#1.2 AmigaBasic
15 messages in this thread
We finally got the official 1.2 release and are dismayed at what appears to
be a serious flaw in the speech/sound handling in AmigaBasic. This works in
1.1 :
TOP:
SOUND 330,5
SAY TRANSLATE$ ("hello")
GOTO TOP
When the same program is run under 1.2, GURU!!!!! REBOOT!!!!!!
Many AmigaBasic programs we have tried have this failure mode. Included are
'MONEY', 'LUNAR LANDER', 'UFO INVASION', and any that have speech and music
or sound at the same time. If anyone can suggest a cure please help! I like
WB1.2 but with this kind of bug, AmigaBasic is NOT USABLE under 1.2…..
Help Please!….Thanks, Dave & Becky Matthews….
Are you using the new version of Amiga BASIC also?
Don
Yes, the new AmigaBasic that was supplied on the 1.2 Extras disk…we did also
try the old AmigaBasic..same problem…I'm wondering if some Narrator fix or
something like that in the 1.2 operating system is causing this..We tried all
the say command's mode attributes and the sound statement's channel
assigns with no success…I am really at a loss and sad about this.
Dave Matthews.
Just another thought Dave,
Are you running from a WB 1.2? I know it sounds silly, but I know a lot of
people who have copied some of their 1.2 disk over to a working disk that they
have been using under 1.1, and in doing so, have run into problems with
incompatible libraries, system-cinfiguration, etc.
Regards, Larry.
Yes, Thanks for the interest in my problem! What I did to be absolutely sure
was to copy the AmigaBasic application program from my data disk to the 1.2
Extras disk (copy) that came with the 1.2 release. I am sure that I am using
the right kickstart,workbench, and basic, but I do appreciate your checking me
on any detail you think I might have overlooked…My thanks again..DBM
Dave,
Larry's reply to you was my next thought. I haven't tried the new
Amiga BASIC as I hardly ever touch it, but I'd be real surprised if it didn't
work.
Don
Thank you too for your interest in helping me..The more I examine this problem
the more amazed I become! It seems too obvious a bug to have been missed in
testing given the speech/sound selling points of the wonderful Amiga. On page
44 of the 1.2 release manual is the phrase " The audio device now resets audio
channels whenever they are allocated instead of only when they are freed or
stolen." I wonder if this is the source of my problem..That device is in
Kickstart, right?…Can it be patched…Am I way off-base? Anyway I will keep
experimenting and asking questions, I don't want to be stuck with 1.1 to use
AmigaBasic. Thanks for your help and messages, I'll check back soon.
Dave Matthews…
Dave,
I've verified your problem (reproduced it), let me look at and try a
few things….I'll get back in touch with you in the next day or two IF I come
up with anything. Until then, you might be stuck with 1.1. In the meantime,
if you want to try something, you might try moving a copy of the
narrator.device from a 1.1 WB disk to the 1.2 WB disk (obviously on a COPY
only!!) and see if it makes a difference. You might also try moving the
translator.library in the same manner. The narrator.device is in the DEVS
directory and the translator.library is in the LIBS directory.
Don
Thanks for the verification. I will try what you have suggested and see if
that helps. If I discover anything I will let you know right away. I do
appreciate everyones help in this matter. My wife avoids the problem in
"CLASSICS.ARC" and "XMASJAZZ.ARC" by using long timing loops to avoid
speech/sound conflicts, present in 1.1, but seemingly only when she was using
more than 2 channels for sound. (counterpoint and harmony). However I have
also found that the command BEEP also collides with SAY and GURUs. Once again
thanks for the speedy and active help,
Dave Matthews
I double checked the flaw, using my original 1.2 Kickstart, then the original
1.2 WB in DF0: and the original 1.2 Extras in DF1:, and ran my example program
and had the same GURU failure. I am positive about the bug! The speech
command is supposed to default to any unused l/r pair and the sound defaults to
channel 0, there has been no conflict in the past…I sincerely believe that
this is a SEVERE CRIPPLING bug which makes 1.2 AmigaBasic unusable for most of
my applications..If anyone has any input, please help….Dave
I'm not tremendously knowledgable about AmigaBasic internals or anything else
going on inside this box, for that manner, but you might want to tinker with
stack sizes. This is just a WAG, but stack size increases seem to act as some
sort of magic talisman <grin> to some of the other language products out there.
I don't think that AmigaBasic works that way, but who knows. I verified your
'bug' (yes, it's yours, you own it!) and will be fooling around. The curious
noise it makes between the time the guru comes up and the time it spits out
part of the second 'hello' intrigues me! Good bug hunting!
… Brian
By the way, "for that manner" in the last note should be "for that matter" and
when I said I would be fooling around, I meant that I would be fooling around
with your bug, and not just generically fooling around (grin^2).
… Brian
Thanks for the reply..I will try the increasing the stack and see if that will
help……DBM
Hmmm…
The "Matthews bug"! Has a certain flair to it, don't you think?
Regards, Larry.
Well, I can't say I'm proud of it…But I enjoy the adventure of being first?
to report this kind of bug…Although it seems so obvious of a bug I'm Amazed
(surprise!) that it got released at all….DBM