-IMPORTANT NOTE---------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: Issues 1-8 of the Basix Fanzine were edited by Peter Cooper. The new editor of the Basix Fanzine is Alex Warren and the addresses for the fanzine are: ARTICLES: basix@dewarr.globalnet.co.uk OTHER ENQUIRIES ETC.: dewarr@globalnet.co.uk WWW ADDRESS: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dewarr/basix.htm Please use these addresses in place of the out-of-date addresses in the Fanzine below. Thanks, Alex Warren September 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _____-----~~~~~-----_____-----~~~~~-----_____-----~~~~~-----_____-----~~~~~ THE BASIX FANZINE Edited by Peter Cooper Issue 7 _____-----~~~~~-----_____-----~~~~~-----_____-----~~~~~-----_____-----~~~~~ peco@trenham.demon.co.uk INTRODUCTION: More delays, sorry. Two reasons, one, I am now manager of a new web design company which has absorbed much of my free time. The second... this is the worst reason. I wiped my hard disk and lost.. new submissions. Very sorry to all of you who sent in submissions. It was a big system upgrade, I can promise this won't happen again, I now have a new backup system in place. :) So please feel free to send in submissions, they will be backed up! Anyway, this has taken a long time, so sorry. I know it's no excuse, I will try to be more punctual in future. Cheers, =) Peter Cooper ============================================================================== Contents Page ============================================================================== SECTION ONE) - Specialized Articles - Part [a] Series 1) Coderz Series More more more effects and stuff QBasic+ 2) CDROM Series Last part of CD Series-play a cd QkBasic,VBDOS,PDS - Part [b] Topics and Articles 1) NEW Wav Playr' *New* DMA WAV player, =) QBasic+ SECTION TWO) - General Articles 1) Useful sources Places to get basic stuff on inet Various 2) Fandex Back Issues-See what you missed!! N/A SECTION THREE) - The Public Zone 1) Letters Your comments and questions Various 2) Your programs All of your programs.. here! Various 3) The Lighter Side Humor, Newsgroups, all here =) N/A SECTION FOUR) - Administration and Usual Stuff 1) Latest developments from Fanzine 2) How do you contribute? 3) Credits 4) Last words + next month +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ - SECTION ONE ----------------------------------------------------------------- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Specialized articles: ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 1 PART A SUBPART 1 | Coderz Series Part 2 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Coderz Series Part 2: Welcome back! Well this issue I'm going to go into how to create yet more effects for any possible demos you might be writing. Just some simple effects this issue, you need a break after last weeks indepth view into Sine waves! The STATIC Effect: The STATIC effect is fairly convincing, although there is a little patterning which distinguishes it from a standard TVs effect. The standard TV static effect requires quite a lot of speed (unless you use a good randomising algorithm and fast graphics drawing) so using standard QBASIC commands will not do. This zine doesnt promote source that only works with the help of libraries so how can we do it fast, in QBASIC? Simple, we draw a random pattern of grey dots onto the screen once then we use some palette cycling to simulate the effect of the pixel color changing every time. If we do this fast enough it looks roughly like a standard static effect. So how exactly do we go about this.. Well here's the steps of the program: --> create 15 shades of grey from black to white --> draw a random pattern of these fifteen shades to the screen --> cycle the palette! 