MacWorld 2000 January/Macworld (2000-01).dmg/Games World/Top 10 Shareware games/Klondike 7.5.sea/Klondike 7.5/KlondikeX7.5/Klondike README

Text File | 1999-10-25 | 9KB | 188 lines

This README file accompanies the latest version (7.5) of Klondike.  For
details on the latest features, start Klondike and read 'History' on the
Help menu.  In System 7, the Help menu (also known as Balloon Help or Guide)
is the menu toward the right end of the menu bar whose title is a picture
of a question mark. Otherwise, it's the menu titled, 'Help'.

For detailed information on rules, play and scoring select topics from the
Help menu.  Balloon Help is also available for menu items and dialog
controls.

Klondike is still shareware, which means that you are free to download the
program, make copies and give them to your friends, and try it out to see
if you like it.  If you enjoy playing Klondike and wish to continue enjoying
it, please remit the nominal shareware fee as follows.

The price of Klondike is $10.00 for a single user.  A Site License is
available for $300.00 (equivalent to 30 users), covering all locations in
your organization within a 160 kilometer radius of your site (100 miles).
One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track
of how many people at your site are using the software.  A World-Wide
License costs $2500, and it covers all locations for your organization on
the planet Earth.

I recommend paying for Klondike via the Kagi shareware registration
service, using the Register program that accompanies Klondike. You will
find more details on payment at the end of this README file.

Depending on how much memory you have allocated to the game, you may
notice that when dragging cards from pile to pile, you see only an
outline instead of the whole card. This can easily be remedied by
increasing the memory for the game in the Finder's 'Get Info...' box.
Approximate memory requirements are:

B/W         128k
256 Colors  384K
Thousands   512k
Millions    950k

Use the above table to adjust the game to fit your needs. If you don't
have thousands of colors on your Mac, reduce the RAM to free more
memory for other programs. Likewise, if you have millions of colors and
want full animation when moving cards, increase the RAM.

A Little History

I wrote the first game, Klondike, in 1984. It was written using the
first Macintosh development environment (a borrowed Lisa computer plus
a Macintosh 128K). A couple of years later, the availability of TML
Pascal, the first native Pascal compiler I could obtain on the
Macintosh, made it possible for me to continue to evolve Klondike and
develop new, related games. At the time, I was using a 512K Mac with an
external 400K drive. Now, THAT seems like a long time ago! Canfield was
the first of the other games to be developed; I actually had a version
of it running before having to return the borrowed Lisa, but it wasn't
released until I obtained TML Pascal.

The first of these games, Klondike, may be the most commonly-known version
of solitaire.  The Macintosh version has been a lasting success, enough so
that more than one person has written to curse the day some friend gave
them a copy.  A recent letter included a screen shot proving that person
(his Mom, actually) had played over 31,000 games of Klondike on his copy.

In January, 1987, Klondike won the Boston Computer Society's award for
excellence in Macintosh public domain and shareware development.

When Multifinder was released, Klondike was adapted to be Multifinder aware
(it already had a 'SIZE' resource, as defined for Switcher, the precursor
of Multifinder).

After version 3.6, I added the ability to save and open external 'decks'
(documents), which hold a private scoreboard and option selections.  This
was to support families with more than one Klondike fan: more than one
husband (or wife) wrote in to complain that their spouse was getting so
good, and making such high scores, they were no longer able to keep their
own name on the high scores list.

More recently, the game was improved visually (in my opinion) by providing
full animation of cards when moving them around.

I have been able to verify that the games work in 32-bit addressing mode.
They also work under A/UX.

As of version 5.0, the games became System 7 friendly, which mainly meant
that they handled high-level Apple Events.  They also used Apple’s Sound
Manager to play tunes when they dealt the cards and when you won a game.
This was to provide compatibility with new and future Macs, although it
seems to have ruined the sound when played on my Plus.  It bombed my
upgraded 512K with System 6.0.8..

Version 5.1 replaced the original WaveTable sound with Square Wave, which
seems to work on older Macs (although it isn’t quite as pleasant-sounding
on newer Macs).  I have also provided a color background to play on, and
animation when returning cards to their original positions when no legal
move was made.

Version 6.0 added a full set of color face card pictures.  The option
menu structure was simplified, and fast play made easier by the addition of
'intelligence' to move cards for you when you double-click on them.

Version 7.0 was the first 'Fat' Klondike, containing both 68K and PowerMac
code.  In addition to including both types of code, it now includes four
different solitaire games.  Double-click intelligence was improved for
better scores, and 256 levels of Undo added for those who get carried away.
The Options menu has been replaced by a Preferences dialog box, and preferences
and high scores are now saved in a file in the Preferences folder in the
current System folder.  With this change, Klondike no longer modifies its
own program file to save preferences and high scores.  This is not only
safer but more compatible with disk compression utilities such as Disk
Doubler.

With Version 7.5, a separate Carbon application, KlondikeX, was made available,
in addition to the classic Fat application. KlondikeX is for PPC only and is
only supported on Mac OS 9 and above.

Payment

Paying for Klondike is fairly simple.  Open the Register program that
accompanies Klondike.  Enter your name, your email address, and the number
of single user licenses you desire (or Site or Word-Wide licenses).  Save
or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and
payment to Kagi.  More specifics on the Register program to follow.  Kagi
handles my payment processing.

If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data
to Kagi.  Their email address is [e-mail] and their fax number is +1
510 652-6589.  You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into
the body of an email message or you can Save the data to a file and you can
attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the
data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print
the data to the Kagi fax number.

Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days.  You will receive
an email acknowledgement when it is processed.  Payments sent via fax take
up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will
receive an email acknowledgement.

If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using
the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form,
which is:

  Kagi
  1442-A Walnut Street #392-UH
  Berkeley, California 94709-1405
  USA

You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at
present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars.  Kagi
cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD
checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.  If you
have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register
program and then select Invoice as your payment method.  Print three copies
of the form and send it to your accounts payable people.  You might want to
highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form
with their payment.  Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on
my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your
end.

Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or
Invoice as the payment method.  As far as we know, there is still no
technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the
payment, the form cannot be processed.  Payments sent via postal mail take
time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing.  Again, if you
include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is
processed.

The Plea

Klondike is a hobby. I only get to work on it a little every now and
then (I find it therapeutic: I’m a programmer at heart). If you
encounter any problems or incompatibilities playing Klondike, or have
any suggestions for future improvements, PLEASE write to me personally
at the address below (email preferred). When I get time, I hope that I
can fix your problem. Actually, I usually get bugs fixed fairly
quickly; enhancements can take a while.

Mike Casteel
8910 45th Ave. NE
Seattle, WA 98115

Electronic mail can be sent to:

Internet: [e-mail]

I hope you enjoy the games.

Michael A. Casteel