Length_Of_Bank+16
For Sprite and Icon banks, this refers to the size of the pointer/palette list. Otherwise the length
of the bank is in bytes.
Number_Of_The_Bank
The number of the bank is held as a standard AMOS Professional integer in four bytes, but
RESERVE and ERASE will only make use of the lower two locations (Start-14). So although there
can be a theoretical maximum of 2,147,483,647 banks, AMOS Professional will only manipulate
banks numbered from 1 to 65535.
Please note that if you poke in a number above 65535, this bank may only be deleted with an ERASE ALL command.
Flags
The flags are stored as individual binary bits, and have the following meaning:
Bit #0: 1 => This sets a permanent DATA Bank which will be saved with an AMOS
Professional program.
0 => This is a temporary WORK Bank which will be erased by an ERASE TEMP
command, and discarded every time the program is run.
Bit #1: 1 => CHIP memory bank, used for Objects which are to be displayed on the screen,
or items played through the Amiga's sound chips:
Sprites, Bobs, Icons, Samples and Music.
0 => This is a FAST memory bank.
Please note that if there is no FAST memory available, all of the FAST banks will be stored in CHIP RAM instead. This allows you to use the same definitions on any Amiga!
Bit #2: 1 => Object bank (list of pointers)
0 => Normal, one-section bank
Bit #3: 1 => Icon bank (list of pointers)
0 => Normal, one-section bank
DATA and WORK bits can be changed as much as necessary, but you should never alter ICON, BOB, CHIP or FAST flags. Doing so is absolutely guaranteed to crash the Amiga the next time a bank is reserved or erased.
Although you can have more than one Sprite bank in memory, only bank number 1 will be used to display Sprites and Bobs. Similarly, only bank number 2 can be used for Icons.
If you need to use several Object banks, images can be placed into any bank you wish, and these banks can be switched using the BANK SWAP command, before they are displayed.