15 to 14 14 to 13 1 to 15 etc..... It's that simple, so simple the code doesnt need much explanation except the comments written in! SCREEN 13 ' Loop creates grey shades in colors 1 to 15 FOR c% = 1 TO 15 OUT &H3C8, c% OUT &H3C9, (c% * 3) + 2 OUT &H3C9, (c% * 3) + 2 OUT &H3C9, (c% * 3) + 2 NEXT c% ' Draw random color (1-15) to each pixel on screen FOR x% = 1 TO 320 FOR y% = 1 TO 200 c% = INT((15 - 1 + 1) * RND + 1) PSET (x%, y%), c% NEXT y% NEXT x% SLEEP ' Read in palette values and cycle round DO OUT &H3C7, 1 tr% = INP(&H3C9) tg% = INP(&H3C9) tb% = INP(&H3C9) FOR t% = 2 TO 15 OUT &H3C7, t% r% = INP(&H3C9) g% = INP(&H3C9) b% = INP(&H3C9) OUT &H3C8, t% - 1 OUT &H3C9, r% OUT &H3C9, g% OUT &H3C9, b% NEXT t% OUT &H3C8, 15 OUT &H3C9, tr% OUT &H3C9, tg% OUT &H3C9, tb% ' Wait for vertical retrace so that no flickering occurs WAIT &H3DA, 8 WAIT &H3DA, 8, 8 LOOP WAV Playing: Sound effects and noises are a large part of demos, if you want to be able to play a wave sound through your soundcard then we have a _fast_ WAV all here for you to use! It is in Section 1b1. :) Please request what you would like to see in the coders section and we will endeavour to find BASIC code to do it! We need your suggestions! =) Cheers, (oh lameness...) ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 1 PART A SUBPART 2 | CD Programming Part 3 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part 3: Getting Information About the Audio-CD Hi! I'm back! In the third part of the guide we are going to get some info about the Audio-CD which is hopefully inserted at this point. Actually, it doesn't really matter whether you have an audio cd in the drive or not. So, another WARNING at this point: NEVER EVER try to play DATA CD's with this program! I have never tried it, since others have warned me, so I'll just pass this warning along to you. If you remember the last piece of code we wrote RESET the drive. Well, that's nice isn't it, especially since it is so useful and impressive (I hope you catch the sarcasm). So ... what are we gonna do now? We have two more things to do in order to play the entire disk: Determine the total playtime and instruct the drive to play all sectors from 0 to the lead-out track (end) of the CD. Oh, an IMPORTANT note: Whenever you have to DETERMINE something, you use IOCTL INPUT and sometimes when you INSTRUCT the drive to do something, you use IOCTL OUTPUT. Remember when we reset the drive, we instructed the drive to perform an action, so we used IOCTL OUTPUT. The way we address these I/O functions is by modifying the request header command code field. In the reset code we used 12, which tells the driver to use OUTPUT. Since there are many instructions you can output to the drive (EJECT uses OUTPUT), we needed another control block to give the driver some extra info. The next routine will READ information from the drive in drv%. So we will use IOCTL INPUT which is command code 3 in the request header. Compare the Reset and DiskInfo routines if you don't understand what I am talking about. This particular routine will need a buffer of 7 bytes where we put our information. This is also termed the control block, since the first byte, cb(0), gives the driver instructions. In our routine cb(0) will be 10, which will return the lowest track number, highest track number and the location of the lead-out track (end of CD). The code looks very similar to the reset routine. 'Get DiskInfo REDIM cb(6) AS STRING * 1 'We will resize our arrays, which sets them REDIM rh(25) AS STRING * 1 'also equal to zero 'Declare the contents we want in the buffer after the call cb(0) = CHR$(10) 'Control block code: 10 is DiskInfo 'Construct our request header! Notice that the only differences are in rh(2) 'and rh(19) rh(0) = CHR$(26) 'Length of request header in bytes rh(2) = CHR$(3) 'Request header command code field: 3 is IOCTL Input rh(14) = CHR$(lbyte%(VARPTR(cb(0)))) 'The next four lines reference the rh(15) = CHR$(hbyte%(VARPTR(cb(0)))) 'address of our control block rh(16) = CHR$(lbyte%(VARSEG(cb(0)))) rh(17) = CHR$(hbyte%(VARSEG(cb(0)))) rh(18) = CHR$(0) 'Number of bytes to transfer;Highbyte rh(19) = CHR$(7) 'Number of bytes to transfer;Lowbyte 'Call interrupt again inregsx.ax = &H1510 inregsx.es = VARSEG(rh(0)) inregsx.bx = VARPTR(rh(0)) inregsx.cx = drv% CALL interruptx(&H2F, inregsx, outregsx) 'Looky here! Our control block now contains data! CDEndMin = ASC(cb(5)) CDEndSec = ASC(cb(4)) CDEndFrm = ASC(cb(3)) 'CDLength is the length of the CD in High Sierra sectors the formula for 'computing it is: CDLength = CDEndMin * 60 * 75 + CDEndSec * 75 + CDEndFrm - 150 PRINT "Total Playtime of CD: "; CDEndMin; ":"; CDEndSec; "."; CDEndFrm Oh, the lowest track number is in cb(1) and the highest track number in cb(2). Now we are ready to play the entire disk. I