Re-implementation of the Print Shop "Thinking / Printing" animated banner. Was struggling to get this to fit in 141 bytes for the Apple II Basic Bot. Managed in the end to get a version that had animated bars instead of boxes. **************** "Proper" Version **************** See the thinking_flip.s / THINKING_FLIP code. This draws offscreen. First the boxes, cascading inward, (using direct RAM writes to draw the boxes). A separate loop then overwrites with the bitmap. Page flipping is used, so it alternates PAGE1/PAGE2. The code is callable as a function so you can add hooks into it from existing code as a progress indicator. Downsides: lots of over-writing (speed), also you need to have the 1k of RAM at $800 free for PAGE2 use. Total size approaches 256 bytes ************** Other attempts ************** Various other attempts tried: + Drawing the boxes using Applesoft/Monitor ROM routines for a box (4 sides), then drawing the bitmap on top. This is too slow and makes flicker, also the code is large. (some preliminary attempt to this is in THINKING_ATTEMPT4) + Drawing the boxes using HLINE instead of direct mem writes. Slower, so very noticable that you're drawing things. Still couldn't get below 153 bytes. See thinking_slow.s / THINKING_SLOW + Using box drawing code from my various box-drawing demos. This ends up being too large + RLE encoding the image. Too big + Looking for the color progression in ROM (Didn't have to be exact, just low bytes the same). Sadly not there + Drawing the boxes/text offscreen and basically do a palette-shifting type thing. This is possible (though tricky as there are 10 boxes but only 8 colors so it's not a straight up palette shift). This has the same limitations that page-flipping does in that you need an offscreen area. See t3.s / T3 for implementation. Still large (192 bytes) + BOT version Fits in 141 bytes. See thinking_bot.s THINKING_BOT Only draws lines that rotate, not boxes. Draws bitmap at same time as drawing lines, meaning there is no overdraw so no flicker.