leeuw@swi.psy.uva.nl (Leeuw Jacco de) (10/24/90)
A friend of mine recently bought Balance of Power (not the 1990 Edition). He noticed that there is no mouse pointer when the B.O.P screen is active. Now he has to click on the WB screen to make the pointer visible and then switch to the B.O.P screen. This is no fun, you can understand that... So, is this 'feature' a bug? What can he do about it? By the way, his configuration: Amiga 500, 1MB, KS1.2, WB1.3, 1 ext. drive. Jacco -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacco de Leeuw/ J.C. van Wessemstr. 54/ 1501 VM Zaandam/ Holland Tel. +31-75-352068/ Email: leeuw@fwi.uva.nl or: leeuw@swi.psy.uva.nl
chem194@canterbury (John Davis, programmer at large, chemistry department) (10/25/90)
In article <4464@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl>, leeuw@swi.psy.uva.nl (Leeuw Jacco de) writes: > > > A friend of mine recently bought Balance of Power (not the 1990 Edition). > He noticed that there is no mouse pointer when the B.O.P screen is active. > Now he has to click on the WB screen to make the pointer visible and then > switch to the B.O.P screen. This is no fun, you can understand that... It's not a bug so much as an oversight, the original BOP made the ( then common ) mistake of not _explicitly_ locating things like the mouse pointer image data in chip mem. Hence, on a machine with fast memory you'd get a non-existent pointer due to the data not being accesible to the custom chips. The solution is simple - run the program thru either FixHunk or ( better still ) use the HunkLab option on PowerPacker, and force ALL data hunks into chip memory ( actually, if you feel keen, use the interactive mode on fixhunk , find which data hunk holds the pointer data and force ONLY that hunk to chip mem - this will help minimise chip mem wastage ). ----------------------------------------------------------- | o John Davis - CHEM194@canterbury.ac.nz o | | o (Depart)mental Programmer,Chemistry Department o | | o University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand o | | o o | | o co-sysop AmigaINFO BBS,1200/2400 baud CCITT, o | | o 24 hours a day, ph NZ +3-3371-531 o |
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (10/25/90)
In <2864.272723a5@cc.nu.oz.au>, c0038270@cc.nu.oz.au writes: >In article <4464@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl>, leeuw@swi.psy.uva.nl (Leeuw Jacco de) writes: >> A friend of mine recently bought Balance of Power (not the 1990 Edition). >> He noticed that there is no mouse pointer when the B.O.P screen is active. > >I had the same problem. It arises from the memory expansion, so you can either > > 1) remove the memory expansion each time (not much fun), or > > 2) copy NoFastMem to B.O.P. and insert into startup-sequence (or some other >program that disables the extra memory). Or... You can run FixHunk on it, and it will fix up the CHIP/FAST problem by making DATA hunks load to CHIP. -larry -- It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs. -D.Wolfskill +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
c0038270@cc.nu.oz.au (10/25/90)
In article <4464@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl>, leeuw@swi.psy.uva.nl (Leeuw Jacco de) writes: > A friend of mine recently bought Balance of Power (not the 1990 Edition). > He noticed that there is no mouse pointer when the B.O.P screen is active. I had the same problem. It arises from the memory expansion, so you can either 1) remove the memory expansion each time (not much fun), or 2) copy NoFastMem to B.O.P. and insert into startup-sequence (or some other program that disables the extra memory). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C0038270@cc.nu.oz.au Manfred Hanley .sigs... who needs them?
f37986f@kaira.hut.fi (Janne Jalkanen) (10/25/90)
In article <4464@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl> leeuw@thoff.fwi.uva.nl (Leeuw Jacco de) writes: >A friend of mine recently bought Balance of Power (not the 1990 Edition). >He noticed that there is no mouse pointer when the B.O.P screen is active. >Now he has to click on the WB screen to make the pointer visible and then >switch to the B.O.P screen. This is no fun, you can understand that... Run NoFastMem before starting BOP, since BOP loads its data into FAST RAM if there is any available. Janne Jalkanen ! R.I.P. : Here lies an NPC f37986f@kaira.hut.fi ! Who didn't come in peace. -'Good Die!' ! He met a party of PCs ! and now he rests in pieces.
