Right then, this will be the wonderful documentation to Bubbles...
1) What is Bubbles... ?
-----------------------
Bubbles... is a screen saver. This doesn't mean that you
press a series of keys and it saves the screen to disk in .pi1 format..
Oh no, this is a screen blanker, saves monitor burn, sort of a Factor 5
suntan cream for your monitor.
2) What does it do ?
--------------------
Bubbles... is constantly running, checking ports, keyboard and
mouse etc.. If it sense nothing (Zip, zero, nil etc..) for a period of
a MINUTE (60 seconds) then it saves the screen from harmful burn..
3) How does it save from burn ?
-------------------------------
It floats 'bubbles' up the screen, like a fish tank, but with no
fish in there. This is actually very relaxing, and can sometimes be useful
to think your way around problems, just sit and watch the bubbles..
4) Why does it do what it does ?
--------------------------------
Hell, why not? How many times have you been say, working in GenST
and been thinking about something. That static screen is a little bit
boring isn't it? Hence the reason for Bubbles...
5) Why write it ?
-----------------
Bubbles... came about after a visit to an Amiga owning friend.
(A4000 060cpu 24 Meg memory 2.1Gig Hard Drive, CD-Rom, 4 floppies, 64bit
graphics card to be precise..) There I was, sat down, just messing around,
and all of asudden up pop's 'Flying Toasters', interesting, but not
exactly amazing. Now I thought, 'Hmm, not bad, wonder if the ST has Flying
Toasters?' The answer? It has, but bloody horrible. So then I thought 'Ok,
writeyour own screen blanker/saver'. The result is currently sat on your
disk..
6) Where's it from ?
------------------
Right, I'll give BIG thanks to Tony Sanson, the bloke that
wrote a screen saver called STAR STRUCK. Yes, thats right, I ripped
somebody elses code.. About six hours later and I'd figured out roughly
what he was doing, so took out a lot of the routs. Hey presto it worked!
All it did was turn the screen a lovely shade of green ($374 I think)
so I thought, ok, what can I do..
Flying Toasters? Nah.. Toooooo boring..
I had about 12 ideas, one including the alien race known on earth as
'Greys' floating around the screen. But that was a bit bland too..
7) Bugs and cockups..
---------------------
God knows what this does in High-Res, or if it works on a
Falconbut thats the way it goes..It should, but the actual bubble effect
mightbe a little be knackered..
It did originally flick to low-res from medium and do the nice bubblesin
low-res, but for some reason, when it returned to medium the screenwent
clear, but click anywhere with the mouse it came back.. Weird..
I blame TOS, after all, isn't that the standard excuse if somethingdoesn't
work?? Incompatible TOS.. ;]
8) SHAREWARE ?!
---------------
Ok, now I know this little thing (All 40+k of it) isn't going
to revolutionise your life. But please support me on this!
I spent six solid hours running through 20k of Easy Rider source code
to get this thing doing something other than a explosion starfield!
So you want to know how much its gonna cost you?
$145? Sorry, this is on an ST not a PC..
$70 ST mate, not Amiga..
œ0 Ping, thats the one..
Yes, for a stupid price of NOTHING you can sleep sound..
Hell, just to show me that its getting around, send me one of the
following list..
1) Postcard of where you live (Postcard Ware)
2) A 3.5 inch floppy disk (Disk Ware)
3) Sony PlayStation (PlayStation Ware)
4) Lots of Gold Bullion (Bullion Ware)
5) Secret to AntiGravity (AntiGrav Ware)
Send me anything you feel like, I'll endevour to reply to mail I get!
What will you get in return? You'll encourage me to continue developing
for the ST. I probably will anyway, but best make sure.. ;]
Next version of this might play some samples or something too...
Whalesong seems to be the craze these days.. ;]
Snail-Mail
----------
()rm of Digi Tallis
c/o Jon Lewis
30 Wembley Park Ave
Ings Road
Hull
East Yorkshire
HU8 OND
England
Earth
Sol
E-Mail
------
c9251129@zeus.hud.ac.uk (until June 1996)
Web
---
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/6273
Ok, that's it. Its over. Exit stage left...
()rm.. July 1994..