Convert boards.library to Sysinfo.boards?

[brian_p]

Hopefully a future version of SysInfo will support boards.library one day but I don't know how much longer I can hold my breath hoping for it.

So while I wait I wonder if there exists a tool that can make a sysinfo.boards file from the boards.library? Or if someone feel they might be able to create one?

[Hewitson]

Had a quick look into it, would require more time than I currently have as the lamers who wrote the library didn't include the source.

[Minuous]

You could ask him for the source. He is still active in the community.

[brian_p]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Had a quick look into it, would require more time than I currently have as the lamers who wrote the library didn't include the source.

I'm sorry to hear that. As one who can't program for shit if my life depended on it I though the include stuff in the archive at Aminet was all the sources needed.


Anyway, thank you for looking into it even if it didn't work out.

[patrik]

Created a small utility for this. It works by looping through all the manufacturers and products and asks boards.library for info about each of them and if present outputs them in SysInfo.boards format.

Usage:

1.> Boards2SysInfo >VeryLarge_SysInfo.boards

It takes quite a while to run, about 2h on an A3000 030@25MHz. The limit is a combination of the boards.library query speed plus that it has to ask for all possible combinations of manufacturer+product.

http://megaburken.net/~patrik/Boards2SysInfo.lha

[dalek]

BoardsLib\Utilities\showboards

From the docs:

A=ALLKNOWN: displays a (long) list of all expansions known to
boards.library.

So "showboards ALLKNOWN NOPAUSE" is all you need instead of repeatedly querying the library.

[brian_p]

Originally Posted by patrik

Created a small utility for this. It works by looping through all the manufacturers and products and asks boards.library for info about each of them and if present outputs them in SysInfo.boards format.

Usage:

1.> Boards2SysInfo >VeryLarge_SysInfo.boards

It takes quite a while to run, about 2h on an A3000 030@25MHz. The limit is a combination of the boards.library query speed plus that it has to ask for all possible combinations of manufacturer+product.

http://megaburken.net/~patrik/Boards2SysInfo.lha

Incredible how you managed to fit the program into a single 512b block size! 16.7 millin requests to the lib... wow... makes a perfectly useable sysinfo.boards file in the end though it's painfully slow progress.

[brian_p]

Originally Posted by dalek

BoardsLib\Utilities\showboards

From the docs:


So "showboards ALLKNOWN NOPAUSE" is all you need instead of repeatedly querying the library.

ShowBoards output isn't easily converted to SysInfo.board but it does show that there is a faster way to get the info out of boards.lib rather than bombarding it with millions of requests like Boards2SysInfo do... I wonder how (hope it's not something silly like a list of known ManuID/ProdID).

[nogginthenog]

Originally Posted by patrik

Created a small utility for this. It works by looping through all the manufacturers and products and asks boards.library for info about each of them and if present outputs them in SysInfo.boards format.

You are a crazy genius

[brian_p]

I would like to thank patrik (and Marcus Gerards). Boards2SysInfo V2.1 cut down the creationtime of the SysInfo.boards file from several hours to just a couple of secounds on even the slowest of Amigas and that without going over 512B. Very impressive and much appriciated!

[bubbob42]

Originally Posted by brian_p

Boards2SysInfo V2.1 cut down the creationtime of the SysInfo.boards file from several hours to just a couple of secounds on even the slowest of Amigas and that without going over 512B.

@Hewitson: The library contains 3rd-party code, so the lamer can't share it. I'm deeply sorry.

[brian_p]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

@Hewitson: The library contains 3rd-party code, so the lamer can't share it. I'm deeply sorry.

That might be, but even though Marcus Gerards might not be able to share the code for the library itself he did help tremendously by share other code on extracting data from the library much Much faster.