so the first complete test of svgacom... (actual version)

at first reboot the logo appeared normally, but later the image corrupted (maybe due my graphics card). system freezed

On second same behaviour but system booted sucessfully.

on third no logo appeared

on fourth logo appeared but freezed without corruption but system freeezed...

i have no point where i can indentify the problem. two problems regarding original and tihiys wll appeared - buffers and graphic driver...

I need a drink, maybe that would help me understand something...

1. SVGACOM DOES NOT BOOT INTO WINDOWS! WLL does!
So if you think that copying SVGACOM.COM to C: or C:\Windows would make the system boot with it, you're completely wrong. It will still use the current WLL.COM in C:\Windows and any errors you receive will be due to that module, not SVGACOM.
2. SVGACOM ONLY TESTS THE ANIMATION ROUTINE!
This is useful for logo creators and/or code debuggers.
3. CORRECT WAY OF TESTING SVGACOM:
a ) Testing in DOS mode:
- boot into DOS mode (press F8 during boot -> Command prompt only)
- go to SVGACOM's directory and start SVGACOM.COM
- observe its behavior; let it animate for as long as you like (if it does display anything, that is)
- press a key to exit animation
- repeat the above steps in a ) for as many times as you like
Please note that testing under Windows is not absolutely necessary - it's just for convenience, in case you change something in the code or in your logo bitmap and wanna see the result. As the code is meant to run in DOS mode at boot time, any errors while running it under Windows are not much relevant, unless it screws Windows up badly.
b ) Testing under Windows:
- boot into Windows normally but try not to start any applications except strictly necessary ones; resident antivirus or similar services should temporarily be disabled
- go to SVGACOM's folder and start SVGACOM.COM
- observe its behavior; let it animate for as long as you like (if it does display anything, that is)
- press a key to exit animation
- note any abnormal behavior afterwards, such as video corruption, hangs, instant reboots (God forbid), etc.
- if everything goes well, repeat the above steps in b ) for as many times as you like

Below there's a test version of the WLL code - everything else is unchanged from the previous version posted above. I have added a loop that checks for the Windows directory for a maximum of 50 times after which it bails out. If it won't find the directory or will find the reference to it in a wrong place (that's what I suspect), the usual freeze will occur. Later on I may add some more debugging code, to see where exactly the freeze occurs.
I might need some help for the correct understanding of the FindWin procedure.

Test version of WLL.COM

i have tried your package with instwll.bat and your logo sys... the behaviour described is linked with this type of installation... from the previous post i thought you have imported to tihiys wll your code... if not sorry.

i have read readme.txt from your package and have done all as described there and the result is that freezing behaviour...

My WLL has always been synced with Tihiy's and it's obviously based on his code. You may compare the scripts if you want.

However, I have added a lot of code for the progressbar coordinates feature and the last version above has an extra loop trying to catch the freezing bug.

Please note that the IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM found in the package are for English version of Win98SE (4.10.2222A).

I am currently working on a universal installer for any version of Windows 95 and 98 (not sure if ME is worth the bother) so each system will keep its original files, which will be patched in place.

You may wanna replace the English files with the Slovak (sorry for the earlier mistake) ones from Tihiy's RP7 package, files that are already patched for use with WLL.

Please test the above version of WLL.COM and tell me if freezing still occurs and if the rate is the same as before or not (how many freezes in how many boot attempts).

can be your wlll used with standard unpatched io and command com from win98se (or older systems such as win95)? i am asking because i want to keep my slovak (not czech) files...

So you're saying it's hanging when searching for winbootdir variable?
That's the first time i've heard of it. It may happen randomly? With specific DOS settings?
Weird code

this sounds like a fun little project. But why are you still using 98?? No disrespect intended, I’m just curious.

Unpatched command.com/io.sys will start win.com instead of wll.com, so no, it can't be used. What you can try doing is to open these files (after backing them up and creating a bootdisk, of course) in a Hexadecimal Editor and replace every instance of "WIN.COM" with "WLL.COM" and test.

No, they need to be patched. I'm working on such patcher but I'm hindered by some stubborn code, added to my lack of knowledge. You may however do as alexanrs mentioned above. I have used the XVI32 editor for this job.
Yes, this happens under Windows. I have copy/pasted the respective procedure (with all associated variables and stuff) and on running the compiled file a lot of times subsequently, it sometimes yielded the right result and other times I'd get 'Windows folder not found' (that was a debug string display).

I never understood what exactly that routine is meant to do anyway, except for searching for some wininit.ini file, which is not present on my computer. I guess there has to be some other way of getting the working WinDir - I was thinking of MSDOS.SYS, as it contains WinBootDir=C:\Windows; would it be OK to use it or would there be problems with multiboot environments, virtual machines and such? I can't test such complex configurations here on my limited hardware.

I would have done this patcher in AutoHotkey just like LogoTool, but the uninstall should work in pure DOS mode, should anything bad happen preventing Windows from booting.

Why would one launch WLL under Windows? And oh, reading \msdos.sys (\winboot.ini) is a nice idea.

Dunno why one would launch WLL under Windows, but it may happen in DOS mode too. And the problem was that I wanted to use the said routine in the (un)installer, which would usually run under Windows, at least at install time.

Anyway, I totally scrapped that routine and created another one that reads MSDOS.SYS - this one seems to work fine under Windows, but I'm extremely tired now and can't test in DOS mode.
There's only one tiny issue that keeps me from advancing: a parity check wouldn't work. The routine is as follows (snippet):Well, the last test instruction wouldn't test parity, it returns zero; first one works OK. The pres variable is 1Fh at the moment of testing, checked in debugger.



