!snail

!snail is a desktop silly originally written for the Acorn Archimedes by my friend Steve Gilbert in 1990. I found the source code while I was restoring my RiscPC, which I have updated a bit for more modern versions of RiscOS, so this is the 2^5th Anniversary Edition. It was also a fun way of learning about sprite handling in Risc OS. For the new version, the code was updated to run acceptably in screen modes other than mode 15, to allow mode changes while running, multiple snails and better integration with the WIMP (so that it doesn’t interfere with other windows). Each time you click select on the icon on the icon bar, a new snail will appear, with a random speed.

!snail is available from:

http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/riscos/index.shtml#snail

and the source is available on GitHub:

https://github.com/usr-bin-gcc/snail

It’s cute and I love it.

Also that leopardstuff icon is wonderfully familiar…

For the new version, the code was updated to run acceptably in screen modes other than mode 15

It gives ‘Not enough memory in sprite area’ on risc os 3.7 (256 colours 800 by 600), is that expected? Mode 15 is still ok

Glad you like it Pip, the tabby icon was adapted from the leopard one, which is for the IDE that I am writing.

Mike, thanks for letting me know. It looks like Risc OS 3.7 is creating sprites with 8bpp masks (in 256 colour mode), whereas they are 1bpp in Risc OS 5, I’m looking to find out a way of reliably discovering the mask bpp, hopefully (!) won’t take me too long…

… I think I have it sorted out. I’ve pushed it to GitHub and I’ll upload a new version to my webserver tomorrow morning.

[now uploaded]