Billly's Sillly Things ProDOS 8

["Bill Buckels" <bbuckels@mts.net>]

An Apple IIe ProDOS 8 Version of Billy's Silly Things for the Apple II is up 
for download at:

http://www.clipshop.ca/DiskImages/sillypro.zip

This ZIP file contains the source code and disk images both.

Of course the DOS 3.3 Version is also available:

http://www.clipshop.ca/DiskImages/silly.zip

These will be taken forward to a bilingual version shortly. In the meantime 
my associate Mr. T and I need to get the translation done so I present the 
ProDOS version for your enjoyment and that of your offspring. A synopsis 
follows:

Billy's Silly Things
ProDOS Version 2.0
By Bill Buckels May 2008

Program Description
-------------------

Graphics Demo and Children's Play Activity
------------------------------------------

This program is based on "The Mixed-Up Toy game" from Broderbund's PlayRoom 
program. "Three different sections of the body--the head, torso, and legs 
spin around and its up to the kids to change the body parts to match the 
cartoon characters.,,"

It also offers a BSAVE option to save the Silly Things.

It is an Aztec C demo program to show how run length encoded image fragments 
can be used to save disk space and increase file load speed since the disk 
files are smaller and load more quickly than a raw file, despite the extra 
time required to decode the file onto the screen.

The graphics images were captured from the 1989 MS-DOS CGA 4 color version 
of The PlayRoom then saved to BSaved IBM images using my ClipShop program 
which were subsequently chopped into the required pieces using a modified 
version of my Fraggle utility, I then modified my FragRAG utility to provide 
a run length encoded version of my RAG format that I call the RAX format. 
This format is the same as the RAG format with the exception that the 
graphics image data following the width and height header is encoded as one 
chunk using the ZSoft PCX encoding algorithm which is relatively decent and 
unpacks quickly.

History
-------

This program has a little history attached to it as well. Around 1990 when 
my son was just a little guy I would give him Apple II programs to take to 
school.

My kids had The Playroom on their IBM=PC. A ComputerLand Salesman had given 
me an Okey-Dokey Licenced Copy as a gift at one point. I was purchasing a 
fair amount of software like compilers around that time.

So I got busy and created "Billy's Silly Things" since like me my son's name 
is Bill. I did so similarly to what I have done here and wrote it in Aztec C 
for ProDOS. I long ago lost the code, and the program.

But with the resurrection of my Aztec C compiler I decided that it would be 
nice to recreate this program for a graphics demo, and of course for any 
kids that you might be kicking around.

I first created a Apple II DOS 3.3 Version which is functionally identical 
to this one. However I was asked to provide a ProDOS version so with few 
changes I did the ProDOS version as well. Both versions behave the same but 
the ProDOS version has some characteristics of its own.

Differences between DOS 3.3 and ProDOS 8 Versions
-------------------------------------------------

The ProDOS version of ABINLOAD wants a text file called "PICLIST" for the 
BSAVED images that are created by SILLY.SYSTEM. So when SILLY.SYSTEM saves a 
BSaved Image it appends the image name to the PICLIST on the SILLYPROGRAM 
data disk. If the BSaved Image is already in the PICLIST a duplicate image 
name will not be added. If the PICLIST does not exist it will be created.

The reason that ABINLOAD in DOS 3.3 doesn't want a PICLIST is because it 
calls the DOS 3.3 Catalog routine directly to list disk contents. Other than 
that ABINLOAD.PRG in DOS 3.3 is the same program as ABINLOAD.SYSTEM in 
ProDOS 8.

Since ProDOS has a 15 character file name rather than the 30 character 
filename in DOS 3.3 I have limited the automatic naming that is used by 
SILLY.SYSTEM to 15 characters when saving. This is one difference between 
the two versions that was unavoidable. The other thing to remember is that 
when saving in ProDOS the volume name on the DATA disks must be the same as 
the volume name on the program disk. The ProDOS volume on the disks that I 
have provided is SILLYPROGRAM.

On the DOS 3.3 version, if a silly thing was called DRAGON.CARROT.ROBOT the 
ProDOS equivalent is DRAGOCARROROBOT which is descriptive enough considering 
the differences between the two systems.

Bill Buckels
bbuckels@mts.net
May 2008