Mark Meany 1 Cromwell Road, Southampton, Hant`s. SO1 2JH April 1991 Plop, I`m back ! Remember the slight dissagreement between myself and Raistlin ( who is asking for support, see his letter ), well I`m not going to give up ! On this disc in the include directory ( where else ) is a file called libs.i. To be honest I had forgotten all about this file, but Nipper sent it to me this week. This file contains the library offsets for a majority of the functions from the DOS, exec, gfx and intuition libraries. Including just this one short file will not slow things down ( I will add a couple of macros to it if it gets used, CALLEXEC etc ). You could even put this in ram with hardware.i ( it`s smaller ). How`s that for the last word Raistlin ( well for this month anyway ). Owing to a rather constructive distraction I never made any progress what so ever with the A68K front end this month. I have been dabaling with Exec ( lists, messages, ports, io and devices not to mention RawDoFmt () ). Once all the pieces started to fall into place I realised I had been missing out on a very powerfull side of Amiga programming. Take, for example, the program I have included to print the contents of the WorkBench screen ( graphics dump ), I`ve wanted to do this for ages. Support a multitude of Intuition windows from only one program, detect if a certain task is already running, I could go on and on and on ( as I normally do ). By next month the gfx dump program will be reduced to a subroutine for inclusion in any program that will print the contents of any screen, window or ( hopefully ) custom display to the printer. Because I was enjoying myself so much this month, I got a little carried away and wrote a massive doc file to accompany my source. Massive by my standards that is, Dave Edwards would call it shorthand I expect. Neil, what happened ? The letter on the disc I received on March 31st is dated Feb 14th. Where is the time warp, or was this an April fools joke ? I notice a distinct lack of original modules arriving with source these days. I know Rippers are all the rage, but I do not like using these on the disc as it may upset the creator ( and give Count Zero another chance to take the piss out of me, not a thought I relish ). Most of you make it clear when you are `borrowing` a module, but there are still some I am not so sure of. Please make it clear if you ripped a module ! Good news ! this disc seems to be working at long last. You are beginning to write to each other to swap ideas and help each other out. This was the original intention of these discs. I know for sure that without Mike Cross, Steve Marshall and Dave Edwards help I would still be adding number together in BASIC ( no, worse than that ---- AmigaBasic ). More good news, next months disc will not be a disc, it will be a pair of discs. Mike Cross is preparing the second disc ( and would probably appreciate any material you send to him ). I would like to take the opportunity to put more general material on the disc ( either one ). So write a letter or opinion on some software, your name and address if you want to swap demos/utils/anything. Make sure it`s on disc in an ascii file. Mark the disc with your name and addr ( plus the name of the file so we know what to look for ) and get it in the post to either Mike or myself as soon as possible. Due to the confusion caused in December, both discs will be released at the same time and distributed together. You will not have to write for the second disc ( that idea was a BAD idea, I admit it I goofed ). I gather from recent letters that a fair number of you have exams creeping up on you. I know the feeling well. Good luck ! Last month Dave Edwards supplied the file exec_support.i . This was intended for use with Daves personal include files. To make life easier I have made the necessary ( minor ) alterations required to allow the file to assemble using Devpac include files. As you will see, I have made extensive use of the routines ---- Cheers Dave. Do not forget that Daves mega DOC disc is available from Dave or Myself ( see exec_support.i for Daves address ). Should the format of the disc be changed ? On earlier discs I always stated things will only change if you ask for them to. Using Nico Francois Selector makes life easier for me, though I expect I could come up with an alternative. You will have to make a case or better still do the coding for me ! Time for a quick plug. Steve Marshall has released a utility called Mod Processor through Amiganuts. This allows the user to load an IFF gfx file and a module to accompany it ( just about all replayers are supported ). You then click a gadget and the whole is saved as an executable file. I gave the program a try and found it very easy to use. There are options such as a timeout on the picture, so it will dissappear after a specified time and the executable multi-tasks. So you could create a nice loading screen, with musical accompanyment in just a couple of minutes that will be displayed while the rest of your startup-sequence is loading. Very good ( pay me later Steve ), contact Amiganuts for more info ( disc 988 ). There is a module on the disc and an IFF file ( of a topless young woman sprawled on a beach ) for you to practise with. Scrollers. I've been inundated with variations of one scroll routine or another. There are a few on this disc, each a little different. Why is everyone fasinated by scrollers ??? WANTED -- Does anyone have, and want to part with, GFA Basic. I need the manuals as well. If you do wish to sell, please contact me at the address above. May also be interested in HiSoft BASIC with the Extend software for the right price ! Lastly, one of my programs on this disc, NoFastMem.s, is a re-work of a routine sent to me by Dave Shaw. Though the source is mine, the idea and general format are not. Thanks Dave, glad to be of help ! Please, if you send discs to me for return, enclose an sae and clearly mark the disc with your name and address. A note of any files of interest on the disc would also be helpful. See you all later, Mark. PS -- Almost forgot. The utility BootWriter is in the utils dir of this disc, see my source docs for more info.