Well, gotta go to sleep now - I took some pills that close my eyes against my will. Laterz!

[EDIT] Scrap that, I replaced with:
bt pres,4
jnc instwll
and everything's fine now. Weird coding...

I think I managed to put together a universal installer. I haven't tested it yet - just partly ran it through the debugger. I'm dead tired, so I'll go to sleep now and test it on the spare machine later when I wake up.

It doesn't yet ask anything, just does its job: installs if WLL.COM is not present in %windir%, otherwise removes WLL.COM and patches IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM to their normal strings.

It prints a lot of debug info though.

my system now show signs that source of some problems may be mechanical. Until those problems shall be fixed my bugreports are usable only partially.

right now i am sure that freezing during bootup is caused by wll, and USB device card is only catalyst of the problem (many shared IRQs). also my settings in config sys regarding to buffers shows that maximum buffer value does not work correctly with wll.

No problem, I hope you manage to fix it soon. My work on WLL itself has stalled for a while since I'm working on the installer.
It's almost ready, just got a few pointers to fix as it's patching at wrong addresses.

Then I'll have to improve the copy routine so it wouldn't use that large buffer I allocated currently and maybe add some options, like Install/Reinstall/Uninstall.
I wish this toothache would gimme a break...

[EDIT]
Guess I got lucky. Here's the first BETA DEBUG version of the installer/unistaller. For now it's called Patcher, as it sounded more appropriate. I'm curious if any AV would pick it as a virus or something, considering it patches files.

Momentarily, on installation it only patches IO.SYS & COMMAND.COM and copies WLL.COM to %windir%. For this, WLL.COM has to be in the same folder as Patcher. It does not (yet) copy any LOGO.SYS to C:, so that should be done manually, preferrably backing up the old LOGO.SYS first.

The uninstall is pretty straightforward too: patches the files back and deletes WLL.COM from %windir%.

It does not create any backups so be extremely careful when trying it. Better back up IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM before hand, in case anything goes wrong.

It has been tested on my both Win98SE machines - no test on Win95 yet, I am too tired.
Any feedback would be appreciated (except for "ugh, ugly code" - I know that already )

Click to view attachment

one important thing. with wll system frozen on usb device previously. now it has frozen on soundcard. i changed some things in bios...

as i mentioned before wll is very unpredictable. all i know is that with large ram, many devices it may cause freezing. without wll system boots correctly. always. wll makes my system more likely to freeze during bootup, and maybe it is responsible for some other things which happened last days on my system...

this is report for Tihiys patched wll.

i have to rebuild my computer to fix all possible mechanical problems (i added some cards to it and i want to mount them so tight as possible). if the problems persists i still cannot use wll.

Hmmm .....

I've been wanting to give wll.com a good whack since some time last year ... Finally, Drugwash took up the challenge of doing something to wll.com ...

I have been helping Drugwash with his attempt and I promised him that I'll look at some of the more annoying issues with wll.com last weekend ... Drugwash is currently doing some stuff with io.sys patcher and I will temporarily oversee bugs squashing until I quit or someone better takes over .... (yeah, I sucks) ...

A week has passed mixing this 'cokctail' and the result is a clone based on wll.com and renamed to wbl.com .....

I hope those who were having issues (or not) with wll.com could spend a few minutes making some test runs with wbl.com ... No installation is necessary to test it out ... If you find bugs with it, please report. If it works good, you can just copy it over wll.com ...

Wbl.com have been tested on Nvidia, Ati & i810 gfx ... I have made major changes and re-arrangements. Source code will be released within a week if no annoying issues are brought up ... Anyone who wishes for the source code now, please pm me (as I may make/add more changes to it) ...

There are now 6 files in the archive:
1. readme.txt - some notes & description of progressbar creation
2. splash.sys - bmp logo file with embeddedd coordinates data
3. wbl.asm - the source code
4. wbl1.com - brick animation without fade-in
5. wbl2.com - brick animation with fade-in (mehotd 2 - more memory usage)
6. wbl3.com - brick animation with fade-in (method 3 - less memory usage)

Important: these must should be run in pure dos ... running in dos box may crash it as it will make direct memory access here and there ... update: wbl1.com and wbl2.com can be run within windows ... wbl.com will not ...

To make test runs, copy splash.sys to root folder C:\ and run wbl1.com ... See if any visual smear/glitches occurs ... I'm interested to know if there's any issues here ... (my test runs shows no issues)

wbl2.com is usefull when you want to see each brick/bullet/progressbar movement on screen ...

If you have RP7 logo applet installed and willing to make test runs, copy splash.sys to root folder C:\ and copy wbl.com as wll.com (Don't forget to make backup copy of wll.com) ... Reboot, see result and please report any issues ... (This is the real test)

Alternatively, boot to dos ... copy splash.sys and wbl.com to root directory and run wbl at prompt ...

Changes to the bmp logo file:
Basically still a bmp file with coordinates embedded in the 4th byte palette table. It is unused for 256 color bmps and deemed safe for use ... Offset are listed below, two bytes required for each ...

