ANTIC4 Screen Designer v1.09

[calamari]

Thought I'd mention a nifty 5200/8bit utility I've been working on.

 

With ANTIC4 you can create an ANTIC mode 4 screen, including character set and color choices. Then, the results can be output to an ASM file ready to include in your project.

 

To download, go to: http://www.azstarnet.com/~jeffryj/5200bas.html

Then, go to the "Other 5200 Files and Links" section.

 

Your suggestions and comments are welcome!

 

calamari

[AlanD]

Jeff was nice enough to write this program as a help to me for Adventure II. I cannot recommend it highly enough. So far it has helped me test tiles out for a few more screens. It really speeds up the process of putting screens together.

AlanD

 

PS I have finally got to the point with work that I can devote more time to the game. Cafeman and myself will start implementing a lot more code from suggestions we have received. All inputs are greatly appreciated.

[calamari]

I've just released a new version of my Antic4 screen editor. Here are the changes from 1.10:

 

v1.20 20Jul02

* Added ability to import just the character set from an Antic4 file

* Added ability to load files from the command line

* Filename extensions are now allowed when saving or loading files

* Changed TASM menu option to ->ASM

 

Please let me know if there are any problems.

 

Thanks,

calamari

[82atari5200]

Is this still available?

[+Allan]

Is this still available?

 

http://kidsquid.com/old/compilers/5200bas/5200bas.html

 

Allan

[calamari]

Is this still available?

 

http://kidsquid.com/old/compilers/5200bas/5200bas.html

 

Allan

 

Sorry, I went with free hosting and now my web page is a steaming pile. Half the pages don't work and there are all sorts of file restrictions.

 

However, at the polite request of an old friend and with the help of VirtualBox I resurrected ANTIC4 and added BMP screenshot output and DLI support (each line can have its own set of 5 colors). So here is ANTIC4 version 2.00. Important to note: the save file format has changed, so when you save your ANT file with 2.00 there's no going back to 1.xx (save your 2.00 work under a new filename and you're safe).

 

Feel free to report bugs via email. Due to switching over to running Linux years ago, I've only tested it in VirtualBox with Windows 98 and DosBox (it's an MS-DOS program). Source code is included and released under the GPLv3, but note that you'll need Microsoft PDS 7.x (or possibly VB-DOS?) to use it directly.

 

Jeff

antic4-2.00.zip

[snicklin]

Nice program here. I've just been playing around with it.

 

Is it coded for DOS or Windows? I guess it is for DOS. It takes up my full screen which is a little problematic (especially as I have dual screen and my setup makes both screens fill with Antic4!). Is it at all possible to have it Windowed? (or would that mean a big re-write?)

 

And also, if I hit alt-enter and then go back to full screen, my mouse pointer initially can't get to the top left of the screen until I've waggled it about a bit!

 

Would it be possible that when I go to load a file, that an option to list the contents of the directory is there?

 

Ha ha, oops, I'm asking for the moon on a stick!!! Sorry! It's a good program and I like it, I wish that there were more PC based cross-development tools.

[calamari]

Nice program here. I've just been playing around with it.

 

Is it coded for DOS or Windows? I guess it is for DOS. It takes up my full screen which is a little problematic (especially as I have dual screen and my setup makes both screens fill with Antic4!). Is it at all possible to have it Windowed? (or would that mean a big re-write?)

 

And also, if I hit alt-enter and then go back to full screen, my mouse pointer initially can't get to the top left of the screen until I've waggled it about a bit!

 

Would it be possible that when I go to load a file, that an option to list the contents of the directory is there?

 

Ha ha, oops, I'm asking for the moon on a stick!!! Sorry! It's a good program and I like it, I wish that there were more PC based cross-development tools.

 

Yeah it's written for MS-DOS, using a Microsoft Basic compiler for MS-DOS. Having moved completely off the Windows platform to Linux at least 5 years ago, I don't mean to be unsympathetic to your issues, it's just that I have no real way of seeing them or maybe even fixing them. However, I have provided the source code, so if you wish to submit patches, I'm happy to include them. I have no plans of rewriting the program for a windowed environment, but feel free to do so, the source is GPLv3

 

As far as a listing of files, my user interface is rather primitive (basically interfacing with the mouse driver directly), and isn't well suited to scrolling lists of files. But, as a workaround, you can load files directly from the command line, so do a "dir *.ant" then run "antic4 filename".

 

Jeff

[snicklin]

I should have read your other message properly, you'd already said it was a DOS program.

 

Yes, without looking at the code, that'd be a major rewrite. Will I develop for it, I'd like to but I have too many things on my plate at the moment but never say never!

Edited November 29, 2010 by snicklin

[barnieg]

If your interested I can supply you with free hosting as you are a freesofware developer.

 

Barnie

 

 

Sorry, I went with free hosting and now my web page is a steaming pile. Half the pages don't work and there are all sorts of file restrictions.

 

However, at the polite request of an old friend and with the help of VirtualBox I resurrected ANTIC4 and added BMP screenshot output and DLI support (each line can have its own set of 5 colors). So here is ANTIC4 version 2.00. Important to note: the save file format has changed, so when you save your ANT file with 2.00 there's no going back to 1.xx (save your 2.00 work under a new filename and you're safe).

 

Feel free to report bugs via email. Due to switching over to running Linux years ago, I've only tested it in VirtualBox with Windows 98 and DosBox (it's an MS-DOS program). Source code is included and released under the GPLv3, but note that you'll need Microsoft PDS 7.x (or possibly VB-DOS?) to use it directly.

 

Jeff

[calamari]

v2.01 29Nov10

* Show hex values of set and selected colors on COLR screen

antic4-2.01.zip

[snicklin]

v2.01 29Nov10

* Show hex values of set and selected colors on COLR screen

 

Excellent! I'll try this when I get home tonight.

[calamari]

v2.02 30Nov10

* Fixed a bug where loading a 1.xx ANT after a 2.xx with colors set in

lines 2-24 did not reset the palette for lines 2-24 back to black.

* Fixed a bug where loading a 1.xx ANT after a 2.xx did not reset the

currently selected line to 1.

antic4-2.02.zip

[+Cafeman]

These upgrades really work well! The DLI color feature is going to greatly improve the fun-factor and efficiency of playing around with colors when building screens. Here's a sample of a quickie I threw together and used "DLI's" to change colors. (before, using the original Antic 4, you only got the 5 basic colors for the whole screen so you had to use your imagination a bit, or have different .ANT files for the same screen).

 

The BMP feature was much needed to - Windows refuses to copy the antic4 screen (to paste into Paint, for example). Now I just click a button to get a dump of the screen.

 

Great work, Jeff.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Cafeman

[ziggystar]

<3!