guess since the PLAY function is used quite a bit, Microsoft gave it its own command code for the request header, which is 132. The following routine does the play thing. It takes a transfer mode value in rh(13). I used High Sierra format, since we will have to use sectors to specify the playing time. Well...Here's the code. ' Play Audio REDIM rh(21) AS STRING * 1 'Redimension our request header rh(0) = CHR$(22) 'Give it's length in bytes rh(2) = CHR$(132) 'Command code for PLAY rh(13) = CHR$(0) 'Transfer Mode (0 HSG/1 RBA) rh(14) = CHR$(0) 'Start Address rh(15) = CHR$(0) 'Start Address rh(16) = CHR$(0) 'Start Address rh(17) = CHR$(0) 'Start Address rh(18) = CHR$((CDLength MOD 256)) 'Number of Sectors to play rh(19) = CHR$((CDLength MOD 65536) \ 256) 'Number of Sectors to play rh(20) = CHR$(CDLength \ 65536) 'Number of Sectors to play rh(21) = CHR$(&H0) 'Number of Sectors to play 'Call our interrupt inregsx.ax = &H1510 inregsx.es = VARSEG(rh(0)) inregsx.bx = VARPTR(rh(0)) inregsx.cx = drv% CALL interruptx(&H2F, inregsx, outregsx) END That's it! A short note: If you want to start later in the disk you have to decrease the length to play. For example, if you would want to start playing at sector 150 (2 seconds) you would have to decrease the number of sectors to play by 150. If you have reached this point of the guide and pretty much understand everything, I urge you to go get MSCDEX21.ZIP of the internet. The documentation might confuse you at first, but look up the functions which I discussed in the guide and you'll figure it out. Now, nothing can stop you! Hope hearing from you, Marco Koegler (marco@umr.edu)! ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 1 PART B SUBPART 1 | New Kewl WAV Player! | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A brand new DMA based WAV player written by Ken Rockot, (email in top comments of code. A super fast WAV player. Enjoy! '******************************************** '* DMAWAV.BAS * '* by Ken Rockot * '* Insane7773@aol.com, Rockotman@juno.com * '******************************************** 'NOTE: This program was tested with a Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 ' on my 486 DX/2 running at 66MHz. This is by far the FASTEST WAV ' player for QBasic that I have seen. Unlike other WAV players for ' QBasic which can play WAVs too slow, because this uses DMA, it can ' play WAVs too fast if you set the frequency too high (Most ' commonly 11000, 22000, or 41000Hz). 'ANOTHER NOTE: You need to have an environment variable called BLASTER 'that ' tells what DMA and Base Address your SB is on. Most Sound ' Blasters' drivers set this in the AUTOEXEC.BAT 'automatically. 'YET ANOTHER NOTE: You may receive the 'DSP failed to reset' error. If 'this ' happens, run the program again. I don't know why, 'but ' it usually doesn't work the first time. DEFINT A-Z 'Sets all variables to integers unless specified otherwise DECLARE SUB LoadWAV (File$) DECLARE FUNCTION ResetDSP () DECLARE SUB OutDSP (Byte) DECLARE FUNCTION ReadDSP () DECLARE FUNCTION DSPVersion! () DECLARE SUB PlayWAV (Segment&, Offset&, Length&, Frequency&) DECLARE FUNCTION PlayDone () DECLARE SUB ReadBLASTER () DIM SHARED BaseAdd, DMA, LenPort, Length& ' Set vars to shared so we 'can DIM SHARED WaveBuffer(0) AS STRING * 32767 ' use in different subs CLS ReadBLASTER 'Read the BLASTER environment variable rd = ResetDSP IF ResetDSP THEN 'Reset DSP (Success = -1, Failure = 0) PRINT "DSP reset successfully." ELSE PRINT "DSP failed to reset" END END IF INPUT "Enter filename: ", File$ 'Get user input for a WAV 'file INPUT "Enter frequency: ", Frequency& 'Get input for frequency LoadWAV File$ OUT BaseAdd + 12, &HD1 'Turn on speakers DO PlayWAV VARSEG(WaveBuffer(0)), VARPTR(WaveBuffer(0)), Length&, Frequency& DO COLOR INT(RND * 15) + 1 'Print crap in colors PRINT "Looping WAV in the background while performing other functions." LOOP UNTIL PlayDone 'Loop until WAV is LOOP UNTIL INKEY$ = CHR$(27) 'Play the WAV over and OUT BaseAdd + 12, &HD3 'Turn off speakers FUNCTION DSPVersion! OutDSP &HE1 'Function to get DSP Version A = ReadDSP 'High byte B = ReadDSP 'Low byte DSPVersion! = VAL(STR$(A) + "." + STR$(B)) 'Set DSPVersion! END FUNCTION SUB LoadWAV (File$) WaveBuffer(0) = "" 'Clear the WAV buffer OPEN File$ FOR BINARY AS #1 