Offset for embedded val (from BOF)
topHor : offset 57 & 61
topVer : offset 65 & 69
width : offset 73 & 77
height : offset 81 & 85
shaftw : offset 89 & 93

Changes to wll.com and reborn as wbl.com
1. Timer chain/re-entrant/safe unhook
2. Internal stack allocation
3. Code re-arrangements & comments
4. Replaced brick animation routine
5. VESA checks
6. BMP file/header checks
7. Banks calc'ed using vesa wingranularity
8. Various cleanups

Target of this exercise:
1. Resolve intermittent brick glitches (drawn way off shaft)
2. Resolve ati screen bubu ..

Thank you & rgds

p/s: Before I forget again, thank you Tihiy for the source codes .....


WBL archive with source codes
Click to view attachment

Edit/Added:
Added WBL (fade-in) archive
Removed older versions

WBL source code & binaries

i have resolved the problems on my own system. The freezing during bootup was caused by low buffers value (!!!). Originally i had buffers set to 99,8 - largest possible value. with it system worked, and i did not measured or recognized any issues with performance. Thats quite strange, because reccomended value was always around 20, and files around 100-150... I have files and buffers at topmost values and the system works as swiss clock.

Because of issue with wll i set down the buffers size to 20. that fixed issue when wll wont load logo and dropped to dos. quite strange for an app of this type. With this setting i was able to run for some period, later i recognized errors during bootup - mostly freezing at usb device at first boot, and later after bios changes freezing with sound card.

i thought that freezing of sound was caused by wll, but it did not fix after i removed wll. I set Buffers back to 99.8 and the system works again flawlessly. The reasons of this very strange behaviour are mystery for me. most users experienced problems with high values of buffers and this is first time i experienced opposite behaviour.

since my computer is far behind standards i describe the HW config. maybe you shall see something what can help you.

Abit VH6-T "Immolator" (modded bios, all hidden settings unlocked - specially acpi, added logo)
Intel Pentium III-S 1,260 Mhz @ 1,482 Mhz, 512kb cache
PQI SDRam 133@156 Mhz, 3x 512Mb sticks - Same series
Asus Radeon x850XT 256Mb Ram
LeadTech Winfast DTV2000h Tv tuner
Creative SoundBlaster LIVE! 5.1 (dos and windows driver)
Adaptec 19160 SCSI controller (scanner and harddisk)
STLab USB2.0/Firewire controller
Intel Pro 10/1000 GT Lan Card

here is autoexec bat:
@echo off
cls
@CTTY NUL
LFNFOR ON
mode con codepage prepare=((852) C:\OS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
mode con codepage select=852
lh keyb sl,,C:\OS\COMMAND\keybrd2.sys
c:\dos\xmsdsk\xmsdsk.exe 513732 K: /c1 /t /y
rem c:\dos\xmsdsk\xmsdsk.exe 524288 K: /c1 /t /y
rem C:\OS\COMMAND\label K: scorpion
lh C:\dos\blaster\sbeinit.com
c:\dos\shsucdx.com /d:AADVARK /Q /l:f
c:\dos\cmouse\ctmouse.exe
rem lh c:\dos\lsl
rem c:\dos\e1000odi
rem c:\dos\e1000pkt 0x60
rem c:\dos\ipxodi.com /a
rem lh vc
rem c:\umbpci\fastvid\fastvid.exe 111 -128 d0000000
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\PROGRA~1\ATITEC~1\ATICON~1
c:\dos\umbpci\umbfill.com
CTTY CON

and config sys:
SWITCHES=/F /E
DOS=HIGH,UMB,noAUTO
FILEShigh=255
FILES=255
BUFFERShigh=99,8
BUFFERS=99,8
LASTDRIVE=k
FCBShigh=1,0
FCBS=1,0
STACKShigh=0,0
STACKS=0,0
DEVICE=C:\OS\HIMEM.SYS /numhandles=128 /hmain=64 /TESTMEM:OFF /Q
DEVICE=C:\dos\EMM386.EXE RAM NOTR
SET PATH=C:\OS;C:\OS\COMMAND;c:\vc;C:\DOS
SET BLASTER=A240 I7 D3
SET CTSYN=C:\OS
DEVICEhigh=C:\DOS\QCDROM.SYS /D:AADVARK
rem SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /E:1280 /L:160 /U:160 /P /F
ACCDATE=C- D- E- F-
DEVICEhigh=C:\OS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICEhigh=C:\OS\IFSHLP.SYS
devicehigh=C:\OS\COMMAND\DISPLAY.SYS con=(ega,,1)
Country=421,852,C:\OS\COMMAND\country.sys

try to test WLL with some really mad buffers and files values and watch its behaviour. for me is this only config where system works without trouble, but the wll with this config just wont run.

Honestly I've never seen so much tweaking in those two poor boot files. Only once, for an old mobo, was I forced to use some parameter in CONFIG.SYS - something like /M:6 or so, can't remember exactly - otherwise everything was almost stock. There might have been some minor tweaks at times, while playing with different tweaking tools. For comparison, here's my files on the main machine:

Autoexec.bat:

Config.sys:

There are some tweaks in MSDOS.SYS though. Here you are:
MSDOS.SYS:


I've seen something in your files that I was afraid of: Windows folder not called 'Windows' as usual but 'OS'. That's gonna negatively impact the Patcher, as it's not yet flexible to accept custom path/name to the Windows folder. Actually this is something I was gonna work on next and I see there's good reason to.

However, I'd be interested in seeing if you get the error message regarding the Windows folder not being found. The Patcher will abort the current operation if any of IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM, Windows folder are not found, so no files would be patched/installed/deleted in this case.

