RADBENCH 1.500+ VERSION. INSTRUCTIONS FOR MISCALLANEOUS PROGRAMS:- *********************************************************************** Compiled and documented by C.Partridge 1992 *********************************************************************** Ok, first things first. You're bound to have noticed that there's a whole plethora of new programs, completely different to those on Radbench 1.4 (which, incidently, if you have a normal A500, is worth buying, for all the utilities!). Most of these utilities have come from various PD disks, and a couple are, I think, shareware, so don't forget to pay fees for those that you continue to use! (THE PROGRAMS ARE ONLY SHAREWARE IF THEY SAY SO WHEN YOU USE THEM, AND GIVE YOU A PERSON'S NAME/ ADDRESS TO PAY TO) SOME MAY NOT WORK ON THE A500+, BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ONE TO TEST THEM OUT ON. Secondly, I have picked the cream of the utilities from absolutely hundreds, and saved you a lot of time, having crammed and packed as many onto the disk as possible! If there are any other utilities that you want, rest assured that you can buy a disk from your local PD company packed with hundreds of the damn things (many are feeble, though, and I've saved you the time of finding the best ones, but, it's still worth a look, as, obviously, I couldn't put loads onto this disk!) Also, most of them don't have clear instructions, and may seem a little vague when you first use them. DON'T PANIC! WHAT FOLLOWS IS AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT EACH PROGRAM DOES, AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE WHEN NECESSARY:- ============================================================================== FRACTAL GENERATOR: A lightening-fast fractal generator, that shows you the true wonder of fractals. Well worth a look. Unfortunately, the labels are in German! Unless you happen to come from that part of the world, here's a brief run-down of the controls:- REALTEIL VON __ BIS __(!): I think this is the real variable range. IMAGTEIL VON __ BIS __(!): Same sort of thing, but for the imaginary vari. RECHENTIEFE: Ok, so I'm not doing German for GCSE, I admit it! I think this is some sort of rendering quality control, what's it called again? Can't remember! Basically, the higher the number, the longer it takes to render, but the better the quality. THERE ARE 4 ICONS DOWN THE RIGHT HAND SIDE: TOP: (bild thingy) This will render the current image within the specified co-ordinates (variables, real and imaginary). During rendering, pressing both mouse buttons cancels rendering, keeps what's there so far, and returns to the WB screen. (or RAD-BENCH screen! ho,ho...) SECOND ICON: After rendering, this will allow you to draw a box, D-PAINT style, onto the screen (you do not even have to have rendered all the image.) , to choose new variable values, and therefore 'zoom in' on a particular area. After doing this, if you then press the top-icon the new zoomed image will be created, slightly slower. THIRD ICON: This is a very strange one, this! I think that it makes an area of the screen into much better detail. It's similar to the zoom in that you draw a box, but the quality of the image within the box seems to become much better. FOURTH ICON: This appears to be some sort of primitive (!) save function. You must first have a filename entered in the box to the left, and then pressing this should save the image, as, I think an IFF picture. The thing is, last time I tried this, I met Uncle GURU face to FACE!!!, therefore I'm not sure if it works. Try it, anyway.... All in all, it's quite a fast package, and good if you're low on memory. Not bad... ============================================================================ Clock Doctor (No, these descriptions aren't in any order!) This appears to tell you whether your clock is well(!), in other words, accurate, and working. I've never seen it in action, really, 'cause every time I run it it just tells me my clock's healthy!! Add 21k Brilliant, I hear you saying, "extra memory!"... Well, don't get too excited, unless you're colour blind, of course, because the added dis-advantage (!) of this prog. is that, as well as getting 21 more k to play around with, you lose all yer colours! Oh well.... Who say life was fair?... HamLab. Full instructions are either on the program, or are obvious, but basically, the program converts HAM pictures (256 colour mode) into 32, 16, 8, 4, or 2 (!!!) colour pictures, although whoever would want to take 256 colours and try and covert the picture into 2 colours is really quite beyond me. Formatter A good disk formatter, which stays on the screen in its own window, and does its best to format fast, locking off df0 until the program is finished. NewLook Now, what have we here? Actually, a quite decent ROM-patching (?) routine proggie that changes the way workbench looks until your next reset. It's got different window looks, and gadgets, and could be appropriately re-named "THE WAY COMMODORE SHOULD HAVE DONE IT"... Not bad, it's the one that AmigaNuts did (and maybe still do) use on their Octamed (TM!) prog. RestoreIt This one's for Wbench 1.3 lovers only! For the masochists amongst you, it restores the Wbench 1.3 colours to the screen, in place of the current colours. There may be an accident (MR. GURU) if this is used in conjunction with Blue-Stripes. Boot Game This will put a sort of asteroids game-thingy on the boot-block of a disk. It's not a bad game, and the disk continues to load when an asteroid hits you and you are out of the game. As mentioned during loading, the game should not be put on disks with their own boot-block, such as many Code Masters games, and most full-price games. PPAnim Very similar to SHOWANIM by Sparta, this prog. is REALLY USEFUL! It will display .IFF animations created in .ANIM format and powerpacked, although the packing is not necessary, the program supports it, though. There are various flags, and I think there's some instructions for it somewhere. It's more useful when run from the CLI, because you can specify how fast it's run, how many times to show it, etc, etc... I'll try to put instructions in the DOCUMENTS dir. PopDir This is a handy one! It will make itself into a little icon on the WorkBench screen, and stay there until you click (or is it double click?) on it. A window will then pop up, where you can specify which drive to catalogue by clicking in the boxes, and/or typing in a directory in the box above. If the IRQ box is highlited (by clicking on it), when DIR is clicked, rather than doing a directory, the prog. will check for file viruses in the specified directory. (If only a drive is specified, it will only check the ROOT DIR.) To return the program to being an icon, click outside the window on something else, and this will happen. GFXMem Simple! A window that constantly displays the amount of available CHIP and FAST ram, in seperate boxes. SetPic This will paste an IFF picture onto the CLI screen. Instructions and syntax are in-program. Really only for advanced CLI users. Blue-Stripes Changes the background to blue 3D-look stripes, at the expense of your Wbench main colours. Lock-On A demo. of part of the first stage of a game that I'm working on, called LOCK-ON (what else?). Instructions in-program. I will only continue with this prog. if I get enough shareware fees, and requests for the full version!... MultiRipper A very good ripper, this, which will find text, NT-ST and other modules, allows you to view the memory, basically ANYTHING! Full instructions are in this DOCUMENTS directory. Bounce A bit pathetic, but a good effect for CLI users! Makes the screen bounce! KeyTest This is a keyboard tester, which will let you see if there are any keys that aren't working on your keyboard. Date'n'Time Another one of MY pathetic efforts! This just displays the date and time on the screen in a window. Colours can be changed, and exit is via the menu bar selections. KeyClick This will make a beep, when a key is pressed, or a mouse button. Volume is controlled via the slider in the window, and the switch on the right turns the effect on or off. ************************************************************************* THAT'S ABOUT ALL OF THEM. REMEMBER: SOME WONT WORK ON THE A500+! OH WELL, I SUPPOSE YOU CAN'T ALWAYS WIN!... READ THE OTHER DOCS. FOR INFO. ON THE OTHER PROGRAMS....