Because there's no patched IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM for Win95, Win98Gold and WinME. I see no reason why those systems couldn't benefit from this animated logo.
It doesn't dissapear if it waits for a keypress.
I'm as much a programmer as you are. Maybe just a bit more stubborn.
Dunno any of the above-mentioned languages and to be honest, I'd never be able to learn any of them. I've been lurking around C programmers for a few years and I couldn't get anything of it into my head - ASM is just the reminiscent of my old playing with Z80 code.

Now, regarding the code at hand... I've added some protection but it's not 100% foulproof. Then, I realized the buffer cannot be bigger than 32768 bytes or corruption will occur. And finally, the cross-bank bullet is gonna be a pain in the arse - my brains are close to a shortcircuit already.

EDIT] Link removed. File is available for download further on in this thread.

This post has been edited by Drugwash: Mar 9 2008, 05:42 AM

That's a very good idea. I can give you german versions of IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM from Win95 rev. A and B, Win98SE and WinME, if it's allowed. Otherwise ask google.de for +"startdiskette" +"deutsch" +"download"

As I mentioned before: If I turn on the computer and go to get a coffee, I want the computer to be ready. I don't want to come back, press a key and wait five minutes until the computer completing the start up process. If I don't see an error message or a logo because I'm not in front of the pc, It doesn't matter...

Thanks for your new release, I'll test it tomorrow, because it's late...

Stay blessed,

Holli

Current logic is:
- if you bother to install WLL is because most of the times you're in front of the PC and want to see a nice logo
- if you don't see the logo you wanted and you don't get a comprehensive explanation for that, you'll get p***ed off and start posting around
- if you do get the explanation, most likely you'll fix the error and you'll never be bothered by the message again
- if you're not in front of the PC at boot time, you don't need WLL because you're not gonna see any logo anyway

Well, this apart, seems that the new code kinda borked WLL. While it works in SVGACOM, when applied to WLL makes it hang after the animation. I found that the hard way, when this morning my machine wouldn't boot anymore - backups to the rescue.

So now I got even more on my plate. I'll worry about minor details later.

But IF I sit in front of the PC I wanna see a beautiful logo... *lol*

O.k. let's stop some off topic here. One question: In QEMU emulation (Windows and Linux host) the logo always displayed corrupt. It doesn't matter if WLL or SVGACOM. I think, that's a problem of the emulator and connot be fixed. Am I right?

Be blessed,

Holli

You will, as soon as you fix the error by simply copying the correct LOGO.SYS to C:\. I'd do it for you, but I can't, so I just force you to do it yourself. See how stubborn I am?

I'm afraid I cannot test QEMU or any other kind of virtual machine here, because my most powerful machine is a 400MHz Pentium II that runs exclusively on Win98SE, while the other 2 are 166 and 200 MHz respectively, the former with Win95B and the latter with Win98SE (that was my primary machine until Nov 2006). However I believe that the display corruption could be QEMU's issue, since the code works fine on my 400 and 200 MHz machines.

The one with Win95 has a 2MB PCI CirrusLogic videocard and also displays a corrupt logo (all image is 'packed' into the first video bank) but I considered it a videocard issue, probably no/bad VESA implementation. I left this investigation for a later time.

Hm, QEMU emulates a Cirrus Logic (5440?) PCI video card. And yes, the logo was displayed only in the first video bank, too. So that could be the problem.

I believe so. My card's chipset is CL-GD5446-V.
You may contact me directly to send those files, if you want; I'm online now.

*lol* The Linux QEMU launcher told me it's an GD5446 PCI video card....what a cool emulater - it also emulates the hardware bugs.

Edit: QEMU can emulate an other video card without this bug!

This post has been edited by holli: Mar 7 2008, 10:40 AM

OK, time for some more playin' around. I see a lot of interest in this project - 5 downloads, whoa! - and also lots of feedback... not. Oh well, nobody's gonna die from that. It's just that the last version of SVGACOM wasn't performing very well, at least not when patched into the actual WLL code. So I had to change a few things, mainly internal subroutine positioning and handling. It worked fine on my main machine and the 200MHz test one.

Still, I'm not gonna publish the WLL code for now as it lacks a few things and the final position of the parameters inside the bitmap has not been decided yet. However, I have created a first version of a bitmap logo patcher, using the current parameter positioning. So I give you the latest SVGACOM version and introducing LogoTool. They should work fine with each other, but please calculate progressbar position and size so it would not cross between video banks, otherwise the animation would appear corrupt. This is the protection I didn't yet manage to put in place and the main reason I'm holding back the WLL release.

[EDIT]
I have removed links to the respective version of SVGACOM. Please use the latest available further on in the thread.
LogoTool is included within the SVGACOM package.

This post has been edited by Drugwash: Mar 9 2008, 05:40 AM

compiler work, for most people it will be unusable - just because they dont know how to compile, or not willing to download any assembler.