Now on my side, today I've had one of these days again. The spare monitor wouldn't start up anymore, the second test machine (Win95B) wouldn't recognize the old HP D2826 monitor, then when I managed to install the driver it would stay blank on reboot because it didn't like the 'Adapter default' refresh rate and I had to boot in safe mode and switch to 'Optimal', then installing a second videocard (S3 Trio64V2/DX) to see if the logo animation shows up. I had trouble installing its driver, then the resolution wouldn't go up to 1024x768 as it was because of only 1MB of video memory and so on.

When I finally managed to get it running the animation showed up properly, no freeze. Under Windows, I tried Patcher on it and... it wouldn't work. Said it couldn't find \IO.SYS and \COMMAND.COM. Tried to put Patcher in any possible folder (C:\Windows, C:\ root) but no dice. Rebooted in DOS mode - no keyboard. I went for the hammer as I had an urge to smash it into pieces, but reason prevailed (fortunately). Went into BIOS, tried a few settings blindly, until I found I had to disable USB keyboard support to have a working AT keyboard in DOS.

Oh, forgot to mention the stupid BIOS revision where I had to choose 'System keyboard: Absent', otherwise I'd get that classic moronic error: Keyboard error - Press F1 to resume.

Now, after I got a keyboard in DOS, I tried Patcher again and... again it wouldn't work - same error. So now I'm wondering what is the difference between the 2 machines that it works fine with and this one where it doesn't. I'm only using INT10h and INT21h for checking those files' presence. I don't think it could be something CPU-related (Pentium P54C 166MHz - no MMX). Maybe the DOS version in Win95...

Anyway, I need to work that out and also check PassingBy's 'baby' so enough blabbering.

[EDIT]
Actually this was an easy one: MSDOS.SYS had arhs attributes and could not be opened to read. Fixed it and improved so it preventively removes and then brings back all involved files' attributes. Patcher works now in Win95B too. Now gotta debug the debug routine that was showing wrong messages.

My system is not pure Win98SE machine. i use it because i really like full dos support. no emulators. Dos provide me also browsing where i can visit pages which are infected and i cannot be attacked in that environment Win32 virus will hardly work in Dos environment.

But thanks, your config sys and autoexec brings me to an idea that WLL is something which existed in Windows ME. This system was working on same base as win98 but it was masked as full Win32 system without dos base... I am sure that most people dont use DOS drivers with wll... and that may be the problem

Normally i use dos driver for mouse, cdrom and soundcard. Dos games with all this glittering support and hardware work different as on PC speaker, without mouse and usually cracked without video... In some very special cases i can use lancard to see if and how dos games support IPX or TCP protocol.

also for these reasons i use emm386 and because i have toomuch ram i use XMSDSK.

and maybe this all stuff makes wll sick.

Hmmm .....

I've added a nice touch to WBL today ... A simple fade-in routine for the bootsplash logo ... WBL will now fade-in the logo and animate brick/progressbar simultaneously ... Get it from below, make test runs and let me know how it goes ...

http://www.msfn.org/board/Fixes-and-enhanc...745#entry746745

Rgds

Now that's awesome! I'm glad my code was any help to you!
If you are be able to fix scandisk bugs (blue screen without anything) on nVidia cards, that'll be super nice!

is the dos scandisk during bootup really needed? i experienced more issues with it than with win version (more data lost, more trouble created as cured).

WBL tested:
positives:
- can be executed from autoexec.bat (in this case doesnt need patched io and command)
- works with buffers=99,8

negatives:
- does not work with my logos (wrong size), and with svgacom logos
- system reboots when text is displayed from behind
- text from backround overlays the original screen

I second that. It's been years since I disabled the DOS scandisk at startup (from TweakUI, for the interested) and I noticed a major improvement as opposed to old times when it was enabled.

However, even the Windows Scandisk (and it seems to be the ME one, IIRC) has some problems - most errors I get when running it are related to MS-DOS mod names being longer than 66 characters. Usually happens in Yahoo profiles, Macromedia Flash Application Data, Java installation foder, .NET Assembly foder. Off-topic anyway.

About the DOS games, I think you'd be better off either running them with DOS properties in Windows (\%windir%\DOSSTART.BAT holds the settings) - where you could specify any additional drivers and settings you may need, such as DOS mouse, SoundBlaster settings, CD-ROM, etc - or just dual-boot with plain MS-DOS. I believe running DOS drivers and software in parallel with Windows will just lead to trouble.

As for my work, I really wanted to bring an improved installer today, but I went to sleep at 7 AM without being able to figure out a simple file copy issue. Probably registers that don't go to 32bit. Basically it's almost done, just gotta fix that little quirk.

And shamefully I still didn't get to even open the code for WBL, as caught as I was with all this. I promise I will as soon as possible, maybe it'll help me fix this last issue too. So... laterz!

P.S. Offler, PassingBy's logo uses different coordinates storage addresses and routine, so I guess I'll have to check the code a.s.a.p. and modify LogoTool to allow choosing between the two versions, or just create a separate version of it just for WBL - I'll see what I can come up with.

Hmmm .....


