XAG!
PRESENTS
A PREVIEW OF THE NEW TRAINER-INTRO
NOTE TO ANYBODY WHO HASN'T ALREADY
HEARD: WE NOW HAVE A NEW UK HQ, IN THE
SHAPE OF THE ULTIMATE DREAM.
NOTE TO DIGIT: HOWS ABOUT SOME NICE
MUSIC FOR THE TRAINER-INTRO?
LEFT BUTTON - EXIT RIGHT BUTTON - DOCS
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THE PUNISHERS PRESENTS NEW WAREZ | CREDITS: INTRO CODING - XAG |LOGO AND FONT GRAPHICS - DIGIT | SOUNDTRACK - JOCHEN HIPPEL |
TRAINER-INTRO PREVIEW
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CODING BY XAG
LOGO AND TRAINER-MENU FONT BY DIGIT
DOC-READER FONT RIPPED FROM C64
MUSIC BY JOCHEN HIPPEL
(Use the up/down cursor keys to scroll through this document)
Welcome, fellow Punishers members, to this new trainer-intro. Here's what's
been added since the last one:
New logo (courtesy of Digit)
Double-height scroller
Enhanced 3D starfield
Nice doc-reader (MAJOR ADDITION)
If anyone has problems with this intro (ie. glitches, cock-ups etc.) then
please don't hesitate to let me know (ring me or leave a message to me on any
PNS BBS via Zigor or Executioner - just to set the record straight, I don't
have, and never have had an HST).
Now for the boot-menu docs to give this doc some length so you can test the
scrolling:
THE PUNISHERS
BOOTMENU DOCUMENTS BY XAG
To create a bootmenu, you must make three text files, these being the item
descriptions, the item filenames and the scrolltext. I'll deal with the
scrolltext first:
The scrolltext must contain capital letters only, and most punctuation marks are
supported. The "|" character may be used to pause the scroll for 3 seconds (or
2.5 seconds under NTSC). For a longer pause, use several pause-codes in
succession. There is a template scroll-text in the root directory with an
introduction and credits which are properly centred when they pause. Add to and
use this scrolltext on all your productions.
Next I'll explain the item descriptions file. The first line of this text file
is the title which will appear at the top of the list of items. The rest of the
lines are the actual item descriptions themselves. You can have up to 14 items.
The title and item-descriptions are auto-centred at runtime so you needn't
format them manually.
The third and final file is the list of filenames in the same order as the items
appear in the menu. Before each filename goes a one-digit exit-mode number,
which currently must have one of two values:
0 - Run the selection and when it exits return back to CLI
1 - Run the selection and when it exits reset the machine
If you don't specify a mode digit, mode 0 is assumed. If a filename begins with
a digit, you must specify the mode digit regardless.
* * *
Once you've finished doing the text files, you can invoke the creator (which is
just a batch file so don't get too excited). Make sure you have a 100% blank
formatted disk at the ready and enter this at the CLI prompt
1> Execute MakeMenu [SCROLLTEXT] [ITEMDESC] [FILENAMES]
where you replace the bracketed bits with the relevant filenames of the text
files. After some moments, the disk in DF1: will be ready for you to copy your
selection of programs onto.
(NOTE: You MUST NOT try to create a boot-menu on a disk with files on it, as
the menu code is written to blocks 2 onwards and if they are already allocated
in the disk's bitmap (ie. something else occupies them), you'll get wicked
cock-ups. Always create to a completely blank (formatted or re-formatted) disk.
The installation program allocates all blocks used by the boot-menu in the
disk's bitmap, so DOS won't overwrite them when you copy your files to the
disk).
BootMenu3 takes care of the bug that, on some PAL A500s causes the machine to
boot up thinking it's an NTSC machine. Speaking of NTSC machines, the code for
this wasn't designed with these in mind so don't blame me if it looks shit in
60Hz mode (Ok Starr?).
Epilogue: I wrote the code for this eons ago when I was in The Culprits (may
their memory live forever) so it's not exactly a masterpiece of coding
technology, but it does it's job well enough for most people. If you examine
the bootloader and think it's a bit weird, I can only tell you that it was the
fault of the author of a badly-written technical manual.
END OF DOC FILE