1. standard wll does not work for me now. i dont know why.
2. svgacom does not work at all. i get some unreadable message and later "press a key to start windows".

I am not sure if i did things correctly. first of all i compiled svgacom, then i put it in c: with your logo. then i executed svgacom in dos mode, but i get no image - only the message. than i tried replace logo sys with your logo but still no effect and same err message

later i tried to replace wll by svgacom files but with same effect

That's why there's an already compiled SVGACOM.COM in the package: for people that can't/won't spend time compiling. The ASM file is there just for those who wouldn't trust a precompiled file.
That's what I need to find out and fix. You'll have to offer me details about your hardware and software environment you've been testing it with.
The message should be very clear, in English and read either File C:\LOGO.SYS is not present or File C:\LOGO.SYS size mismatch, followed by Press a key to start Windows... a few lines below.
(In the version posted below I have changed the error messages to reflect the real name of the required file for this testing version of the code)

That would be the standard message that should display with a WLL standard installation. However, in case of SVGACOM, the name of the file that it's looking for is not LOGO.SYS, but startup.bmp. I intentionally shipped the last 2 versions of SVGACOM with a renamed bitmap file, so a distracted user would get the error message at first run and attempt to fix the problem. My bad is that I forgot to mention the real name that the bitmap should bear.

If you got anything else but one of the above 2 messages, please describe what you saw and/or post a screenshot if possible.
OK, so first of all you can run SVGACOM in Windows too, there should be no problem. Then, as I mentioned above, the name of the test logo file should be startup.bmp. Just place SVGACOM.COM and startup.bmp together in the same folder and run SVGACOM.COM - the logo should be displayed. If it does, please tell me if you notice anything unusual in the animation shaft or at the bitmap itself. If there's any error, please describe as accurate as possible.
SVGACOM cannot replace WLL. It is intended solely as a test for the animation itself and does not contain the necessary routines to start up Windows, so replacing WLL with SVGACOM will only result in Windows being unable to boot.

One last consideration: LogoTool will ask to save the file as LOGO.SYS, for maximum convenience for when WLL.COM will be released. However, as mentioned above, the SVGACOM code requires the file to be named as startup.bmp, so please make sure you save your file as startup.bmp, for now. For the time being, do not overwrite your current LOGO.SYS in the C:\ folder with the one saved by LogoTool.

I hope the information above will be helpful. Thank you for testing, so far!

Here is the latest version of SVGACOM, with fixed error messages and improved readme. I have packed LogoTool together with it and also added a readme for it. Enjoy!

[EDIT] Link removed. File is available for download further on in this thread. [/EDIT]

This post has been edited by Drugwash: Mar 9 2008, 12:13 PM

the actual trouble with svgacom was that i didnt know that the file must be named startup.bmp, because in the pack i downloaded was startupOK.bmp.

also the error message was not written in english. it was an amount of random symbols with no sense to me.

right now i was able to execute svgacom with your bitmap (very ugly ).

with this i can test these things:
- when or where to execute svgacom while bootup

(wll had one error. in some versions of io and command it executed as last thing when dos boot was complete, so user has seen all the dos text underlying, in the italian version of these files i was able to see logo as first thing during boot and user was not bothered by the text)

- what about scandisk
- what about dos
- what about my graphics driver which has currently broken logo graphics during boot

edit:
a) when svgacom was executed standalone from autoexec it prevented execution of other programs in line.
when svgacom was execcuted as wll.com i had similar error as before. logo apeared but windows was not starting. this also occurs with normal wll... maybe the problem is in my windows but i dont know where search.

This post has been edited by Offler: Mar 9 2008, 08:22 AM

Please reread the edited post above. SVGACOM cannot be run instead of WLL, as it lacks the code that calls the startup of Windows. So Windows will never start with it, because it can't. SVGACOM is only part of WLL, intended for animation tests only. I only intend to post the whole WLL code when I would have rendered it as foulproof as possible. Got a working version here for personal use but it still has the same quirks that SVGACOM has.

Regarding the garbled error messages, there's not much info you offered me so I'm not sure where to start searching for faults. I'll investigate the issue though. One thing you could do is open SVGACOM.ASM, scroll to the end of file until you find the string definitions, and replace the text with something shorter and/or use some special characters (please don't remove the dollar sign ($) at the end of the string), compile the code and test it, both in DOS mode and under Windows (make sure the logo bitmap is not there, so you can actually get the error message). Tell me how it went.
Obviously, since the code contains a wait for a keypress to exit. WLL instead contains a timer that allows execution of other modules during the animation.

this is the error message when i execute svgacom without startup.bmp

http://www.slayershrine.wz.cz/wll.jpg

i cant help more in this phase - maybe later when the svgacom will be "bootable"...

This post has been edited by Offler: Mar 9 2008, 10:31 AM