I may have an idea or two ..... I have a plate full to chew right now; will be back in a couple of days to whack scandisk issue ... (I'll read up a bit and simulate dirty bit ... then I'll see how to add it into a nice cocktail)


1. Logo validation routine:
a. splash.sys must exist
b. Filesize 308,278 bytes (301K)
c. Must have BMP signature
d. Must be bmp ver 3 (40bytes header)
e. Must be 256 color.
f. Must be 640px width
g. brick size width & height must be non-zero

I will stick to embedded data in palette table as no random color dots will appear at the top left of screen as with recent svgacom versions. It's the current best solution for variable brick position & size. However, there is a limit to the brick/progressbar size. It is fixed to 512 bytes ... This is not a bug but a feature ...
(Note to meself: check for bricksize out of range)
Enlarging the brick size will eat up dos low memory ... wbl has a very humble target of not eating more than 2KB before win.com ... moving to higher memory is not in the pipeline ...

2. Text in background means message outputs are sent after wbl changed gfx mode ... probably some error msgs from memory manager or something that caused the reboot ... (There's a dos console-output-redirect-to-file TSR utility somewhere that may help you get those msgs ... it'll eat up memory though ...)

3. This is an 'inheritance' from wll.com ... Gfx/text mode changing/swapping is the issue ... I'll see if I can make them play nice and still stay within 2KB limit ... A working solution to this is also linked to scandisk issue above and may take a while to get properly cooked (nope, it's not fastfood) ...

Anyone who made test runs, kindly leave a note whether its working or otheriwse ... Inputs (pros & cons) are appreciated ...

Rgds

Uh-oh. I've tested wbl on real system with i915GM, worked fine.
But! When i've tried it in VMWare, if was kinda catastrophic.
First boot, after fade-in (with no animation) Windows started registry restore and was rebuilding registry for a long time.
Second boot, complete hang, no activity, no animation.
Third boot, scanreg started -> system halt.
I should say that in VMWare video register manipulation often produces unexpected results. (With latest WLL, it is fine, even hang problems solved).
Also, i've noticed that you're fade-in before actually starting win.com?
Then it should be like that, i think:
- Zero palette
- Load picture
- Save bricks
- Erase bricks (empty shaft)
- Animate palette in ~500 ms
- Start animation from invisible left
- Start win.com
Otherwise, no profit. And uh... you're already 3KB, are you shrinking memory on loading procedures?
And I would like to see source, and help you (or take all good things for my profit ). You can always contact me via PM or ICQ...


Edit: oh, simulate dirty bit? That's awesome if you can, since i was unable to

my logo is 2bytes larger. dont know why. (256 colors, 640x, version unknown)

the message on background was no error message. it was info that updates are being installed (classical info while installing anything)

Wow, nice work you have going here. I'll test it on my laptop too these days and let you know if there are any bugs.

I third the idea of DOS scandisk being the worst disk check utility ever. I think the DOS versions of Norton Disk Doctor or Disk Minder from Network Associates's Nuts & Bolts are a million times better. Those two programs are old enough to be classified as abandonware, and are pretty tough to find too (particularly Nuts & Bolts), so why don't we patch one of those in one of the 95/98 service packs? It takes just a rename.

Well, well... looks like I missed the party, huh? Eh, I've been kinda busy retouching the installer and tidying up the code.

I think I managed to get it recognize the current active drive and Windows path as well as any %windir% name up to 50 chars. Also added LOGO.SYS automatic copy from current dir to active drive's root dir and reduced buffer size to 32 bytes.

So basically now it's a full-fledged installer/uninstaller and has been renamed as such. Ladies and gentlemen, we are proudly presenting...

WLL INSTALLER/UNINSTALLER v0.0.1.1 : Click to view attachment

Next I'll be working on adapting LogoTool to the palette storing-version of WBL and probably adopt the same solution myself in my WLL. Keep in touch.

Note to PassingBy: I've checked your code (finally) and for now there's 2 things that popped at me as not quite right:
1. The way you're moving the bullet is wrong. When the 3 bricks that make the bullet are not identical in shape/looks, the operation at the end of the shaft will make it look like you're cutting out the snake tail.
2. The debug versions would not run if the bmp is not present in C:\ - I see this as a flaw, because as a debug version it should run from whatever path and recognize the bmp in the same folder. Solution is to add an IFDEBUG condition that loads and alternate path for the bmp.

There may be problems in VMWare because of the VESA check. I noticed in the original code from Tihiy, that the respective check was disabled, exactly because of VMWare so I didn't touch it in my version either as I have no way of checking the behavior under such environment (as you already know).

Oh and thank you for the nice ideas I got from your code.

And here's the new version of LogoTool: LogoTool2. Based on first version of LogoTool, it is designed to patch exclusively WBL-style bitmaps (using the palette storage addresses rather than visible area as in the first version).

It is intended for creating SPLASH.SYS animated boot logos, solely for use with PassingBy's WBL.COM.

Please note that the logos created with this tool will not animate on either Tihiy's original WLL.COM or my mod.



Download: LogoTool2 v2.0.0.1

Sorry for the temporary inconvenience, previous version was bad.
Oh and the one above got debug info on. May be useful to someone though, so I let it be.

Here's the final, working version: LogoTool2 v2.0.0.2

Whew!

Hmmm .....

Right, I'm back .....


Uh-oh, will do VMWare test runs later ... perhaps in the next 2-3 days (my underpowered PC no longer have the turbo button) ... Yeah, that kinda sucks ... I have a feeling its not the vga registers, probably something else ... i'll look into it soon ... well, worse case scenario is I put some checks for VMw environment and skip whatever that bugs VMw ...


