ACNews #45
AC Edit v0.98 supplement
01/31/2oo
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::: News :::::::::::::::::::::::::::
So, my PC was repaired by soldering two capacitors, and I
with you again.
Someone brought a virus into our plant, and in connection with this an announcement was made
trouble; in particular, access to the Internet was closed (I, however, was not
written there).
I even came up with a story about this, in the style of the ancient
fidish humor:
──────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────
Kaspersky: Hey, task, who are you?
DrWeb: I'm DrWeb, a type of antivirus.
K: I’m the antivirus! I position myself in such a way that you will blow me away!
D: And I find viruses that have not yet been invented!
K: But I... slow down file operations by half!
D: And I - reboot in one and a half!
K: And I... and I... and I’ll cure you now, you unfortunate upstart!
D: Bummer, I blocked you.
Norton AntiVirus: I'll erase both of you right now.
K: Who is this?
D: I can feel it in my gut - a virus! I'll block him. Come on, come on...
N: The DrWeb virus was detected in the memory.
Windows: I close DrWeb. He blocked Kaspersky. I'll unlock it.
N: Comrade user... I'm coming to you about the DrWeb virus.
Erase file / Format disk?
User: Cancel!!!
N: How is it cancelled?.. We didn’t test cancellation...
W: An illegal operation was performed. I rent Norton.
I'm rebooting...
Nero: Stop, II didn’t finish the blank!
W: Nero is not responding. Cancel task?
Yu: Wait!!!
K: Yeah, I have 20 seconds now. Now I'll cure this DrWeb, no
will show off :)
N: Hey you, virus! Did you think I was one task and they just took me off?
I'll shut you down and erase you.
K: Your hands are raking. I protected my memory.
W: An illegal operation was performed. I rent Norton.
I'm rebooting...
N: Fuck you, reboot before I erase this bastard.
K: Well, well, then you will wash me all my life, but for now I’m yours
I'll look for launchers...
CPU: I'm seething.
Firewood: CPU temperature 100 degrees. Turn off your computer!
W: Turning off the computer.
N: You won’t turn anything off until I take off!
Yu: Something is hanging. Reset!
BIOS: Testing memory.
Memory: Testing.
CPU: BANG!
──────────────────────────────── ────────────────────────────────
From January 2 to January 8, I was in Moscow at Shiru Otaku. We borrowed from
Max Timonin ATMku and made the game "Time Gal" on it (a game with
ancient slot machine, is basically
video). Of course, the game itself was not made all week, because first
it was necessary to study whether it could be done at all - and how,
actually do it. First we figured out how to transfer files
from PC to ATM. PC Shiru did not want to write floppy disks to ZX. Earned
the only way is through an MS-DOS floppy disk using iS-DOS
utilities. Actually, this is where the first day ended( Timonin
arrived quite late, and all the experiments took quite a while
for a long time, not counting the showing of demos that Max really wanted
show us and showed us :)).
Then it was necessary to convert the 16-color video player for ATM,
which I wrote at home under the Pentagon. As expected, run
the player failed until I converted HDDoctor to
ATM (I tried in the summer at Chunin, but it didn’t work out). At the same time we
found out that the CD-ROM on Timonin's ATM can read
only factory disks and very reluctant to read some
CD-R. He doesn’t read RW books at all. Therefore I had to
put the CD-ROM Shiru, and then it turned out... that with it on the same
The screw is not friendly to the cable. That's why we started DJing
by plugging CD drives. To check every new
compiling the program, you had to:
1. Build a downloadable version of the program under the emulator.
2. Trim .trd using SN.
3. Write .trd to a floppy disk.
4. Connect Timonin’s CD drive to the ATM (otherwise recording would not work
on the screw).
5. Enable ATM.
6. Copy .trd from the floppy disk to the screw.
7. Turn off ATM.
8. Connect the Shiru CD drive to the ATM (otherwise CD-RWs will not be read).
9. Enable ATM.
10. Launch the program.
11. Turn off ATM.
With some grief we managed to launch the player. Then we synchronized
sound (for which it was necessary to determine the speed by earcomputer
:))). Then they removed the clicks when the audio buffer overflowed - for
this meant putting more audio data into the video stream and,
accordingly, fewer graphic ones (it was necessary to provide 1
sound sector for every 7 graphics sectors).
On the third day, Shiru came up with an idea: write the code for the game itself
blank, and make the bootloader from the CD once and for all (write it off
once - and then you won’t have to DJ anymore). Of course
to debug this bootloader, I still had to jig on
all the way :) Pulling out the game file from trdshnik (for what
previously had to run SN) Shiru was able to automate
a small utility.
