Included on this disc are four short utilities to help you
manage your AMPLE programs and Studio 5000 modules. The instructions for each
of the utilities are given below.
'Saver' utility
David Westbrook
This little utility is designed to take the effort out of
regularly saving your current masterpiece to disc. If you have a machine as old
and cranky as mine, or even if you don't, it's a wise precaution to save your programs
regularly during development. However, I'm always nervous about overwriting
previous versions, so I tend to use version numbers: 'master1', 'master2' etc.
What the 'Saver' utility does is to automate this process.
The program consists of 3 words ('initsv', 'sv' and
'vernum') and is in *EXEC format so that it can be added to any program. Having
got it into a program, the first thing to do is get 'sv' into Notepad and edit
the program name (currently shown as 'NEWONE') to whatever you want to call your
program. The length of program name must be limited to 6 characters (leaving 1
character for a version number). Having done that, save the program. Your name
will now be stored.
From now on you need to start each working session by typing
'initsv' at the command line. You will be asked for the first version number
you want to use (if you already have some version numbers on disc, then you may
not want to start again at 0). Enter a number (single digit if you've used 6 characters
for the program name) and the program reminds you what the starting number will
be.
Now whenever you want to save the program just type 'sv' at
the command line. The current program will automatically be saved under the
name you've given it, suffixed by a number which is increased by one for each save
you make in a session. At the end of a session you've got all the versions
saved in order and can tidy up by deleting any you don't want to keep.
Related files on this disc:
'Wipe' utility
Quentin Frazer
This utility provides a quick and easy way to get rid of
those redundant words which often remain once a program has been developed -
for example those instruments that were tried but not, in the end, used.
The utility should be *EXECed into your program - and it
will then run automatically. It will display all the words in your program and
then prompt you for a word to be deleted. Enter any word (no quote characters
are necessary) and it will try to delete it before starting again.
If the word to be deleted is still referred to in another
word the error
! In use
will be displayed and the utility will finish. Similarly, if
you enter a word name which does not exist the error
!No such word
will be displayed and the program will stop. Pressing Escape
will also stop the utility.
Related files on this disc:
'Save' utility
Kevin Doyle
This utility was written after I accidentally deleted a
music program by selecting 'SAVE' instead of 'LOAD' from the Studio 5000 Main
Menu. It temporarily re-defines the AMPLE Nucleus word 'SAVE' and performs an OSFILE
call to check whether the filename to be saved already exists. If it does, a
warning message is displayed and you are asked to confirm that you wish to
overwrite this file. Pressing 'Y' (or 'y') overwrites the file; any other key
aborts the SAVE process.
This utility is designed to be *EXECed into existing
programs and works equally well from the command line or the Main menu. It also
complements David Westbrook's 'Saver' utility by providing a failsafe against a
wrongly selected version number
Related files on this disc:
'Init' utility
Quentin Frazer
'Init' is an AMPLE program. It provides a menu allowing you
to install any modules you might require in addition to the defaults on your system.
Installed modules do, of course, take up space, but the
advantages of not having to load from disk usually make it worthwhile,
especially if you have shadow RAM. INSTALLed modules also take less memory than
MLOADed ones.
To use init type:
"init" LOAD RUN
or better still, add it to your Studio 5000/4000 !BOOT file
(this must be after "MENU" INSTALL).
Related files on this disc:
Note: BBC Model B users without Shadow RAM may find that
trying this utility direct from the AMPLINEX menu and installing modules may
not leave enough memory to re-load AMPLINEX via the '?' command.
Published in AMPLINEX 006, July 1988