Yes, that is correct. Fade-in happens before win.com. I had fade-in done using three different methods :
1. integrated into Timer (lazy messy work, off to recycle bin)
2. chained to Timer (I like this one, its so smooth but it's fat)
3. moved to Loadbmp (I prefer this one coz I can dump it)

All three have pros and cons. I chose no. 3 to minimize final memory usage. Two tables are used to skip palette register read/compare. If I use only one reference table, I'll have to read/compare palette registers and I'll lose some speed. Method ex-1 & 2 will animate, fade AND run win.com seemingly all at once ... but this makes it fat ...

Fade-in code squeezed to less than 200 bytes. Plus two table and after win.com, WBL ate 3.5KB (that's 4KB locked out) which is not acceptable to me ... I want slim WBL not fat cellulite eye candy ... 2048 bytes is the most WBL will eat and no more ...

I don't want to be too creative and save table in offscreen vga ram ... I'll keep it simple and still have the impression of fade-in, so method 3 works best for me ... method 2 is also available for anyone to make test runs ...

Yeah, the zero palette code was missing ... on i810 I didn't notice it but on the ati it was glaring at me ... That's already fixed ... Method 3 fade-in delay is about 1 tick (55 ms, 1/18th sec) apart (on my slow machine it looks like 2 ticks)and it allows for a delay anywhere between 1 to 65535 ticks apart using BIOS timer unless it overflows (that's only theoretically, but I'm lazy to actually measure it ...)

For fade-in to work nicely across the board, I now wait for retrace. Without it, logo flickers badly ...


... WBL can be a truckload feature full ~64KB in filesize but must use no more than 2048 bytes "resident" before win.com ... Currently WBL (fade-in method 3) is about 1.8KB "resident" ... Codes are split into retained/expendable sections ...


Sure, let me put more lame comments and a nice readme first ..... It'll be ready for release this weekend ... yeah, definitely coming soon to a computer near you ...


There's no right or wrong here ..... (I did mentioned to you before that it was supposed to be my "major re-arranged version") ... I've given it some thought before I replaced it. I want something easy to use and lame easy to code ... The brick is working to my minimum specs and everyone's invited to do whatever to it (once released) ... its a limitation but definitely not a bug ....


Ok, as you wish ... it's now added to the source and I no longer will post debug binaries since the source will be available soon ...

In your case : "Use the source, Luke" ...


I must have missed that original code or the original code have missed me ... was it checks for mode change or something else ? I've just implemented a different way (better way? maybe) to check for mode change and drop that int 10h vesa mode check ... I believe that when win.com loads it disables VESA extension and VESA function AL=03 becomes text mode function AL=03 ... That's probably why text mode appears before windows loads .....


To everyone, I have made many small changes to WBL codes ... The new WBL archive will have both fade-in methods for test runs ... also contains new unhook trigger, fixed off-shaft-brick draws and missed-erase-brick draws (I do hope so and I need feedback on this), flicker free fade-in and some other minor fixes ... The target/objective for this current exercise is deemed to be fulfilled if no related bugs is reported ...

New target/objective that will be looked into :
- VMw erratic/hang issue; -and-
- scandisk screen display issue
Oh boy, this will take a while .....


Rgds

The original SVGACOM code I've been performing test with contains:and the actual code is:

I've stumbled into a fading code myself, while playing with some color shifting routine. The effect however looks incomplete and I miss a timer.
Also switched to palette storing in my code too, so LogoTool v1 will become obsolete.

I've been thinking about watermarking the new logo versions with our own 'magic number' so the code would recognize them at once and instantly reject any other file, be it 640x480 8bpp bitmap or whatever. Would it be OK to use the 'Reserved' space or should we grab another 2-3 palette bytes, for safety? The header's being read first so I thought it would be better to fit it in there before going through any more code. Waiting for your opinion.

I did add zero-palette code to a test version but the image still briefly flashes when pixels are loaded, before going to a complete blank, on my nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 card.

Can't focus too much on the code these days, as I have some health issues to attend to, but still trying to keep up with the news.

Hmmm .....


That's probably why I missed it ... I didn't use svgacom style for test runs ... I embed my debug routines into WBL for certain debugging purposes ... switch them off for final binaries ... makes life more enjoyable ....


Let me guess, the image doesn't show the proper color palette once you're done with the fade-in ? ..... That's because the palette register expects those values as RGB but BMP stores them in reverse as BGR ...

There's so many timer routines that we can use ... My favourite two were and still are [a] hook timer int 8/1c (with increased resolution) [b] BIOS timer calls depending on requirement ... for simple ones, BIOS timer calls is usually sufficient ... You can find the code floating around and here's the code in its simplest form (remember, its not refined code, a more refined version will have more checks in it) ...




That's for you to decide ... If you meant the header reserved fields then your watermark is limited to 4 or maybe 6 bytes ... There's 246 bytes still unused in the palette table after embedding the coordinates ... 'watermark / magic number' just adds 'complexity' to something that should be simple to use ...

Quote from Albert Einsten:
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

I now believe that while the embedded coordinates makes 'brick/progressbar' positioning easier, it also 'locks out' other valid bmps ..... I will make minor adjustments to WBL to display a valid BMP even if the coordinates are invalid ...


If you were making changes to WLL then you'll have to replace the original palette setup routine with the zero-palette routine ... Once the bmp have been loaded, start the fade-in cycle ...

Can't focus too much on the code these days, as I have some health issues to attend to, but still trying to keep up with the news.
Take care and get well .....


