About Time 2 (Amiga) - Countdown Tool

What Is It?

This is a countdown timer, which counts down the hours, minutes and seconds for a user-specified duration. At the end, it plays some kind of finale.

Requirements

• PAL Amiga (or High Res Interlace for NTSC)
• Kickstart 3 or 3.1 (does NOT work with KS2 roms, 3.2 untested!).
• Setpatch 43.6 (to be present in C:)
• 0.3MB chip, + 0.5MB other memory (to hold SFX, Mus or VID)
• 030 is recommended to play the VID smoothly.
• 24MB free disk space (or 600k without the VID).

Features:

• Count Down Timer with 4 ending modes
• 1 Digitised FMV video, 320x240@25fps.
• 12 Digitised 8-bit MONO sound effects.
• 1 32-Colour Digitised Image of Amiga Bill.
• Auto Mono to Stereo SFX conversion.
• Auto saving of paths, modes, and timer!
• Pause button, and Stop; which also stops music and SFX.
• Palette Fix tool and About.
• All graphics from Amiga Bill.

Install and Loading

This tool works with the stock Topaz font, so hopefully you have this already.  The CanDo.library is already built in to the software, but you'll have to copy the inovamusic.library to sys:libs to use the mods player.  If the video player is slow, make sure Setpatch V43.6 is running, or installed in C:

You dont have to copy the huge video clip example, or the example SFX files, if you want to save disk space. The colours might clash with your backdrop (see bugs), but if you go to the options and select Palette Fix, this will attempt to force Workbench to use the image palette, so the image of Bill looks right. NOTE: you need to be running at least 32 colours (or more?) to get the full effect, in PAL, not RTG.

General Info and Usage

Here is something special, the Amiga Bill Official UltimaTe Time(r) 2.  I made this today, and it is complete (hopefully) and tested.

The music player might not play all types of Mods, and you need to select Mods from outside of this package (it should create a direct path). The Sound effect player works with most Amiga iff sound files, and the video player works with the video clip which I included (or any video from any of my games).

The package is very small if you ignore the included samples and video clip.  The Amiga Bill image came from Boom!, and it is built in to the tool itself.
32 colours support, with auto saving of the configs you choose, so you can always come back to where you left it.

Maybe you can put this ultimate timer to some good use?

First click the disk icons to change the finale, either sounds, music, or a video. If you click Non, then there will be no ending finale (i.e the timer will end silently). To test this out, just leave the time on zero and click start.

Otherwise, set the time and then click start.

You can also pause the clock at any point, and stop it completely. Stop will also stop any music or sound effects, and reset the clock to zero. Just click start to restart it.

This tool was made for normal high res non-interlace screens, that's why the tool is only half of the screen in depth. You can resize the window with the resize gadget, but the buttons and stuff are all fixed in place.

BillPal

This is a small tool I made to force Workbench to switch to the Amiga Bill colour palette, without interfering with your normal workbench colour configuration. This palette is (as far as I know) the stock 32 colour palette for AGA machines, so it should hopefully work with some backdrops already, as I think it only replaces the first 32 colours of the AGA palette.

To install, just drop the tool from WBStartup to your workbench WBStartup. The CanDo.library has been included in the package as this is essential for it to run, but you may have this already.

BUGS

• The Playa.Vid does not seem to play on first boot, unless reselected with Req.
• The video runs slowly if the Setpatch is the wrong version. Should be 43.6.
• The tool can freeze if the SFX file is not a mono 8-bit sound file (e.g. Stereo), the Music is not a compatible Mod, or the selected file is not compatible with CanDo. E.g, if you select an executable file by mistake, the tool with freeze.
• The colours are mapped to the stock 32 colour WB 3 palette, but the Bill image can be messed up depending on your workbench backdrop.  An option is provided to force WB to use the image palette, but this will also mess up your backdrop colours.
• The version text and speech bubble does not disappear unless you press Stop or the Redraw Bill option from the pull-down menu.
• The Music player needs a direct path to the Mod file.  I tried to include a sample Mod in the package, but the tool refused to play mods unless I selected the exact same Mod from somewhere else. The tool should generate a direct path to the choosen Mod, and this seems to work. Again, if the Mod is not SoundTracker or Protracker compatible, the tool will just crash. (Probably).

FAQ

• Why is Bill stretched???
  I thought Amiga Bill used a High Res Interlaced screen mode, so the tool was designed for this mode. Using High Res will mean the interface looks stretched. Maybe I'll auto-detect and scale the GUI at some point?

Dev Log

V1.0 - V1.0C - 7th Jan 2024 - Initial build.  Tested as working.

V1.0D - 8th Jan 2024 - Added options to a pull-down menu; force palette, redraw bill, and About. The tool now memorises the time entered upon pressing the Start button, so the timer values reload on reboot.

Consumer Log

(with FastMemFirst)

; Consumer 1.1 Log - 01/09/25

13:41:53    1.78M Chip,  6.86M Fast,  8.64M Total
13:42:53    0M Chip,  0M Fast,  0M Total
AUTO LOG STARTED
13:43:08    0M Chip,  0.31M Fast,  0.31M Total  (Tool Loaded)
13:43:16    0M Chip,  0.31M Fast,  0.31M Total
13:43:18    0M Chip,  0.31M Fast,  0.31M Total
13:43:20    0.04M Chip,  0.49M Fast,  0.53M Total (Playing and caching SFX)
13:43:21    0.04M Chip,  0.49M Fast,  0.53M Total

13:44:49    0.13M Chip,  0.51M Fast,  0.64M Total (Playing Video)
13:44:51    0.13M Chip,  0.52M Fast,  0.65M Total
13:44:53    0.13M Chip,  0.52M Fast,  0.65M Total

13:47:42    139.K Chip,  514.7K Fast,  653.7K Total (Video, in Kilobytes)
13:47:43    139.K Chip,  514.7K Fast,  653.7K Total
13:47:45    139.K Chip,  514.7K Fast,  653.7K Total
13:47:47    0M Chip,  498.9K Fast,  498.9K Total
13:47:48    0M Chip,  498.9K Fast,  498.9K Total
AUTO LOG STOPPED