BYTE-KILLER v1.3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (by Lord Blitter) Official Dealer : BAMIGA SECTOR ONE Release date : January, 2th 1988. Changes made: All fixed branches are now relatives (faster - shorter - easier to work with). A bug in the compression was fixed, thanks to Twilight for letting us know it ! Changes made: A real cool guy from THE BLIZZARD wrote a great user interface for your favorite cruncher. Note to J.J. : please send your address again because we lost it and we would like you to be the first to test the next version (2.0) of the Byte Killer. A FEW NOTES FROM J.J. --------------------- WELL THE CRUNCH AND DECRUNCH ROUTINES ARE THE SAME, BUT I WROTE A PROGRAMM AROUND WHICH ALLOWS TO WORK WITH THE CRUNCHER, WITHOUT THE SEKA. ALSO THIS PROGRAMM IS ABLE TO CREATE A FILE , WHICH CONTAINS ALL THE DECRUNCHER AND THE CRUNCHED DATA IN ONE FILE AND WHICH IS STARTABLE FROM CLI. (I THINK THIS IS THE FIRST CRUNCHER, WHICH ALLOWS THIS) HOW TO HANDLE: TYPE 'BKiller' FROM CLI THE PRG ASKS NOW FOR MEMORY TO BE ALLOCATED FROM THE SYSTEM TYPE IN A VALUE OF 1 - 999 IF MEMORY ALLOCATION FAILS, THE CRUNCHER WILL RESTART NOW YOU CAN TYPE THE FILENAME OF THE PRG YOU WANT TO CRUNCH EXEPTS: 'EXIT' WILL EXIT THE CRUNCHER '-' FOLLOWED BY A CLI COMMAND WILL EXECUTE THE COMMAND THE COMMAND HAD TO BE IN THE CURRENT DIR OR IN THE C DIR THE PRG NOW TRIES TO LOAD THE FILE IF THE FILE IS NOT FOUND, OR THE FILE IS LONGER THAN THE ALLOCATED BUFFER THE PRG WILL ASK FOR ANNOTHER FILENAME AFTER YOU GET THE LENGTH OF THE UNPACKED FILE, YOU HAVE TO TYPE IN A VALUE (crunch factor) OF MAX $1000 (SEE LOWER FOR THE MEANING OF THE VALUE) WHILE THE CRUNCHER WORKS THE SCREEN FLASHES FROM TIME TO TIME AFTER CRUNCHING YOU GET THE LENGTH OF THE CRUNCHED FILE AND THE CHOICE, BETWEEN SAVING A EXECUTEABLE FILE (TO RUN FROM CLI) OR A DATA FILE (TO USE IN YOUR OWN PROGRAMMS) IF YOU CHOOSE THE EXECUTEABLE FILE,THE CRUNCHER NOW ASKS FOR THE ADRESS, WHERE THE PROGRAMM SHOULD STAND AFTER DECRUNCHING. NOW THE JUMP IN ADDRESS IS ASKED AFTER YOU HAVE ENTERED THE SAVE FILENAME , THE CRUNCHER FREES MEMORY AND EXITS TO CLI IF YOU HAVE SAVED ONLY DATA, YOU CAN USE THE READCRUNCHED ROUTINE TO LOAD THE DATA TO MEMORY A NOTE FROM LORD BLITTER ------------------------ The byte killer was designed to crunch RAW DATA (sound,code,graphics,...) but not CLI-executable code,this means that you CANNOT crunch a program like the seka assembler directly , you have to crunch it at a FIXED address (This is nearly impossible for big programs which are divided in many parts that load at different VARIABLE places in the memory !!!); but you can crunch your own programs written in assembly by using absolute addressing (use ORG & LOAD options under SEKA). By the way you can use it to make your own hires page SHOW and have twice as much pictures on a disk than with the standard IFF page show (you'll have to write your own IFF -> Bkiller converter). The meaning of the "CRUNCH FACTOR" ---------------------------------- This factor tells the cruncher if it has to be efficient or if it has to be fast, if you use a big factor the cruncher will be very slow but very efficient and of course a small factor will be superfast but less efficient. If you don't have too much time and you want and good crunch of your program choose $400. Please do not use a factor less than 10 because if can cause decrunch problems. Lord Blitter's regards are going to 1. The belgians --------------- The Hobbit Ermida Skylight (you'll hear about him in the future) Chatterbox (another cool bug smasher of the BS1 team) Big Fat Lamer (you've probably heard about him) 2. The germans -------------- The Blizzard - Unit A - The Mad Thinker - Twilight - The Star Frontiers High Quality Crackings 3. The 64'ers ------------- Fairlight - The Sharks - Scoop - Ikari - Beastie Boys Note: If you have any remarks or questions about this program, please, contact BAMIGA SECTOR ONE at: P.O.BOX 163 2018 ANTWERP 14 BELGIUM.