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.
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"Proper" Version
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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
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Other attempts
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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.
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