'Open the WAV file IF LOF(1) = 0 THEN CLOSE #1: KILL File$: PRINT "Non-existant file!": END GET #1, 44, WaveBuffer(0) 'Skip 44 bytes (file 'header) Length& = LOF(1) - 44 'Store the length of the 'WAV IF Length& > 32766 THEN Length& = 32766 'Truncate the WAV CLOSE #1 'Close the file END SUB SUB OutDSP (Byte) DO LOOP WHILE INP(BaseAdd + 12) AND &H80 'Loop until we get an OK byte OUT BaseAdd + 12, Byte 'Set a byte to the SB input register END SUB FUNCTION PlayDone A = INP(LenPort) '\___ Read two bytes from the length port B = INP(LenPort) '/ Count& = CLNG(A + 1) * CLNG(B + 1) '\____ Check to see if it's 'done IF (Count& - 1) >= &HFFFF& THEN PlayDone = -1 '/ END FUNCTION SUB PlayWAV (Segment&, Offset&, Length&, Frequency&) MemLoc& = Segment& * 16 + Offset& 'Area in memory of WAV buffer Page = 0 'DMA page to use SELECT CASE DMA 'Depending on DMA set vars to values CASE 0 PgPort = &H87 'Set port to send page data to AddPort = &H0 'Set port to send memory address to LenPort = &H1 'Set port to send length to ModeReg = &H48 'Set mode to play in CASE 1 PgPort = &H83 AddPort = &H2 LenPort = &H3 ModeReg = &H49 CASE 2 PgPort = &H81 AddPort = &H4 LenPort = &H5 ModeReg = &H4A CASE 3 PgPort = &H82 AddPort = &H6 LenPort = &H7 ModeReg = &H4B CASE ELSE PRINT "This program only supports DMA Channels 0-3." END END SELECT OUT &HA, &H4 + DMA ' Send all OUT &HC, 0 ' the crap to OUT &HB, ModeReg ' the ports. OUT AddPort, MemLoc& AND &HFF ' More crap sending OUT AddPort, (MemLoc& AND &HFFFF&) \ &H100 ' Yet more IF (MemLoc& AND 65536) THEN Page = Page + 1 ' Set IF (MemLoc& AND 131072) THEN Page = Page + 2 ' the IF (MemLoc& AND 262144) THEN Page = Page + 4 ' correct IF (MemLoc& AND 524288) THEN Page = Page + 8 ' memory page. OUT PgPort, Page ' Send page data OUT LenPort, Length& AND &HFF ' Send length OUT LenPort, (Length& AND &HFFFF&) \ &H100 ' data OUT &HA, DMA ' Send DMA port IF Frequency& < 23000 THEN TimeConst = 256 - 1000000 \ Frequency& ' Set the freqency OutDSP &H40 ' Byte to send frequency OutDSP TimeConst ' Send frequency OutDSP &H14 ' Byte to send length OutDSP (Length& AND &HFF) ' Send OutDSP ((Length& AND &HFFFF&) \ &H100) ' length ELSE IF DSPVersion! >= 3 THEN ' If they got the right DMA to 'fast TimeConst = ((65536 - 256000000 \ Frequency&) AND &HFFFF&) \ &H100 OutDSP &H40 OutDSP TimeConst OutDSP (Length& AND &HFF) OutDSP ((Length& AND &HFFFF&) \ &H100) ELSE PRINT "You must have a DSP Version of 3.00 or greater to " PRINT "use a high frequency." END END IF END IF END SUB SUB ReadBLASTER B$ = ENVIRON$("BLASTER") 'Get the BLASTER variable IF B$ = "" THEN PRINT "BLASTER environment variable not found!": END 'Darn! FOR X = 1 TO LEN(B$) ' Basically simple crap to read the 'variable T$ = MID$(B$, X, 1) Y = X + 1 SELECT CASE T$ CASE "A" DO Tp$ = MID$(B$, Y, 1) IF Tp$ = " " THEN EXIT DO Addr$ = Addr$ + Tp$ Y = Y + 1 LOOP BaseAdd = VAL("&H" + Addr$) Tp$ = "" CASE "D" DO Tp$ = MID$(B$, Y, 1) IF Tp$ = " " THEN EXIT DO DMAC$ = DMAC$ + Tp$ Y = Y + 1 LOOP DMA = VAL(DMAC$) Tp$ = "" END SELECT NEXT X END SUB FUNCTION ReadDSP DO LOOP UNTIL INP(BaseAdd + 14) AND &H80 ' If it's okay... ReadDSP = INP(BaseAdd + 10) ' Read a byte from the SB port END FUNCTION FUNCTION ResetDSP OUT BaseAdd + 6, 1 ' Send byte to reset FOR I = 1 TO 4 ' Read crap Temp = INP(BaseAdd + 6) NEXT I OUT BaseAdd + 6, 0 ' Send 'Done' byte A = INP(BaseAdd + 14) ' Read prototype byte IF INP(BaseAdd + 14) AND &H80 = &H80 AND INP(BaseAdd + 10) = &HAA THEN 'Reset ResetDSP = -1 ELSE ResetDSP = 0 END IF END FUNCTION =) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ - SECTION TWO ----------------------------------------------------------------- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ All levels articles: This is where general BASIC info is presented. People of different levels (novice,advanced etc) can use information in this section to their benefit. ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 2 SUBPART 1 | Useful Resources on the net!!! | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ============================================================================= The Games Programmers Encyclopedia ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/gpe ============================================================================= Nemesis NetIndex (The way to find pages) (a quick plug! => ) http://www.trenham.demon.co.uk/ ============================================================================= Blood225s FTP Site ftp://users.aol.com/blood225/ ============================================================================= Simtel ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/pub/packages/simtel/msdos/ Simtel-net ftp://ftp.simtel.net/ ============================================================================= Programmers References Site-Finland ftp://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming - documentations of techniques - /docs - information on formats - /formats - games programmers encyclopedia - /gpe - excellent programming FAQs - /faq ============================================================================= Basix Fanzine site http://www.trenham.demon.co.uk/fanzine/ ============================================================================= Jonathan Wests Great QBasic Page http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/Jonath06 ============================================================================= Wrox Press http://www.wrox.com/ ============================================================================= Jumbo shareware http://www.jumbo.com/ ============================================================================= PBSOUND WWW site http://www.snafu.de/~pbsound/ ============================================================================= Please tell me about others! :-> ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 2 SUBPART 2 | Fandex - Back Issues | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Just a small reference into back issues, all available at the official site. http://www.trenham.demon.co.uk/fanzine/ ===Fandex=== Graphics: - Screen 13 - Issue 1 - Zephyr Lib - Issue 4 - Colission Detection - Issue 4 - PCX Viewer - Issue 3 - Coderz Sine FX - Issue 6 - Palettes - Issue 6 - Graphics Tips - Issue 4 - 3d Programming - Issue 4 Sound: - SB Article - Issue 1 - WAV\Voc\Player 2 - Issue 2 - PLAY Song - Issue 3 Series: - Basic Tutorial - Issue 2,3,4,5,6 - PB & Qb Votes - Issue 1,2,3 - CDROM Tutorials - Issue 5,6,7 - Shareware Libs - Issue 2,3 - Wrox Press Articles - Issue 1,3,4,5 Others: - Accessing the CMOS - Issue 2 - ANSI - Issue 3 - TSRMaker - Issue 3 - PopupTSR - Issue 3 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ - SECTION THREE --------------------------------------------------------------- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Your Shout: Anything that is sent for use for the zine that doesn't fit into the other chapters is here. It's where your questions and programs go unless they fit into an article or if you actually write an article yourself. ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 3 SUBPART 1 | Letters | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Letter from Chiok Ching Chaw: Hi peter! It's me again... I think I am one of the few Singaporeans still standing by Dos BASIC! :) Can i give u a few suggestions?? 1. can u summarised all the BASIC interpreters/compilers available? 2. can u include a feature on the available Unix Basic? think many of netusers would use a bit of tt info so far tts all...thanx :) Reply: I'll try and take a look into unix basic. I dont know much about Unix at all except that many net servers run it. It's a pretty high end OS I thought, I will have to research. About the list of BASIC compilers\interpreters, it will be tried soon! :) -- From Pinguelo1@aol.com: Hi, I have a few questions... 1st. How do you play .MID files ? 2nd. How to scroll graphics in Screen mode 13 ? 3rd. How to put my graphics alltogether in 1 file, and how to retrieve them from that file ? Thank you very much !!! P.D.: You put fantastic information/documentation in this magazine !!! Reply: a1) To play MID files you can either write your own full player with reader and synth controller or you can use interrupt with an external SB driver such as the SBSIM interfaces. Mike Huff provides source on playing MID files in the background on his web site, it escapes my mind but it's linked to by many of the best web sites. a2) Scrolling graphics in a _standard_ (not mode-x) screen mode $13 is just simply a matter of drawing something, moving it, and drawing again, it's that