Power Bobs

[Hungry Horace]

I remember trying this out some time back, and it looked a very good extension. I also noticed that Lonewolf10 has uploaded it to the submissions forum.

However, as i recall, the version i tried had an unregistered-splashscreen that made it rather miserable to use. Does anyone have a full version / key for this?

Perhaps it could be resourced and cracked instead? my ASM  skills arent great, and using resource on the file seemed to produce more junk that I was expecting!  Does anyone know how you would go about re-sourcing and / or cracking an extension like this?

[SamuraiCrow]

I know the concepts behind it.  CPU-blitting is faster than Amiga's chipset Bobs because the mask plane only has to be read once for every row of pixels.  If AGA had supported chunky-pixel displays it wouldn't have had that problem.  As it is, the Amiga chipset reads the mask plane once for every bitplane for every row of pixels.  For a 6-bitplane screen it reads the mask plane 6 times!

[Lonewolf10]

Perhaps it could be resourced and cracked instead? my ASM  skills arent great, and using resource on the file seemed to produce more junk that I was expecting!  Does anyone know how you would go about re-sourcing and / or cracking an extension like this?

Yes, I had the same problem when I tried to uncompile a lib. The uncompilers seem to be unable to work out random data and real commands, not surprising since the values in certain sequences can be either!

I have also never really used Power Bobs, thanks to the splash screen.


Regards,
Lonewolf10

[KevG]

Here is a hacked version of the Powerbobs library (without the annoying message)

There is still a delay at the start so when you design your programs, ensure that you use AMOS TO BACK
then wait a second or so before using AMOS TO FRONT. It works fine when your programs are compiled also

In AMOS, put it in slot 13 in your config file (not sure about AMOS Pro)

Kev G

[Hungry Horace]

hi KevG,

once again, many thanks for that. unfortunately, it doesnt work at all with AMOS Pro

"cannot load extension - use default interpreter config"

what did you do to hack this? I would like to have a go at doing the same thing to the AMOS Pro version of it.

maybe Lonewolf10 can advise as to what the difference is in general between amos and amos pro extensions?

[Hungry Horace]

ok, i had a play around and produced a working AMOS Pro version. I'm not 100% sure on it yet though, as i really havent done much with it. File is attached.


KevG - was the only difference the nulling of the text?


I'd like to get ride of the delay somehow, and you can still see it opening the (horrible) default AMOS screen.

[KevG]

I had to raplace the chr(13) with chr(0) with a hex editor because
it asks you to press RETURN when the text appears. Yes, I nulled the text as well.

Like I said earlier, put a AMOS TO BACK instruction as your first line of code then wait a second.
Create your own screen, then use AMOS TO FRONT. You dont see the annoying default screen then.

[MichaelVParent]

Hi guys,

I think powerbobs is just what I need, but can you answer some questons for me?

1) do I just put this libs file in an(the) amos libs directory?
2) What are the comands and its syntax?
3) Would an amos program using this extension compile or not?
4) is this for AGA onlt, ECS only, or both?


sorry for the stupid questions, but I'm  a total noob with amos extensons
thanks

[Hungry Horace]

1) in the case of Amos pro you would;

- put AMOSPro_Powerbobs.lib (from the zip) into your AP_SYSTEM/ folder
- open AMOS, and go to the drop down "config" - "set interpretter" .
- "load default configuration" and then "set Loaded extensions"
- in slot 13 type "AMOSPro_PowerBobs.lib"
- exit and "save configuration"
- close AMOS Pro and re-open it. Power Bobs will now work.

2) commands and syntax can be found in the attached (to this post) .txt file
many of them are direct replacements for the AMOS bob commands.

3) yes, all extensions work in the compiler, providing you are sharing the setup between amos & amos compiler (i use the compiler from within amos pro itself to avoid any problems there)

4) seems to be for ECS like the rest of AMOS, but would run ECS bobs on an AGA machine perfectly well.


hope that helps.

[MichaelVParent]

Thanks much forthe help.   Any idea exactly how much faster this blits?  Have any realy tests comparisons been done?

[SamuraiCrow]

Based on the performance of CPUBlit, I'd say it'd probably be a waste of time on a flat 68000 but would be worthwhile on 68020 or better due to the wider bus width and the code cache.  Feel free to prove me wrong. 

On a 6-bitplane blit, you'd get a speed impovement of 5/12 or 41.67%.  The time spent rereading the mask plane can be substantial on the Amiga graphics chipsets.

[Lonewolf10]

3) yes, all extensions work in the compiler, providing you are sharing the setup between amos & amos compiler (i use the compiler from within amos pro itself to avoid any problems there)

No, that isn't true.

If they have been programmed correctly they will. There are lots of extensions and various hacked versions, so I recommend doing test compilations of commands you intend to use (the program would only consist of commands you wish to use and nothing else). In the event it fails you won't have wasted hours/days/months using commands that work perfectly well in the editor and fail when compiled.

A simple example is you can have the Print At command use the Print command code. If done correctly all will compile fine (I believe it requires a special jump command that the compiler will recognise - it's been a year since I last worked on coding my extension), however if done incorrectly (a normal bsr or jsr ASM command) it will fail when compiled.


Regards,
Lonewolf10

[KevG]

HH....

I have just installed your hacked version of the AMOSPro Powerbobs library and I think there is something wrong with it. It seems a tad unstable to me. Mouse pointer dissapears, theres a long delay and the screen sometimes gets corrupted. I have tried fiddling around with it using zap file editor but I can't get it working properly either. The AMOS1.3 version that I did ages ago works just fine though and is reasonably stable.

I have spent most of today installing AMOSPro 2 & compiler and have compiled some of my old source code from AMOS1.3 and I have to say that I am not impressed at all with the speed. It's just so slow compared to AMOS1.3 because you can't disable multi-tasking.

So, all things considered, its back to AMOS1.3 for me. A pitty, because the AMOS pro editor is far superior to the AMOS1.3 editor.

[Sidewinder]

Last week I took a quick look at this library also, but didn't get very far.  I need more information on the exact format of Amos Pro extensions.  Is this information documented anywhere here or elsewhere on the Internet?

[Hungry Horace]

i havent tested the AP version i admit.

I just copied what the hack appeared to be on the A1.3 version on to the AP edition.