Original boing ball demo

[macce2]

Hello,

It would be really nice to have the original Amiga boing ball demo..
If it's available, I'd prefer the ADF format.
Does someone have it ? To the Z, please!

[ajk]

The one on Aminet should be pretty close to the original, some bugs have been fixed.

http://aminet.net/package/misc/antiq/boing

[TjLaZer]

Get AF-DEMOS-01.ADF

http://vintagecomputercafe.com/amiga/demos/

[macce2]

Many Thanks! ;-)

[necronom]

Has anyone managed to run any version of the Boing demo in WinUAE as a KS/WB1.0 A1000? I've tried three different versions (21k 1996 version, one from http://amiga.filfre.net/?page_id=5, and the one on AF Demos), but the 96 one gives a 302 (?, it's the storage space insufficient one) error, and the others just Guru.

I can get any to run under 1.1, but that's not good enough for what I'm trying to do.

If anyone has a working version, then please let me know, and also, does anyone have the one that "'was yellow and blue, spinning ball with no shadow, primitive and very flat...really just a simple colour palette animation"? I'm told it was created by Sam Dicker.

[ajk]

@necronom

What is it you are trying to do? 1.0 had a very short run (2-3 months?) and it may prove troublesome to showcase a lot of the more iconic Amiga software on it.

[necronom]

It's footage for a film. They are wanting to show the Boing demo running on 1.0, as it would have been at the show when it was first shown, and also show the earlier version if possible.
I was hoping someone here would have them.

[r.cade]

1.0 wasn't running at the show. I would think the OS was not finished yet at that point by a long way...

[stevsurv]

Originally Posted by r.cade

1.0 wasn't running at the show. I would think the OS was not finished yet at that point by a long way...

I got an earlier demo disk with files dated aug 1985 that has some different demos on it. Most of the demos are different byte sizes as compared to the ones listed here.

[necronom]

r.cade: Yes, you are right. That was more me guessing why they wanted 1.0 than what they actually said. It's probably more to do with saying 'This is what it could do when it first came out', I guess. If the screen shows a later version it kind of spoils it a bit.

stevsurv: Could you point me to a download of that?

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by necronom

Has anyone managed to run any version of the Boing demo in WinUAE as a KS/WB1.0 A1000? I've tried three different versions (21k 1996 version, one from http://amiga.filfre.net/?page_id=5, and the one on AF Demos), but the 96 one gives a 302 (?, it's the storage space insufficient one) error, and the others just Guru.

I can get any to run under 1.1, but that's not good enough for what I'm trying to do.

If anyone has a working version, then please let me know, and also, does anyone have the one that "'was yellow and blue, spinning ball with no shadow, primitive and very flat...really just a simple colour palette animation"? I'm told it was created by Sam Dicker.

I'm not sure if there was any publically released version of Boing which works on Kickstart 1.0.

The "older" version I have (file date 25-Nov-85, though I'm not sure whether that's correct or relevant) is 26340 bytes long. Both that and the "newer" version (21872 bytes) won't work on Kickstart 1.0. They use OpenLibrary (-$228) and request a minimum library version of 30 (corresponding to NTSC Kickstart 1.1) when opening dos.library.

For Kickstart 1.1, the original OpenLibrary (-$198) was renamed to OldOpenLibrary and a new OpenLibrary at offset -$228 was introduced. I'm not completely certain of the story behind that, but apparently due to a bug OpenLibrary in Kickstart 1.0 did not check library version numbers. And there must have been some program(s) which failed once that bug was fixed.

The Boing executable on AF-DEMOS-01.ADF has been compressed using PowerPacker. I'm not sure whether or not that would reduce compatibility with early Kickstart versions.

It would be possible to patch the OpenLibrary calls to use the older function offset (-$198). But perhaps some aspect of the program requires/uses some feature that was introduced with Kickstart 1.1?

[necronom]

Thanks for the info, Mark.

You could be right. Maybe it was never released publicly.

[mark_k]

I could try patching the OpenLibrary calls to work on Kickstart 1.0 if you want, but there's no guarantee the program would work after that.

[necronom]

I did mention to them that they might be able to get a version from some of the people they are interviewing, but I haven't heard back yet.
If it doesn't take long, and you don't mind, then please give it a go. It will improve the film slightly if it does work, and I'll mention you to the makers. I haven't been told not to talk about it, but I won't mention what it is at the moment, just in case they have a problem with that.

[mark_k]

Okay, I've patched the Boing executable (original and patched version in the attached archive). In addition to patching calls to the new OpenLibrary (-$228) to the old one (-$198) I cleared bits in the table of hunk lengths which tell later Kickstart versions to load the hunk to chip RAM, because 1.0 didn't support that.

However it still doesn't work; on running the executable under 1.0 I get this message:
Unable to load boing: file is not an object module

Anyone have any idea what's wrong? It seems 1.0 LoadSeg() doesn't like the patched file for some reason.

[necronom]

Thanks for trying Mark. I'll let them know, and see if they've had any luck getting the file themselves.

[phx]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Anyone have any idea what's wrong? It seems 1.0 LoadSeg() doesn't like the patched file for some reason.

You only removed the Chip-RAM flag from the hunk lengths in the header, but you also have to clear that bit in the hunk types. For example, at offset $1158 there is the hunk type $400003ea, which should be $000003ea for 1.0.

Note 1: Setting bit 30 in the hunk type is nonsense, as LoadSeg() will only look at this bit in the hunk size. But some compilers/assemblers did that, so AmigaOS ignores these bits.

Note 2: It is not guaranteed that the program still works after having deleted Chip-RAM flags. Probably some data needs to be in Chip RAM to make it work on machines with Fast RAM. But, OTOH, did 1.0 support Fast RAM?

[mark_k]

Thanks for that info!

It works!!! Patched version of the earlier Boing demo runs on Kickstart 1.0! (Tested in WinUAE.)

I can patch the later version (the one where you can change speed of the ball) too if wanted.

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by phx

Note 2: It is not guaranteed that the program still works after having deleted Chip-RAM flags. Probably some data needs to be in Chip RAM to make it work on machines with Fast RAM. But, OTOH, did 1.0 support Fast RAM?

1.0 does support fast RAM. But there's no AutoConfig or Exec functions AddMemList() or TypeOfMem(). So memory expansions would have come with their own memory-adding program.

Obviously, if you do have a 1.0 config with fast RAM, you'll need to run NoFastMem (or just reboot and not run the memory-adding program) before running the patched Boing demo. And the same on later Kickstarts.

[necronom]

mark_k and phx: Well done! Excellent work.
I've heard from Ant, and he said it's okay to mention what it is for. It's called "From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years", and hopefully you will both get a credit for getting it working.
I've recorded some footage and sent it on. If you PM me your names, I'll pass them on (unless you want to be called your names here). I can't guarantee it, as it's up to them who gets credits, but they did say anyone who produces anything that's used will get a credit.
They were struggling to get the files from the Amiga guys.
I doubt anyone will have this (I mentioned it in another thread), but if anyone has the yellow/blue version that Sam Dicker created, let me know. Even a pic might do.