Blitz Basic Questions

[diablothe2nd]

Decided to keep the thread title non specific incase other's want to chime in and ask some too.

Is Blitz 2 able (with modules) to play an mp3 AND sound effects at the same time?

I'm guessing that the Mp3 if it was stereo would need two channels, leaving only two left for sound effects. Is that correct?

I realise the process of playing an mp3 is resource hungry though so I guess it's not feasible to do so in a game?

[bippym]

On an 040 1200 back in the day I was able to play MP2 but it struggled. MP3 was a no-no back then!

I would say not on your nellie!

[diablothe2nd]

Originally Posted by bippym

I would say not on your nellie!

Dammit

well it was a fleeting thought anyway. on my 060 i can play mp3's fine aslong as i dont run anything else. i thought about reducing the bitrate but methinks that wont be enough for the folks using ACA's.

[Shoonay]

Just out of curiosity, how about an uncompressed file then?
Let's say a full song in WAV or IFF format.
Assuming there's enough space on the disk, can it buffer the whole song to the memory or just play from the disk buffering on the fly without huge performance issues?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by bippym

On an 040 1200 back in the day I was able to play MP2 but it struggled. MP3 was a no-no back then!

I would say not on your nellie!

I know someone who 'back in the day' used to play mp3s on his A1200 with an 040 Blizzard accelerator. I think though that it was very low bitrate, like 96 kbps and probably only mono output.

[Shoonay]

Well, I was able to play (play, not listen to ) mp3 on a 030 in lowest quality and mono.

[Ze Emulatron]

Question

In Blitz Basic you can open a file for writing with

If OpenFile(0,"test")

This works fine when the disk is write enabled, when the disk is write protected in AMIGA mode it pops up a system request saying the disk is write protected retry cancel, but in BLITZ mode it freezes at that point in the program. I tried to use CatchDosErrs, but didn't know how to implement it when I have 2 bitmaps and 2 coplists on the screen, the example code in the Blitz 2 reference guide uses Screens.

I tried to use an if else,
If OpenFile(0,"test") = 0

else

end if

or

If OpenFile(0,"test") = -1

else

end if

but it still froze at the same part of the program.


Does someone know some code I can use in Blitz to check if the disk is write protected ?

[bippym]

if openfile(0,"test")

it should be a 0 (zero) not an O

[Ze Emulatron]

Originally Posted by bippym

if openfile(0,"test")

it should be a 0 (zero) not an O

I fixed that in my post, It is a 0 in my code but I copied the command from the pdf and the OCR must have thought it was a O

[Lonewolf10]

I'm no expert in Blitz (I'm an AMOS guy at heart ), but I don't believe Blitz supports the Else instruction.
You may have to do something slightly uglier like...

TEST=OpenFile(0,"test")

If TEST = 0
... some code
end if

If TEST = -1
...some other code
end if

[diablothe2nd]

had to pull my blitz manual out to double check this one.

Else is actually a valid statement

Originally Posted by Lonewolf10

I'm no expert in Blitz (I'm an AMOS guy at heart ), but I don't believe Blitz supports the Else instruction.
You may have to do something slightly uglier like...

TEST=OpenFile(0,"test")

If TEST = 0
... some code
end if

If TEST = -1
...some other code
end if

[diablothe2nd]

Originally Posted by Ze Emulatron

Question

.....but in BLITZ mode it freezes at that point in the program.

to do any form of disk i/o i think you need to come out of blitz mode using QAMIGA, as the Blitz mode itself removes all os hooks etc for extra speed.

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by diablothe2nd

had to pull my blitz manual out to double check this one.

Else is actually a valid statement

Erm... just cause it says so in the manual, doesn't mean it does. Have you actually tried it?

If it really does work, then why does Ze Emulatron's code crash Blitz??

Edit:

Diablo's most recent post just answered my 2nd question

[diablothe2nd]

why would they list it in the manual if it didn't exist? lol

see above for my thoughts on why it's crashing (sorry for double post)

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by diablothe2nd

why would they list it in the manual if it didn't exist? lol

Because they intended to put it in, but the coders behind it forgot to implement it or were forced to leave it out because of time constraints posed on them by their bosses.

