tim@hoptoad.UUCP (11/22/86)
I wondered if that thing would ever show up here. I wonder what devious
route it has followed from whatever godforsaken BBS our support guy Rick
posted it to? In case anyone is wondering, I'm the author of this little
piece of frivolity. It was written in MPW C. The basic flow of computation
for the backgrounds (but not the random picture selection) was taken from
the old StartUpDesk. I left out the old ROM cases because I didn't feel
like figuring them out - let's just say that the assembly language for the
original was very clever and leave it at that - so it may not work on old
ROMs. The random picture selection is HFS-specific (I wasn't about to try
to puzzle out MFS pseudo-folder Desktop formats!), but it harmlessly returns
on an MFS system instead of generating a spurious trap system error.
There is a RAM lossage of about 22K; this stores the startup screen bitmap
for use as a back drop. It is loaded in above BufPtr, as is usual for
static storage allocated from an INIT resource. The original StartUpDesk
expanded the system heap to store the bitmap; this crashed some programs,
which is why I had to re-write the thing in the first place. Naturally, I
couldn't resist the urge to improve it somewhat; you get so sick of the same
background over and over!
I haven't the faintest idea where the MacWrite file came from. However, if
anyone likes, I will be happy to post the C sources for the thing.
By the way, does anyone have good digitized or original MacPaint images for
use as back drops? I have a folder of about twenty, but more couldn't hurt!
--
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot
{ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp)
hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)