simple. In mode-x though there are a few registers and tricks you can use to scroll efficiently. a3) Putting graphics all toghether in a file involves packing them all toghether. You need to join all the files toghether and then only read the specific sections when you want a certain files. A table of file offsets and sizes would be useful in the first bit of the packed file. Then just use GET to read from byte locations. Many thanks for the compliments too! :^) -- ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 3 SUBPART 2 | Your Programs | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A useful program (with ASM) that finds out the name of the executable that is running. Could be useful to stop people renaming your programs, as some sort of security? Many thanks to Cin Sieng < brandex@po.pacific.net.sg > for this piece of code. Enjoy! ; B-O-F : EXENAME.ASM ; This program is copyrighted by Cin Sieng ; Released to public domain on 6 Nov 1996 ; ; Use/Change this code anyway you want. ; ; Give credit please . . . ; ; You are encouraged improve this program ; ; Works fine with TASM and MASM .MODEL MEDIUM,BASIC .DATA LenAddr dw 0,Offset Tmp Tmp db 65 dup(0) .CODE ; This procedure will return the full path of the running program ; Works fine in QB 4.5 (VBDOS and BASIC PDS not tried) Public EXEName EXEName Proc Uses DS Mov AH,62h ; DOS function to get the PSP addr. Int 21h Mov ES,BX ; return : BX = Seg. of PSP, copy it to ES Mov AX,ES:[2Ch] ; Get the segment of env. at ES:002Ch Mov ES,AX ; Change the segment for scanning/searching Xor DI,DI ; start from Offset 0 --> ES:DI = ES:0000 Mov AL,1 ; Search for ASCII 1 = 01 Mov CX,-1 ; Search for 65535 bytes or -1 RepNe ScaSb ; Start search Inc DI ; Now DI points to 1st letter Push DI ; Save it on stack for use by SI Xor AX,AX ; Search for ASCII 0 Mov CL,0FFh ; because we're sure that CH is 0FFh so just set CL to 0FFh RepNe ScaSb ; Start search Not CX ; Reverse the value of CX from - to + Dec CX ; CX holds the length of the string ; DI holds the last string +1 Pop SI ; Get DI from stack, SI=DI Mov LenAddr,CX ; Store length to LenAddr Push DS ; Save current DS Push DS ; Ditto Push ES ; Save current ES Pop DS ; Make Destination become Source -> DS=ES Pop ES ; Make Source become Destination -> ES=DS Lea DI,Tmp ; DI = Offset of Tmp Shr CX,1 ; Div CX by 2 Rep Movsw ; Store 1 word/2 bytes from DS:SI to ES:DI Adc CX,CX ; Add CX with carry, CX will have 0 or 1 MovSb ; Store the last byte if any. Pop DS ; Restore current DS Mov AX,Offset LenAddr Ret EXEName EndP END ; E-O-F : EXENAME.ASM -------------------------- CUT HERE -------------------------------- ' B-O-F : TESTEXE.BAS ' Must first compile the EXENAME.ASM to .OBJ and make a library file ' Run from QB 4.5 DEFINT A-Z DECLARE FUNCTION EXEName$() PRINT "The current running program name is : "; EXEName$ ' E-O-F : TESTEXE.BAS --------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, some ye olde code digged out of the Basix Archives (hopefully not used before :>) ' ======================================================== ' XPrint.Bas - Routine to print text at any pixel position ' -------------------------------------------------------- ' Written By Ben Ashley (C) 1995 ' -------------------------------------------------------- DEFINT A-Z SUB XPrint (x AS INTEGER, y AS INTEGER, Text$, col AS INTEGER) SCREEN 9, 0, 1, 0 CLS LOCATE 1, 1 COLOR col, 0: PRINT Text$ x1! = 0 y1! = 0 x2! = LEN(Text$) * 8 y2! = 12 size% = 4 + INT(((PMAP(x2!, 0) - PMAP(x1!, 0) + 1) * (1) + 7) / 8) * 4 * (PMAP(y2!, 1) - PMAP(y1!, 1) + 1) DIM Text%(size%) GET (x1!, y1!)-(x2!, y2!), Text% SCREEN 9, 0, 0, 0 PUT (x, y), Text% ERASE Text% END SUB ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 3 SUBPART 3 | On the Lighter Side | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What the acronyms _really_ mean? