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- Kannons and Katapults
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- by Alan Davenport
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- Kannons and Katapults is a fun simulation of the old time castle vs.
- castle wars. Your users will try to defeat "King Computer" in a battle to the
- finish. King Computer is no push over and fights a decent battle. Only the
- best strategists on your system will be able to win consistantly.
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- Kannons and Katapults makes extensive use of ANSI sound effects. There
- are TEN different sound effects in the game! The only time KNK will make
- sounds on the LOCAL console is when you are playing in the local mode. (Or you
- turn on local sounds when a remote caller is online. More on this later.) Your
- callers will be able to turn THEIR sound effects on and off completely
- independent of the local console sound effects.
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- Each Kannons and Katapults game takes only 10 minutes or so to
- complete, so your users will not have to spend tremendous amounts of time per
- day playing in order to enjoy the door. KNK also has a built-in baud rate
- detection scheme. There is NO need to use a seperate baud rate locking program
- in order to run KNK using a high-speed modem at a locked baud rate.
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- The ONLY time Kannons and Katapults reads or writes to the disk is at
- the very end of each game when it reads in then updates the statistics and
- scoreboard files. This takes MUCH less than a second. For this reason, you
- should have no trouble running this door on a multi-node BBS system. The
- chances of two users both ending their game at EXACTLY the same moment in time
- on two different nodes is immeasurablely small. Even if they did, all that
- will happen is the statistics file(s) "KNK.DAT" or "KNK-USER.DAT" might get
- ruined. If this happens, just erase it. KNK automatically recreates its
- statistics file if it is missing.
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- To set this door up, you will need to create a directory to place it
- in. In the examples below, I will assume that you have created a directory
- called "C:\KNK". After creating the directory, log into it and copy KNK.EXE
- and BRUN30.EXE into the directory. (If you have other doors that use BRUN30,
- you only need ONE copy and may skip copying BRUN30, as long as you have at
- least ONE copy in a directory pointed to by the system PATH statement.)
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- The files included with KNK are:
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- KNK.EXE The actual door program.
- BRUN30.EXE The Microsoft run-time module patched for 38400 baud.
- KNK.DOC The file you are reading now.
- REGISTER.DOC How to register this door.
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- Files created by KNK are:
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- KNK.DAT A small data file where game play statistics are kept.
- KNK-USERS.DAT A small file the holds each player's monthly stats.
- KNK-BEST.ASC A human readable scoreboard file for current month.
- KNK-LAST.ASC Last month's scoreboard file. (Human readable.)
- KNK.LOG A log file containing run-time errors.
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- Other files needed by the door and are NOT included in this package are:
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- DORINFOx.DEF Passes user's info from your BBS to the Door.
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- To run Kannons and Katapults in the Test Mode without a BBS you may
- start it like this:
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- KNK.EXE /L
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- You will be logged into the door from your console. This will allow
- you to play without first logging onto your BBS. KNK will prompt you for your
- name. You should use the SAME name every time as the name you enter is used to
- create the scoreboard file.
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- To run Kannons and Katapults from your BBS, you must tell it where to
- find DORINFOx.DEF from your BBS. (Replace the "x" in the example with the BBS
- node number if running multi-node.) If your BBS software does NOT produce a
- file called DORINFOx.DEF when it shells to a door, you will need to use a
- convert program to create one for you. There are many different ones to do the
- job for you. Consult a guru familiar with running doors with your BBS
- software. A sample batch file to run Kannons and Katapults is listed below:
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- CD \KNK
- KNK C:\BBS\DORINFO1.DEF
- CD \BBS
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- Yes, that's ALL there is to it! Just change to the door's directory
- and pass it the FULL PATH to and NAME of the DORINFOx.DEF file.
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- To run Kannons and Katapults at a locked baud rate on a high speed
- modem you have to do NOTHING AT ALL! KNK has been programmed to read your
- computer's COM port hardware directly and automatically detects the connect
- rate!
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- You may wish to make a menu entry on your BBS to show "KNK-BEST.ASC".
- This is the scoreboard file for the current month. Each month the scoreboard
- is cleared and the current "KNK-BEST.ASC" is renamed to "KNK-LAST.ASC". You
- may want to add a menu entry to show this file as well. When you first start
- out, until the month changes, there will be NO "KNK-LAST.ASC" to display. You
- may wish to create a small file that says "No last months scoreboard!" until
- one gets created by the game when the month changes. NOTE: You should NOT
- RENAME or MOVE either scoreboard file from the game's directory since it reads
- them itself when a player requests to view the scoreboard! If you want them in
- another directory to display them from inside your BBS, you should COPY them
- there not move or rename them!
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- There are THREE function keys available when a Kannons and Katapults
- is running. "F4" toggles the LOCAL CONSOLE sound effects on and off. "F5" will
- instantly terminate the door and return the user to your BBS or YOU to DOS if
- you are logged on in the Test Mode. "F10" will initiate the "Chat Mode" where
- you and your user can type in real time to each other. Pressing escape
- terminates chat mode.
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- That is all there is to this documentation. I like keeping it short
- and sweet! (-; If you have any problems setting up this door first try to
- contact an expert local to you. If you really get stuck, I will try to help if
- you send a Fidonet Netmail to address 1:13/75 OR if you call and log on to my
- BBS (Phone 1-717-686-3037 9600 HST) and leave a message. Please try all you
- can to solve your problem first. Sometimes a little head scratching is all it
- takes!
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- *********************************************************************
- * FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO REGISTER THIS DOOR READ "REGISTER.DOC"! *
- *********************************************************************
-
- Alan Davenport
- 9-22-91
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