Rgds

As a beginner, I tried the easier way: less code to mess with. Anyway, my first intention was just to embed the coordinates in the bitmap - the rest just came along...
He-he... wrong guess. The colors come up fine, but the fading I came up with has only 5-6 steps and the effect is too choppy and fast. I'm using a refresh sync
but I need more steps, it's just not right that way, although the code is small. And I'm trying to relay the least possible on the BIOS, as implementations may differ, from what I've read around.
What do you mean by 'valid BMP'? A classic logo with standard-placed animation or just with no animation at all? I thought this system should lead to a new class of animated logos, all with embedded coordinates; that's what I've created LogoTool for: to ease the creation of such logos.
After all, we might as well let the old cycling palette logos run if the user forgot to update LOGO.SYS for the WLL system...
I think that should be enough. The recognition code would be simple: if the watermark is present, check coordinates validity and proceed with the code; if it's not present, then either 1) assume classic logo and animate at standard coordinates or 2) assume ordinary bmp and just display a static picture with no animation at all.
That's what I did: retrieved palette data to a table, sent blanking palette to the DAC, loaded in the bitmap pixels, sent working palette to the DAC with the fading effect (which is embedded in the palette sending subroutine). I could send you the SVGACOM code I've been working on, if you want (still working in safe mode ).

Oh and thanks for the good wishes; it will take some time though.

Hmm .....



Work on the scandisk issue just started ... have successfully triggered scandisk using 'dirty bit' ... it wasn't that difficult after all ...

Let's see if my approach works ...



Then you'll need a 1 or 2 tick timer in between fades ...

Rgds

FYI:
N&B scandisk is here:
http://www.mdgx.com/add.htm#TLS

* Helix DiskMinder Hard Disk Scanner + Repair tools v1.03 improved Microsoft ScanDskw for Windows (SCANDSKW.EXE) + ScanDisk for DOS (SCANDISK.EXE) replacements DMindr32 32-bit (DMINDR32.EXE) for Windows 9x/ME + DmDOS 16-bit (DMDOS.EXE) for MS-DOS 5/6/7/8:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/diskmind.php
Direct download [478 KB, English]:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/DISKMIND.EXE

HTH

Thanks for the links MDGx. I already had the full suite (which i must say it's just like the current "tune-up" programs - ie almost useless), but thanks for your post, as now i noticed i can have media player 10 in my 98.

Not that i'd actually use it (MPC+Winamp here), but that preview thingy in the webview is cool, and the wmp10 theme would look much better on it than the wmp9 one. Downloading now.

Hmmm .....

As announced earlier, the source code is now released for all to see ... It shows the current state of WBL ... the hardest part was to say something in the readme.txt .....

I am still looking for a better and better and better way to safely trigger the timer int unhook ... if anyone have any idea what I'm talking about, pls advise something useful (to the codes) ...

I am now looking over the scandisk issue ... Enabling the dirty bit is not difficult but to simulate it (without actually writing it) for win.com to detect it is too much hassle (possible but takes away time)... I made a quick-n-dirty patch to turn on dirty bit for my test runs ...

I'm following WLL method by using scandisk.alt for now and it seems there's some housekeeping to do before scandisk.alt will work correctly ... out of ten test runs, five works and another five hangs ... I must figure that out first ...

There's another approach that I'll be working on and that is to detect dirty bit before logo displays ... I know this will work better than scandisk.alt .... need to read up a bit more on that too ...

Any comments/feedback, pls leave it here ...

Rgds

Thanks for releasing sources, they're awesome and hilarious.
Now, tell me please about what have you achieved
Does it work better with some cards? What about VMWare?
Well, are you sure it is bad? Ideally, some Windows structures or undocumented interrupts should be checked.

As for scandisk issue, i think that video state/palette save/restore will work, if it does not hang system. I must build a real system with nVidia card to test that.

Hmmm .....

... Glad you enjoyed 'reading' it ... To be honest, its for the fun and pleasure of doing some asm after such a long time ... Its the rush in the brain thing ... I've almost forgotten how asm can drive people either nuts or to bliss ...


It does seems to work better (that's subjective I must say) on my test systems (gf2/fx, ati rage, i810, s3) ... the brick doesn't jump out of the shaft anymore on my test PCs especially on i810gfx ... I believe the timer will be (logically) unhook correctly ... I did the re-entrant code much earlier but you posted updated WLL before me though (really, ask Drugwash) ...

As for VMw, I'm prep'ing an amd with enough juice to run vmw ... It will be ready very soon for me to make test runs with vmw ...


While doing TSRs and int wrapper way back then we knew we shouldn't do int in another int (unless we positively 100% know what to expect)... just that I believe there must be a better way to know when to stop that timer ... a pre-windows handshake/talkbalk flag or something hopefully simple yet bulletproof ...


I agree ... saving and restore state/palette will have to be done earlier in WLL/WBL ... i'll see if it can be done with int 10h or needs port access ... but if WBL gets fat then it'll be just code options ... maybe can be done in scandisk.alt ... (oh boy, more stuff to read up ...)

BTW, there's a bug in the source code within bankswitch function ... I've accidentally erased 2 pop lines ... You can d/l the fixed source & binaries or add the 2 lines yourself ...

Rgds

Looks like I missed the party again. I guess I'm jinxed.

Anyway, news is I managed to fry the code as much as it now drives Windows into a protection error after the animation. And all I did was just rearrange the routines a bit, trying to shorten the code (there was unnecessary double code in the error message display), changed the %windir% searching routine and added my version of fade in (and fade out which only works in SVGACOM as Windows cuts WLL short when it kicks in).

