pouët.net

Are there two different versions of Dutch Breeze?

I downloaded my copy from the first link on the prod's Pouet page, and there are discrepancies between that version and the YouTube videos, namely:

* On my downloaded copy, the flying dragon after the title flies over an island and then a stormcloud moves over it and zaps it with lightning.
* On the YouTube video, no cloud appears and the dragon flies through to the end of its part.

So, what's going on? Emulator timing issues? Party and Final versions? Any idea?

It happens randomly on the real machine as well

Can anyone help me in getting this prod to work?
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53131

I remember running this on my Amiga A1200 back in the 90s when I had the ability to run HDD demos, and it was probably the first such demo I ever saw. I really liked the Monty Python skit in the video, but I would really like to see it again.

The trouble is, the version at the link above seems broken, even though it seems ready to run from HDD. So how can I get it to run from the latest WinUAE, please?

Errm, depack the LHA and run the demo? That's exactly what I just did, there's nothing broken at all!

Yeah, I just did the same thing, used LHA in Workbench and used "x" to extract the contents and then run from that folder - worked fine this time, really enjoyed the humour and the nostalgia.

Where I'd been going wrong was to use programs in Windows like 7-Zip to extract the files from the LHA instead of using the actual LHA extractor in Workbench - seems it didn't work with this particular file, whereas it has with most others. At least that's another little handy tip. Thanks!

It's never a really good idea to depack Amiga archives using PC tools. Always depack in the emulated Amiga environment to avoid problems.

I've tracked the problem down, it's the unusual names of the files in this particular LHA:

blebbet_bleb_blebbeleb
dennefilhedderikkenoget
djævel
skiha_skiha

The above is what should appear when extracted in Workbench, but when I extracted with 7-Zip:

djævel is replaced with djµvel

This causes the demo to no longer function, even though the data inside the files is absolutely identical. And yes, I deliberately changed the characters between the two extracted versions and got them to work or break according to the above.

I put this down to a difference between the ASCII character sets being used between 7-Zip in Windows and LHA on Workbench, but since most LHA files don't have fancy characters like the above in their archives, it's not really a problem. This is just one of the rare exceptions, I've managed to run almost all Amiga demos fine from extracting with 7-Zip and then running from Workbench.

Just DON'T use ZIP/7-Zip whatever for Amiga files! It is NOT a rare exception that Amiga stuff will break if not depacked inside the (emulated) Amiga environment as the PC tools do not handle Amiga specific stuff for obvious reasons. And this is not limited to wrong file names only!

Too late, my Amiga collection of demos was entirely unpacked with 7-Zip.

I've had no problems with the WinUAE side of things, and if you mean I might have problems with real Amiga hardware, I doubt I'll ever get to use that, so it doesn't matter. In any case, my Workbench environment came from Cloanto's Amiga Forever, and those were native Amiga files stored on (I think) UDF file format on a DVD-ROM.

I could always redo them all if it bothers you that much, but I've had no problems, except this:

I used my technique for WHDLoad games as well, and had no problems until it came to Purple Saturn Day, which refused to run on Workbench after I'd extracted it from 7-Zip. Turns out one of the necessary files was called "Game." but of course, Windows doesn't allow periods without extensions, so that's why it broke.

7-Zip seems to support extraction of LHA files with no problem, but the stumbling block seems to be the differing file systems, which I know causes problems. But I manage, it seems. Your use of exclamations in your post makes me wonder if I'm committing some sort of cardinal sin or something.

LHA for PC was only made for DOS, so 7-Zip assumes that LHA files contain file names encoded with the character encoding used by DOS (IBM code page 437). Amiga on the other hand used a different character encoding (ISO 8859-1), so that's what the Amiga version of LHA uses. Both encodings extend ASCII in different ways, so while english letters are decoded correctly, non-ASCII ones like æ are not.

Pedantic note: There are no "difference between the ASCII character sets", because there is only one ASCII character encoding.

Yes, I meant differences in encoding in terms of "code page 437" and "ISO 8859-1", but it didn't quite come out as I planned. You explained perfectly well what I meant, it's just that my memory is rusty in that regard ;)

How can I get demos like this one to work? http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=5419

It contains AmigaDOS folders, as in the main Workbench install, but I have tried installing them into the root of the System folder and then Workbench fails to boot properly.

How do I "install" demos like this one?

You just extract the archive to a folder and run it from there

Ah, OK, I figured it would be that simple. It was just my A4000-040 config that the demo didn't like, it previously only displayed the first bit with the caption. Works fine on my 030 config.

Hey, I've noticed this demo isn't in the pouet database. But I can't seem to get it to run past the decrunching part in WinUAE anyway. Anyone know this demo or how to get it running?