Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Tell me one thing about Lemmings: When you've got a dense flow of them in both directions and you need to click an action onto one going into the direction you want, how do you do that when it's impossible to tell if you're going to click on one going in the right direction?

Pause the game to examine the pixels

[indigolemon]

Originally Posted by Gordon

Pause the game to examine the pixels

That's also how you can tell if the lemmings have been photoshopped.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by malko

(I still use 4.9.3 as, on the poor laptop I use now, 4.12.3 is less stable for unknown reasons...) [/I]

His computer isn't the problem. It's his memories.
Those games he just described are originally performing as poorly as described :P

[plutonick]

Originally Posted by Akira

His computer isn't the problem. It's his memories.
Those games he just described are originally performing as poorly as described :P

At first I thought you meant my computer's memory (timings etc). Heh.

Super Cars II was performing poorly on original Amiga?
(I wouldn't be suprised if It Came From The Desert did, because it does look like a 'heavy' game for A500)

[StingRay]

Super Cars II can be played very well on a bog standard A500.

[Amiga1992]

It's amazing the shit we used to deal with and thought was normal/smooth.

In my case, I can't believe I used for so long an 8 color Workbench setup on an unaccelerated A600. To me, back then, the memory, is that it was just fine. NOt the case nowadays!

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by plutonick

I am talking about gaming, yes. I tried a couple of games I used to play when I was youngers and they seems... off.
Super Cars 2 (laggy response to steering the car)
It Came from the Desert (slow transition between screens. Slow response to mouse clicks)

It could be that my setup is wrong, but I used DamienD's configurations. I will have to check Youtube plays to see if those plays are faster than mine. Otherwise, I dunno... I am remembering it wrong

Originally Posted by plutonick

At first I thought you meant my computer's memory (timings etc). Heh.

Super Cars II was performing poorly on original Amiga?
(I wouldn't be suprised if It Came From The Desert did, because it does look like a 'heavy' game for A500)

For me, both these games in my collection work exactly how I remember them on my real A500 from back in the day.

Have you watched YouTube videos of each yet to compare with your experiences?

[Foebane]

I've got a doozy of a question: Why is the Kickstart 1.3 Hand/Disk image so poor and amateurishly drawn? They could've drawn the hand better, or even digitised it from a real hand. And when I showed this to a relative back in the day on my A500, they asked "Why is it upside-down?"

I think Commodore too acknowledged how poor (even if iconic) the image was, which is why they replaced it with the helpful animation and rainbow tick on later Kickstarts. I'm still not sure about the purple background, however.

[haps]

Hardly a 'doozy'.

Well you don't want a fancy bit of graphics and the means of displaying it taking up a heap of room in the rom do you. The picture is perfectly adequate for its task. As for it being upside down, I just showed my grandson and even to him it was obvious it was an instructional representation of picking up a disc and putting it in the drive.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I've got a doozy of a question: Why is the Kickstart 1.3 Hand/Disk image so poor and amateurishly drawn?

There were no tools available for drawing, the image was made by just picking a color and setting a pixel. And it also had to use shapes which could be created using Move(), Draw() and Flood() functions (graphics.library) to save space, only few parts of the picture are stored as 1 bitplane images, the rest is created using the mentioned graphics.library routines.

Considered the limitations I think it is a good piece of art and works pretty well for what it was intended: show the user that a disk needs to be inserted.

[ajk]

@Foebane

The image was drawn by Sheryl Knowles, I suppose you could try to contact her and ask:

http://retrodata.se/the-story-of-the...ckstart-image/
https://web.archive.org/web/20170724....com/~knowles/

[malko]

Originally Posted by Foebane

[...] And when I showed this to a relative back in the day on my A500, they asked "Why is it upside-down?" [...]

I am wondering how your relatives put their hands and hold a floppy-disk when they want to insert it in a A1000 (drive in front of you and not on the right side as on the A500)...

Originally Posted by ajk

The image was drawn by Sheryl Knowles [...]

I bet she is left-handed (as on the picture)

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by malko

I bet she is left-handed (as on the picture)

She is right handed. She held the disk in her left hand so she could use the mouse with their right hand.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by StingRay

She is right handed. She held the disk in her left hand so she could use the mouse with their right hand.

There is a whole thread on EAB regarding the kickstart image, that includes answer from Sheryl Knowles herself. Go read it here -> http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=33145&page=3

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by malko

I am wondering how your relatives put their hands and hold a floppy-disk when they want to insert it in a A1000 (drive in front of you and not on the right side as on the A500)...

Well, the text in the picture IS upside-down, so go figure.

[malko]

Originally Posted by StingRay

She is right handed. She held the disk in her left hand so she could use the mouse with their right hand.

Of course you're right !
Holding the floppy-disk with the left hand while drawing it with the right hand.
(like in "guess the screenshot" : you're next )

Originally Posted by StingRay

[...] I think it is a good piece of art and works pretty well for what it was intended: show the user that a disk needs to be inserted.

Totally agree.

Originally Posted by Foebane

Well, the text in the picture IS upside-down, so go figure.

It's a representation of what is the most common situation. Take any of your own disk and look at the result .

[Foebane]

Don't misunderstand me, I used to label disks the same way so that when put into the storage box, the label was at the top and the shutter at the bottom. All I'm saying is that maybe my relative was simply pointing out that, due to the only feasible way that Sheryl could've drawn the picture in the timescale given to her, that the label was upside down and that couldn't be avoided. It is in no way a criticism of her talent with such limited tools, but just an observation.

[Viceroy]

I'm going to make all my systems hard files rather than dirs:
Which is the best format to use VHD or HDF
Cheers

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Viceroy

I'm going to make all my systems hard files rather than dirs:
Which is the best format to use VHD or HDF
Cheers

I've tried both, and whilst HDFs are the size of their capacity (will never change), the problem with VHDs is that whilst they start off small and grow with the data, they do NOT shrink when files in them are deleted, so they just grow and grow, so ultimately, I think you may as well stick with an HDF.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Viceroy

I'm going to make all my systems hard files rather than dirs:
Which is the best format to use VHD or HDF
Cheers

I always use .HDFs but either are fine; personal choice really.