Originally Posted by diablothe2nd

see above for my thoughts on why it's crashing (sorry for double post)

Yeah, just read that... see the edit on my previous post

[diablothe2nd]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf10

Because they intended to put it in, but the coders behind it forgot to implement it or were forced to leave it out because of time constraints posed on them by their bosses.




Yeah, just read that... see the edit on my previous post

- gunna test it out and report back in a min

[bippym]

Else exists and works in blitz!!

[diablothe2nd]

Originally Posted by bippym

Else exists and works in blitz!!

thanks for saving me the trouble

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by bippym

Else exists and works in blitz!!

Ok... so I was wrong

[bippym]

The following is code taken from my SWOS Editor released in 1996, this shows the "ELSE" command working.

.load:
  RTEZSetPattern 0,"#?.CAR"

  fi$=""
  f$=RTEZLoadFile("Select Your Save Game file",fi$)
  If f$
    flength.l=Exists(f$)
    InitBank 1,flength,1
    aa.l=RTLockWindow (0)
    LoadBank 1,f$
    lo.l=BankLoc(1)
    RTUnlockWindow 0,aa.l
    ld=1

    JSR _enable
  Else
     body$="You MUST select a SWOS Game":ok$="_Retry|_Cancel":JSR _req
    Select ab
      Case 0 : If ld=0 : End:EndIf
               If ld=1 : Goto loop:EndIf
      Case 1 : JSR load
   End Select
  EndIf
  JSR checkver
JSR _peek
RTS

[Ze Emulatron]

This is the kind of code I was talking about. It works fine on a write enabled disk but when the disk is write protected it seems to stop at the first line of red code (If OpenFile(0,"high.score") = -1), and doesn't execute anymore, If you change QAMIGA to AMIGA I believe that it would work and open up the popup window that says the disk is write protected, but I don't want to leave BLITZ and QAMIGA modes.

WBStartup

BLITZ
BlitzKeys On

; Setup Variables
#bitmapw = 672  ; Width of the bitmap, level width in pixels, extra column each side to setup bits to scroll to
#bitmaph = 480  ; Height of the bitmap, level height in pixels, extra row each side to setup bits to scroll to

#screenw = 224   ; With of the bitmap to display
#screenh = 160   ; Height of the bitmap to display, 160px so fit on NTSC display

#screenm = 4     ; Screen mode max of 3, 8 colours for 512+512 config, number of bitplanes

BitMap 0,#bitmapw,#bitmaph,#screenm    ; Create main game bitmap
BitMap 1,320,60,#screenm    ; Create Score panel

If DispHeight = 200
  InitCopList 0,34,#screenh,$00014,8,2^#screenm,0
  InitCopList 1,34+3+#screenh,60,$00014,8,2^#screenm,0
Else
  InitCopList 0,44+25,#screenh,$00014,8,2^#screenm,0
  InitCopList 1,44+28+#screenh,60,$00014,8,2^#screenm,0
End If

DisplayAdjust 0,0,0,0,48,-48
CreateDisplay 0,1

DisplayBitMap 0,0,-49,0
Use BitMap 0

DisplayBitMap 1,1,-1,0
Use BitMap 1

Cls 1

Use BitMap 0

Cls 2
VWait 50
QAMIGA

If OpenFile(0,"high.score") = -1
  Cls 1
Else
  Use BitMap 1
  Cls 2
End If

VWait 50
For i = 0 To 5
  VWait 10
  Cls i
Next

CloseFile 0

VWait 250
Cls 0
BLITZ

; set palette

VWait 50
Cls 1

End

I had a different thought about checking the write protect status of a disk is it possible to access the trackdisk device and check TD_PROTSTATUS in Blitz ?

[Graham Humphrey]

Hmm, I am sure I have used OpenFile successfully in the past.

Maybe try it so it returns a value in a variable. eg:

dummy=OpenFile(0,"high.score")

If dummy=-1
...

And so on. Don't know if that makes a difference. I will go through some of my old code if I get time.