Atom Software Archive V14BETA1

This is a beta release of the Atom Software Archive for Testing.

Feedback is welcome, especially on the changes to the Menu system.

Changes since V13.01 include:

1. Changes to the archive contents:

• new GoSDC target (thanks to John Kortink for his work on this)
• SDDOS2 target is now working again (by packaging two titles per disk image, to overcome the 1023 disk limit)
• Added Trees & Tents (Kees)
• Added Daredevil Denis (Kees)
• Added new MIA Title: Acornsoft Forth Utilities (from Wim)
• New conversion of Acornsoft Forth to work on a 12K Atom
• Added 28 new AGD titles (AGD packs 70 - 76 from Kees)
• Added 5 new InuFuto titles (Mieyen, Osotos, Mazy2, Svellas, Awaas)
• Added Footprints (PCW)
• Added Hoglet's RAM Test (in a few different versions)
• Added Kees' Atomic RAM Test
• Added Mandelbrot (Matalog)
• Added LIFE (The Atom Magazine)
• Added Fascimile (Practical Electronics)
• Added Morse Tutor (Practical Electronics)
• New conversion of A&F Painter to work on a 12K Atom
• New conversion of Atom Man to work on a 12K Atom
• New conversion of Space Panic to work on a 12K Atom
• New conversion of Bug Byte Chess to work on a 12K Atom
• Fixes to Hyperman and Flight to work on a 12K Atom
• All titles in Chapter A should now be compatible with a 12K Atom
• Updated URLs linked in the spreadsheet
• Misc. minor fixes and moving titles into the correct chapter

2. Changes to SPLASH Menu:

• The splash screen menu and chapter menu are now separate programs. This frees up a bit more space for title data, and allows space for new features in the splash screen.
• The splash screen now includes some animations, allowing some useful help info to be displayed. These start after about 4s, so are not too intrusive.
• Added the build name (AtoMMC, Econet, GoSDC, etc) to the status line at the bottom
• The splash screen does a memory test and disables the AGD and ALL screen chapters if there is insufficient memory to support them. This is indicated with a strike:

3. Changes to the CHAPTER Menu:-

• The HELP screen in the CHAPTER menu (/) has been refreshed to reflect new features:

• In addition to Publisher, Genre and Collections metadata, there is now
  • Chapter: (Comm, Non Comm, Modern, AGD, Books, Magazines, ROMs)
  • RAM Needed: 6K+6K, 32K+6K, 32K+8K
  • ROM Needed: FP, PCHARME, GAGS, AXR1, WEROM, PPTOOLKIT
  • Updated (i.e. how recently was the title added or updated in the archive)
  • Joystick (NONE, JOYKEY, JOYMMC, BOTH)
• The "Sort by", "Filter by" and Annotation features will work with any of this metadata:

• This metadata is sourced from the spreadsheet, but there is some clever automated checking involving analyzing the program files and scanning any BASIC programs. So there is will be much more accurate than in previous releases.
• There are more collections now (for example, each AGD Games Pack is represented as a collection)
• Selecting a title now takes you to a new Title Info screen, where things like RAM and ROM dependencies can be reviewed before running the title:

• The escape key now exits the CHAPTER menu (back to the SPLASH menu) and the SPLASH menu (back to BASIC)

4. Changes to the build system:

• The build system now supports building a subset of targets (to speed up development)
• Drop titles that are known to be incompatible with the specific target (OZMOO only works on AtoMMC)
• Drop titles that are too large to fit on a 100KB floppy (from disk based targets)
• Added checks/warnings for missing files
• Added checks/warnings for un-referenced files
• Added checks/warnings for RAM compatibility (is 32K lower RAM neede? is 8K upper RAM needed?)
• Added checks/warnings for ROM compatibility (detected FP, PCHARME, GAGS, AXR1, WEROM, PPTOOLKIT usage)
• Added checks for files suspected of having extra garbage on the end
• Reduced the amount of unnecessary logging
• Big refactor/cleanup of the build system (I use the Eclise Java IDE)