Compo returns

Been sooo long since I posted here that I had to regenerate my password because I’d forgotten it!

Somehow appropriate for the reason I’m posting:

Just to say that all being well “!Composition” should be becoming available again. Initially as version 1.23a from the past. Younger readers may need to check out what it was and what it can do. :-)

Jim

Given that it’s not a unique name (and Google seems to think I mean composition as in music), allow me to help… https://compo.iconbar.com/compo.htm

PS: Welcome back! ;)

That is great news! Andy Marks just pointed that software out to me some days ago but we could not get it working even with AEmulator.
Compo info page

I just forgot my password for the second time! Now written the new one down. :-)

I have recently made a pdf of the articles I wrote for ‘Archive’ on using !Compo. And have had a play with 1.23c but on modern kit at present 1.23a works more reliably. Hope that once ‘up’ on !Store some people might have a go at making the bits and bobs of !Compo all work on the current RO versions and hardware. As it is, the old version is most reliable on RPCEmu, etc. (For that reason I think 1.23a and 1.23c will be released.)

Bit frustrating when what worked on my Iyonix fails on my current RO amchine… and I’m about to ugrade to a new one!

Compo users will know it has a sort of ‘fleet’ approach to processing – i.e. lots of individual callable files for various processes. Makes it flexible and expandable.

I just forgot my password for the second time! Now written the new one down. :-)

Post-It note stuck on the corner of the display ;)

I put it on a bit of paper just under the monitor. :-)

If anyone doesn’t know, in addition to the iconbar info I did some pages at
https://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/Compo/clues.html
and I’ve added a link there to a PDF of my old “Archive” articles on Compo and the scripts I did as add-ons. Alas, as per above. Not all of them work now on my post-Iyonix machine.

Hope that once ‘up’ on !Store some people might have a go at making the bits and bobs of !Compo all work on the current RO versions and hardware.

Will the source be available? That tends to help. ;)

Basically, we have what got released, plus a series of composcripts, etc, that I’ve written over the years.

However the ‘source’ is actually a bit like the old comment wrt an old aeroplane that was described as “10,000 rivets flying in close formation”. :-)

i.e. lots of small bits of code in various formats that can call one another.

The main problem these days is that many of these ‘proglets’ don’t work with the modern OS/hardware. Many do work, so !Compo does still function usefully, but others need updating. That said, use on RPCemu is more successful.

However I’m hoping that people who have better computer skills than myself may be willing to see if they can fix some of the bits that need updating.

BTW The use of ‘scriptlets’ may show up as two different sets of choices in the released 1.23a and 1.23c. The ones with 1.23a may be ones I have used a lot. One feature of !Compo is that you can write your own ‘scripts’ and then arrange to call them with a mouse click on an added icon. It then performs the set of processes defined by the scriptlet. Users can also share/swap these scripts to get a bigger set of functionality-at-a-mouseclick. :-)

Awwogah!!! Initialise error:

Number too big 56

That’s all I get when trying to run either version on a Compute Module 4.
PCAPaint works out of the box.

Wonder if that’s a 4GB type issue – line 56 seems to be reading memmapinfo which is always a problem in BASIC due to 64bit returns for 4GB+.

It is possible that the Dynamic version (Shift double click it and use !RunDynamic) might help. Or if someone has a moment to scan the crunchy code, a fix is probably do-able. PhotoDesk had a similar issue which was handled by just setting a max size of 2GB if the answers were larger than that.

Wonder if that’s a 4GB type issue

Both versions work on my 2GB Compute Module 4 so could be :-)

You also need to check if it’s looking at the size of the free pool as returned by Wimp_SlotSize as well – if it’s on an 8Gb+ system then that could easily be a 64bit value.
And it’s worse in BASIC as it uses signed integers and so anything between 2Gb..4Gb is a negative value.
Number too big sounds like it is multiplying the number of pages by the page size – and the result is 2Gb+; and whilst the result will fit into a 32bit unsigned integer, it is too big a value for a signed integer to hold as a positive value. Print 2*1024*1024*1024 and see the difference between just printing the value (which will be a floating point number) and printing it as hex which will give you the same error.
The fix is to replace the multiply with a left shift of the number of pages by the log2 of the page size: number_of_pages% << (LN(page_size%)/LN(2)), which will get rid of the error but then you also need to see if the code can handle the number of bytes being negative.
Though that doesn’t help at all on an 8Gb+ system (bit 21 on OS_PlatformFeatures 0 will be set) – for that you definitely need to work in pages rather than bytes. As far as I’m aware the 8Gb systems use a 4K page, which wont be a negative 64bit signed integer until we have 8Tb. And for them you’ll need to replace any Wimp_SlotSize calls with Wimp_Extend 15 (Available from RISC OS 5.28+).