At the same time, I created an account on zx.pk.ru and tried
consult at least someone there, but got in
The answer is just stupid jokes. Unless SMT was able to clarify that
non-emulation of CD operations in HDDoctor (and after it in
video player) occurs due to the support curve for the ATAPI command
#00 in the driver (this command should clear any previous
ATAPI command). And without #00, CD support cannot be written. Unless
via the ATA command #EC (a trick discovered by Budder), but with
#EC can very specifically break down on a number of drives - after all, it
command-taking abilities are not documented.
In the meantime, Delphi was downloaded from the Internet, and then we moved onexperiments with a video converter, for which he had to
feed a bunch of videos of all different types. On "The Simpsons"
we detected an accumulation of video desync relative to
sound. On the video from the game "Soul Edge" - bad sound after
resampling without interpolation and also scattering of fast
fragments of video that are most effectively treated by reducing
area of the picture (for example, if the picture is 15% smaller -
25-30% fewer frames are skipped!). There is a glitch on some song
in uploading the file with the converter. On a full-length cartoon
"Ghost in the Shell" (let me tell you, there are very realistic shadows and
the glare is lifelike! nothing like it in hand-drawn animation
I haven’t seen it before) - skipping frames on almost unchanged
areas. At the same time, we managed to speed up the converter by about 5 times.
On Friday-Saturday I finally finished writing the script engine. On the night of
Sunday we converted the levels. Shiru found which videos
(main sequence and death scenes) correspond
specific levels, extracted pictures and sound from them,
normalized the sound and compiled action tables with instructions,
what when. Then I sat down at the PC and converted the videos into
Spectrum format, wrote scripts, recorded blanks, dragged
it on ATM and sat down to test the levels. At this time per pc
Shiru sat downand converted the following levels. And so on until the morning.
Moreover, I had to spend an hour figuring out the directory structure
CDFS. After a certain point, file descriptors no longer
fit into one sector - and glitches began. It turned out that in
Paragraph #25 error: handle length =#0000 means not end
catalogue, and move on to the next sector!
On Sunday morning I wanted to add some more code to the game,
but it didn't work out. They collected it as is, and with that I left.
At home I ported the game to the Pentagon with a 16-color gadget and
added a boot splash screen (more precisely, I found a glitch due to which
it was not displayed). That's all, actually. Shiru posted the game
on your hosting. Now Max can't tell what's on the site
http://atmturbo.narod.ru has all the software for ATM :) Our game is like
at least 2 times larger than this site :)))
While still in Moscow, I managed to release a bunch of different software,
which has been accumulating in my home for many years. Including many
I sent the source code to Crank, but... no answer, no hello.
Something happened to his website or himself, or both.
other...
And I left Moscow, taking out a huge pile of downloaded sites from
libraries (for example, the huge www.krotov.info and the famous
www.vostlit.info) and encyclopedias (www.1911encyclopedia.org and
a few more small ones that Konstantin threw with soapSviridov). Shiru even managed to download the entire Wikipedia, but
It was not possible to unpack its .tar - a tricky encoding of Russian names.
While I was away, Evgeniy Seryogin connected the KSA-7G
get yourself a CMOS watch. Tested them and then disabled them again :)
Recently, when KSA-7G came to see me, we accidentally burned
12-volt transformer for soldering iron (there was a short
short circuit in the plug of this same soldering iron). So now I
I can’t solder :( But I had a thought...
John also came, we even tried to write some
music. Basil is now in Tambov. It's interesting that he and John
bought ourselves a GamePad for PC. Like to make it more fun to play...
Nikphe appeared in the soap. He said that he now lives and
works in Ryazan, that Event now writes music on PC and that both
they often surf the Internet. When I asked what they
latest releases, Nikphe instantly disappeared :-/
Ldir, as usual, failed to release Last (as he himself
says, "I drank").
I have significantly expanded and corrected the list of composers using
Shiru and Newart. Now 1053 (!) AY/YM composers are known.
The vast majority are Spectrum :) And the overwhelming
the majority are from Russia :))) Under Turbo-Sound, by the way, for now
no one except Shiru writes, although there was chatter and promises
a lot. Meanwhile, Chunin has alreadyI have a working copy of Turbo-FM
(where instead of YM2149 there are YM2203, in which, in addition to the usual 3
channels have FM channels).
Commodores, it turns out, look quite normally at
distributing huge databases of their addresses... And here’s me
some spektrumists scold all the time... I can’t anymore
humanly release a new version of your list
spektrumistov, which is much more detailed than the old one.
Elph sent me a graphics converter from Baze, it's out now
simultaneously with IG#8, where I wrote about him. It's called
"bzither". He selects palettes very well. But he doesn't know how to do it
Floyd-Steinberg diffusion :( Baze says there is a converter
"dithvide" (by Pavel Cymbal) who can do this.
Released: HDDoctor 0.10, Time Gal, VideConv.
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