The same code (with maybe extremely slight differences) runs fine on the Win95 machine (P I 166MHz with S3 Trio64V2/DX videocard). The protection error happened 3 times and once it mentioned CONFIGMGR. I performed a search for this term and the only notable result was inside USBUI.DLL. So I could somehow connect this with Offler's earlier reports about WLL hanging at detecting USB devices (I have a USB webcam permanently connected to my main machine where the errors occured). I may be off-track though. And again I have to blame it on my lack of knowledge and experience - good will seems not to be enough.

I'll check out the new code, see if I can make anything out of it. If anybody wants to check out my code, ask and ye shall receive - I'm reluctant to intentionally releasing bad code publically; might help understanding and fixing the issues.

[EDIT]
Forgot to mention the watermark. I implemented a 4byte watermark in the bitmap, to distinguish an ordinary (or old version of) LOGO.SYS from an embedded coords one. The bytes are at offset 06h: 54h 44h 50h 32h and are automatically written by the new version of LogoTool2 that I will publish if everybody agrees with this system.
I believe the code check would be drastically reduced when using the watermark, as it will assume correct/safe coordinates as opposed to no coordinates at all.

Tihiy, PassingBy: please state your opinion about this. Thank you.

Hmmm .....

Sorry guys, I'm in a wee bit of a tight schedule right now ... WLL/WBL have to take a back seat for another week ...

What's being done so far :

1. I've made tests on VMWare ... and while I don't experience any hanging yet, the animation does not seem to work properly ..... I'm also experiencing system restarts whenever I mount vmdisk to copy over some files (not related to WLL/WBL) ... I may need to rebuild the XP again ...

2. On my Nvidia test system, somehow the dirty bit got 'stuck' ... I'm (will be) trying to retrace what I did or why it got stuck ... but the thing is, scandisk seems to display correctly without any blue-screen/distortion each and everytime it starts ... WBL is currently in use for the test without scandisk.alt and autoscan=2 (auto) ... will see if WLL produce the same ...

3. Using scandisk.alt method as with RP7 still gives 50-50 result ... I going to take a step back (and take a breather) to see if there's anything that I missed ...


Fine with me, as long as you're happy ...

Rgds

Coincidentally, I've taken a break myself for a while. That system protection error kinda threw me off, for one. And to add insult to injury, after installing VC6 and PSDK 2003 (needed to compile Miranda), the previous WLL version that used to work fine on both main and Win95 machine, started to throw the same error on the main machine.

For that reason, I had to temporarily uninstall WLL (so far, the WLL Installer and LogoTool2 are working fine, but are the only ones working).

There's another issue bugging me - namely an occasional BSOD on startup, before explorer kicks in - and I'd like to sort that out if possible, before playing with WLL again. Otherwise, testing in real environment on the main machine would be more of a pain.

For now, here's LogoTool2 v2.0.1.0 with automatic watermarking.

HI,

is there any way to get the latest version? Uploaded.com seems to have deleted the files

Cheers,

Joe

Which latest version do you need exactly: WLL, WBL, LogoTool, WLL Installer?
Either way, I'll try to reupload all of them one of these days; I just need to remember which are the working ones, as I got some borked versions around that shouldn't go out in the wild.

As for WBL, maybe PassingBy will reupload it or he might have some new version (wishful thinking).

I haven't been able to work on WLL lately as I've been extremely busy with other things, but I do intend to return to it a.s.a.p. Stay tuned...

I meant wll but it's not that important...

I put together a bundle of WLL.COM, WLLINST.COM, LogoTool.exe, LogoTool2.exe and SVGA.COM with sources included. Please read all the readme files carefully before installing/using any of the files.
Also put WLLINST.COM somewhere at hand, in case computer hangs after the animated screen. If that happens, boot in DOS mode, run WLLINST and everything will go back to normal.

The 7-zip archive is here.

Cool, thanks. Grabbed it

I was still using the banner.com from opendos LSM link
was a nice thing to show "Loading Config.sys", "Loading Autoexec.bat" Logos...

But the win9x logos mess them up when loading win.com. So this is better

Hmmm .....



I'm back with time to spare now ... unfortunately WLL is still on hold as my VMware testbed system needs rebuilding, again ...

The last I tinkered with WLL, I planned for a new "animation routine" ... time will tell if it'll be implemented ...

I'll be looking into some usb related stuff for a while and will resume here once that's done ...

Rgds

Great to see you back! My ASM knowledge already fell back into the well of oblivion since I got other issues to attend to. Hopefully I'll get some spare time in a week or two, to take the rust off again.

Oh and while you're playing with the USB stuff, maybe you'll have a look at my Huawei phone driver issue posted somewhere around. Tihiy said it can't be done. A second opinion wouldn't hurt, so I can curse that chinese company at will on my blog, if so.

I have tested again the logo loaders.

tihiys wll.com version 10.03.08

buffers must be 30 or the wll will drop to dos dring bootup. logo is not crushed when Ati card blinks during bootup. Logo will sometimes cause system freeze during restart. but sometimes not...

wbl

graphically the most beautiful loader, but... with my current system settings it will always freeze system. also i still dont know how to make my own logo.

svgacom

i dont know how to fix the logos... seems to work correctly, but i am bit lazy to port my own bootlogo with special app... also the logo is crushed when ati card initializes.