However I’m hoping that people who have better computer skills than myself may be willing to see if they can fix some of the bits that need updating.

I’m seeing a lot of crunched BASIC and lumps of machine code, but not much that’s easy to work with.

So, as Rick asked, is the source going to be made available? And will it be somewhere collaborative, so that fixes can easily be pooled and we don’t have several people all reverse engineering the same bits independently?

Oh, and… how does the licence cover people modifying the code — it’s not exactly unrestrictive in other ways?

I can’t yet be sure. But for !Compo itself the sources may now be ‘lost’. Although this is complicated by it being to a fair extent an assembly of ‘proglets’ that ‘co-operate’ via calling each other as needed.

Frustratingly, I did once have a copy of the (then) sources which Rob sent to me. This was IIRC back in either late RiscPC or early Iyonix days. I kept it I think on a 2nd HD on my Iyonix. I’ve been trawling my Optical Disc backups seeing if I can find what I had. But no cigar as yet! :-/

It took me some days to find the sources for one of the neater Composcript items that lets the user plot directly onto a chosen object on the canvas. The idea – for me – being to use it to generate some types of ‘graph plotter’ to do types of graphic that aren’t covered by normal graph-plotting software like !Tau.

All that said, my other distraction at present is experimenting to see what I can get to work on my copy of RPCemu which fails on my current machine.

BTW The other main ‘issue’ for me is that I have my printed copy of the manual. But so far as I know, there hasn’t ever been an electronic file version. So unless one can be found I’ll have to scan all of what I have. Tedious, and means a directory of loads of bitmap files.

For anyone who hasn’t noticed. At least the Iconbar pages (as per above) give a reference for the main composcript commands.

Tedious, and means a directory of loads of bitmap files.

Do you have a “smart” printer? Frequently they can scan to PDF.

Well my printer may well be smarter than me! – but I have no idea if it can automatially return a PDF of something. Its an old ‘Dell’ Laserprinter. And the real problem is scanning all these pages. I’ll see if I can count them to give some idea.

Above said I have located various old documents and files, etc. Maybe I can get these up on the web in a zip. I’ll see if I can get a list to show. At present I’m concenrtating on trying to transfer copies of things onto RPCEmu to check what works there but not on my new machine. (This was all prompted by wanting to use something written ages ago… that doesn’t work on my current machine.)

Given what you suggested, maybe my Linux laptop would be a way to do the scans faster than then zip them all together. But still tedious to scan so much.

A quick ‘test’ of how capable Compo is for running script files is to try the content of this zip.

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/Compo/script/scripts-test.zip

In particular, the “plotblank” example. This worked here using RPCEmu to run !Compo, but not on my ArmX6. FWIW Wanting to write a new script to plot this kind of thing is what got be drawn (pun alert!) back into wishing Compo was fully capable, available – and developable – again. It is astonishingly extendable for graphics via the scripting and being able to then run a script at a click of an added icon! Also very ‘sharable’ so people can swap new and useful scripts

Just a shame it has largely been forgotten for so long.

But still tedious to scan so much

How I scanned the Hearsay user guide was to make a tea, and then do something else that was interruptable (I forget what – probably reading TV Tropes) and just pay attention to the printer when I hear the scanner returning to the home position, as a cue to turn the page and press the OK button to do the next page.

It’s a faff, but if this stuff doesn’t exist elsewhere…

[…I’d volunteer to do the EDWORD2 guide, but I haven’t found one yet]

I have an A3 scanner with sheet feeder, so I can leave it to it.

Any chance to get hold of the source code? Is the programmer still alive?

The “Original programmer” is alive and OK. But gave up on programming many years ago. His main/familiy occupation/love is running a BIG garden, etc.

IIRC He also lost the source code during the later years, alas. He had sent me a copy. And I think I did keep that also on an optical disc backup. But I have literally hundereds of backup CD/DVDs and haven’t been able to find it. :-<

Took me ages to find the “scripts-test” items linked from my earlier posting. And I still can’t recall all the details.

I’ll try some scanning. If I send the paper manual to anyone I’d want scans for safety anyway as I don’t trust Royal Mail, etc.

If anyone wants to know what Rob’s been doing since, have a look at this

http://www.mapleglen.co.nz/

but please DON’T bother him with questions about Compo! He’s happy to have it continue and be developed. But doesn’t want to be bothered about something he can’t recall in inner details anyway! He’s a really nice bloke.