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PCMCIA => People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms ISDN => It Still Does Nothing APPLE => Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity IBM => I Blame Microsoft DEC => Do Expect Cuts CA => Constant Acquisitions CD-ROM => Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months OS/2 => Obsolete Soon, Too. SCSI => System Can't See It DOS => Defunct Operating System BASIC => Bill's Attempt to Seize Industry Control WWW => World Wide Wait Newsgroups: Thread Bill Gate$: A debate over Bill Gates, good or bad. Goes into patches of discussing 'how great the amiga was/is' and how poor Windows was\is etc, DOS, ..... , is that why we're mostly using PCs now? hmm.. the mind boggles Wormhole notes: Wormhole 2 is posted fine but with overrunning lines , using edit clean up the DECLARE SUB and SUB lines for the rotate subroutine before loading up in QBASIC and tidying, otherwise you'll have a nice big mess to arrange. :) Wormhole 3 is posted fine, all you have to do is join part 1 to part 2 using edit or another likewise package. There are no overrunning lines. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ - SECTION FOUR ---------------------------------------------------------------- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Details about the fanzine: This sction has been cut down this week to allow room for more goodies! :) ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 4 SUBPART 1 | Latest Developments | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i) Web Archives To get the fanzine then come to the official site: http://www.trenham.demon.co.uk/fanzine/ ii) HTML Fanzine Issue 1 of the zine is available at Joe Lawrences page. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/2323 Hopefully there will be HTML versions on the main site too iii) Mailing List To join the mailing list : arelyea@vt.edu with the following line in the subject header: subscribe basix-fanzine Any text in the body of the message will be ignored. The mailing list is run by Mr. Relyea and the Basix Fanzine claims no responsibility for any problems with the mailing list. Tom Lawrences HTML Fanzine is of his responsibility and again the Basix Fanzine claims no responsibility for any problems. ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 4 SUBPART 2 | How do you contribute? | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So how do you contribute? All you have to do is e-mail all of your source code\articles and ideas to: peco@trenham.demon.co.uk - with enquiries bmag@trenham.demon.co.uk - with Q+A, articles, source Please, I appreciate it _so_ much if you could donate code, questions, answers, Basic stories, your own ideas for the fanzine etc. It all helps a lot. ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 4 SUBPART 3 | Credits | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Greets go to (in no real order) : Marco Koegler, wrote the CDROM series Joe Lawrence, wrote the palette series Wolfgang Bruske, Excellent 3D Raycaster for PB Thomas Gohel, Lots of great PB code Tony Relyea, who is the maintainer of the mailing list and owns Russian-under Ware ,a software company, strangely enough! (arelyea@vt.edu) Douggie Green, author of the two great FAQ documents - the newsgroup one and the code one (douggie@blissinx.demon.co.uk) Other people who deserve some credit: Daniel Garlans SWAG team Wrox Press The rather wierd people on IRC #qbasic.. (just a joke!) Remember that this fanzine relies on your contributions. Cheers, ;-) ______________________________________________________________________________ | SECTION 4 SUBPART 4 | Last Words+Next month | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Next Issue: ARTICLES: [Series] Basic Tools - INDEPTH - Part 1 [Topics and Articles] Basic Compilers PowerBasic Review OTHERS: WWW pages and FTP sites YOUR *SHOUT*: Your Questions, Answers and programs ADMIN\FINISHING: Yet still more of The usual Rundown on the Issue 9 fanzine. Last words: Wow, what a long time this has been coming, I cannot apologize enough. This issue I would like to give Brent Newhall congratulations on WormHole, I believe that Brent is one of the most useful regular members of the comp.lang.basic.misc newsgroup. I would like to thank him for everyone who has found his help of great value. Ok, I'm not going to make any promises about the date of the next issue! I know that when I do it always goes wrong, so perhaps if I say nothing it will be out in the next month. :) It's just been snowing outside, raining, there was some thunder, lightning, lots of wind, and it has been around 5 degrees (44 f?) ahh.. lovely weather..... =) Cheers, 19th November 1996 Revision 3