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On Wed, 14 Jan 2009, BLuRry wrote:

> On Jan 14, 9:04=C2=A0pm, lyricalnanoha
>  wrote:
>> I'm gonna do a rerelease of Apple Crunch. =C2=A0I've recompressed a bunc=
h of
>> the games, recracked a couple, reripped a few more.
>>
>> Though, I really don't like the menus I'm capable of doing in the curren=
t
>> system. :( =C2=A0And since I keep the files as BASIC-type (it makes them=
 easier
>> to handle), I can't use Beautiful Boot without hacking them.
>>
>> Here's my questions:
>>
>> 1. Does anyone know how I might go about doing something like Beautiful
>> Boot - a menu with a fastloader that runs in HGR mode - but with the
>> ability to run BASIC programs as well as binary? =C2=A0My current approa=
ch is
>> to use RDOS 3.3.
>
> Executing a basic program as a binary is pretty easy... (once you know
> about the onerr flag anyway)
>
> So you could shove this loader somewhere low in memory like $300 or
> you could pre-pend it to the beginning of the basic file.  This is
> exactly what I use for AGS to execute basic programs and it seems to
> work pretty well.  I set LOMEM to START+SIZE+1 and HIMEM to DOS -1
> (and if you don't care about DOS, then just DFFF).   I have a feeling
> that what you're doing probably doesn't matter too much if LOMEM or
> HIMEM are set -- but I could be mistaken.

What I wanted to do was leave the file as BASIC, - it's actually a binary=
=20
file in drag, but I wanted to leave it this way as it's more convenient=20
for me.  (And seems that it would be more convenient for others.  You=20
can't run a binary file from the Finder, and some people have preferred=20
the Apple Crunch versions of certain games on that account too.

>
>> 2. Recommendations - if anyone's seen the Crunch disks, are there any go=
od
>> single-load games I lack? =C2=A0(And where might they be found on Asimov=
?)
>
> Holy cow, goodness no.  There's over 256 of those things, and many
> gems among them.  I'd be hard-pressed to complain without feeling like
> a total jerk for doing so.  ;-)

Yeah.  I only know a small handful of the good games.

For the record - am I right in guessing Impossible Mission is single-load?=
=20
But I can't get the damn thing into a workable PG2 (either before or after=
=20
compression, and I know I have to step on DOS)...

>> I am using the same compressor I used originally (Exomizer 2.0), but wit=
h
>> a series of new conversion tools that makes the process mostly automated
>> and painless. =C2=A0The main program is one I wrote,
"bincvtii", and is =
capable
>> of converting between a few binary formats I use internally, plus the
>> Commodore binary format (these are all a matter of headers), and patchin=
g
>> a Commodore BASIC stub (changing its SYS token to fpbasic's CALL token).
>> I did a lot of this by hand for the original Apple Crunch volumes. =C2=
=A0I now
>> just run a Korn shell script on the source file, and get a .txt file rea=
dy
>> to load into ApplePC (which automagically saves the file too). =C2=A0I c=
an
>> prolly put this stuff up if needed.
>
> Any chance you're willing to share that?  ;-)  I could use something
> like that to speed up the AGS menu...

I suppose... it's some evil code though, I'll have to put it together in a=
=20
zip sometime... ^O^ *yawn* it's late though and my brain isn't working=20
right (as if it ever is!)

-uso.
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