re-draw
it separately.

   Hardest of all was the pyramid of balls, which spins on two axes and
was very tricky to visualise and draw accurately.

   By the way, this demo runs at 25Hz on my machine, so (at 4 pixels per
program cycle) it  takes just over  3 seconds for  the screen to  scroll
from one side to the other. Is it running too fast on anyone's Falcon or
TT or whatever? If it is, I can force it to run at 25Hz.

   The path generator plays out the  flight paths on screen as they  are
generated, and records the  x/y co-ordinates in a  memory bank. To  make
your own paths, it's probably easiest to make a copy of the program  and
tinker with the first few lines of data.

   The first DATA  line simply states  how many paths  are listed  (18).
Note that the paths  come in matched pairs,  and are on separate  lines.
Towrds the end, one of the paths is duplicated since I couldn't think of
a suitable matching sequence.

   First is the x/y co-ordinates where the sprite starts. Note that this
is for the top-left corner of a  16x16 sprite, so to be off the  bottom-
right it  would be  320,200  and to  be off  the  top-left it  would  be
-16,-16.

   Next is the  number of  manouevres that make  up the  path, then  the
manouevres themselves. These consist of two  code words for the x and  y
movement, which then  require further parameters.  These parameters  can
all be real numbers (with a  decimal point). The code words are  capital
letters, as  detailed in  the program,  that describe  the  mathematical
function to use.  These are  followed by the  number of  steps that  the
manouevre should take, then the relevant parameters in order.

   Then come  the code  letters for  the next  manouevre and  so on.  If
anyone can design a good path I'll include it in the game. Note that the
sprite should just move off screen before the path ends.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------- 

From:   Giles Greenway
To:     Jason J Railton
Re:     Swingshot

    Swingshot runs fine on my Falcon, it's a shame Buzzsaw doesn't. This
is quite a  tragedy, I  suppose I'll just  have to  experiment with  the
program Backwards.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------- 


From:   Jason J Railton
To:     Everybody
Re:     Sound effects

   As you'll notice if you run my demo, there are no sound effects.  I'd
like to know if anyone has some  experience of using the PSG sound  chip
from machine code, or  knows of any routines  to produce sound  effects.
I'm  afraid  that   with  the  mouse   and  rasters  already   carefully
synchronised to stay stable, samples are out of the question.

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