riley@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley) (10/25/90)
In article <1990Oct25.105011.9515@canterbury> chem194@canterbury (John Davis, programmer at large, chemistry department) writes: >It's not a bug so much as an oversight, the original BOP made the ( then >common ) mistake of not _explicitly_ locating things like the mouse >pointer image data in chip mem. Hence, on a machine with fast memory >you'd get a non-existent pointer due to the data not being accesible >to the custom chips. >The solution is simple - run the program thru either FixHunk or ( better >still ) use the HunkLab option on PowerPacker, and force ALL data hunks >into chip memory [...] FixHunk, at least the version I tried, won't work. BOP uses overlays (another sign that it was developed on a 512K machine), and FixHunk doesn't understand overlays. There's a program called "Hunker" that wandered across the net several years back that does work with BOP. Dunno [sic] about the HunkLab option in PowerPacker. Also, no guarantees about how either of these solutions may (or may not) interact with the copy protection scheme. BTW, it's only the mouse pointer that has this problem, so you can run nofastmem, start the program, and then re-run nofastmem to get your memory back once the mouse pointer has been loaded. However, this does end up needlessly loading the lots of code into precious chip RAM. It's better to fix the executable. -Dan Riley (riley@theory.tn.cornell.edu, cornell!batcomputer!riley) -Wilson Lab, Cornell University
chem194@canterbury (John Davis, programmer at large, chemistry department) (10/26/90)
In article <1990Oct25.142802.28158@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, riley@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley) writes: > In article <1990Oct25.105011.9515@canterbury> chem194@canterbury (John Davis, programmer at large, chemistry department) writes: >>The solution is simple - run the program thru either FixHunk or ( better >>still ) use the HunkLab option on PowerPacker, and force ALL data hunks >>into chip memory [...] > > FixHunk, at least the version I tried, won't work. BOP uses overlays > (another sign that it was developed on a 512K machine), and FixHunk > doesn't understand overlays. Version 1 of fixhunk indeed will not handle overlayed files, version 2 ( on a more recent fish disk ) will ( with certain limits - it's a brilliant tool none the less ) > There's a program called "Hunker" that wandered across the net several > years back that does work with BOP. Dunno [sic] about the HunkLab > option in PowerPacker. Also, no guarantees about how either of these > solutions may (or may not) interact with the copy protection scheme. Shouldn't matter at all as far as copy protection goes, whether the code is in chip or fast ram doesn't really matter as far as it's concerned. ( remember that to force a hunk to chip mem you're only twiddling a couple of bits within the hunk-header, you're not touching the code within ) > BTW, it's only the mouse pointer that has this problem, so you can run > nofastmem, start the program, and then re-run nofastmem to get your > memory back once the mouse pointer has been loaded. However, this > does end up needlessly loading the lots of code into precious chip > RAM. It's better to fix the executable. exactly, I like to run BOP whilst doing other things ( although because it does some rather silly busy waits somewhere in there, this means a LOT of twiddling with TaskX :-). Running nofastmem means a lot more code is forced into chipmem than is necessary, which is not a good idea on a very limited resource like chipmem. Using fixhunk means that only _necessary_ data will be in chip. Of course, you could just take the easy solution and get BOP 1990 ( it doesn't have the mouse problem, plus it multi-tasks better ) ----------------------------------------------------------- | o John Davis - CHEM194@canterbury.ac.nz o | | o (Depart)mental Programmer,Chemistry Department o | | o University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand o | | o o | | o co-sysop AmigaINFO BBS,1200/2400 baud CCITT, o | | o 24 hours a day, ph NZ +3-3371-531 o |
brian@grebyn.com (Brian Bishop) (10/26/90)
In article <4464@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl> leeuw@thoff.fwi.uva.nl (Leeuw Jacco de) writes: > >A friend of mine recently bought Balance of Power (not the 1990 Edition). >He noticed that there is no mouse pointer when the B.O.P screen is active. >Now he has to click on the WB screen to make the pointer visible and then >switch to the B.O.P screen. This is no fun, you can understand that... >So, is this 'feature' a bug? What can he do about it? ... I had this problem on my 2000 (3 Meg). It went away when I ran NoFastMem (WB 1.3 disk) first. Yet another dunderhead programmer who did not follow the rules of the road.... Brian Bishop ----- Disclaimer: I only make Unix dunderhead programmer mistakes :-( I suppose, at times I could be considered an agent of Zyga Corporation.