ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 Shareware Freeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)

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Text File | 1990-08-06 | 13.7 KB | 289 lines

Thing Puzzle Users Guide A fun computer puzzle for all ages (c) Copyright 1990 Unistar, Inc. by Unistar Inc. mark@unistar INTRODUCTION Background The original program was written as a challenge to myself and as a way of getting used to the curses screen management package I had purchased. This Shareware release contains a number of enhancements to the original program. This program is modeled after those little children's puzzles that usually have four rows and four columns of movable plastic pieces less the one piece that is missing so that you can move things round. There are many different puzzles like this, the simple ones are numbered from one to fifteen, while others are made up of pictures that you move around to reorder the puzzle. This program uses numbers, you move them around until they are in order with the piece numbered one in the upper left corner and the blank or missing piece is in the lower right-hand corner. The program allows you to select a puzzle from four by four, or 16 squares to one that is nine by nine squares or eighty-one squares. Requirements THING requires PC-DOS or MS-DOS 3.0 or higher to run, one floppy or hard drive, and any standard monitor in graphics mode. Your computer will need to have at least 384K to run the puzzle program. GENERAL FEATURES THING is very simple to operate. When you run THING, you are presented with a screen that contains your game board in the upper left corner of the screen, the program title, game size, and move count in the upper right corner of the screen, and a line at the bottom of the screen that tells how to turn the help menu on and off. When the on-screen help is on, it is displayed on the right side of the screen. The game board is a grid of numbers arranged in a square. The starting point of the square is in the upper left corner of the screen and increases in size to the right and downward for larger size games. The default game is a four by four square and is the simplest to win. The game board is initially displayed with all of the numbers scrambled around on the board, and you must re- arrange them so that they are in numerical order. You can use your cursor keys on the keyboard if your computer has them, or you can use the letters L, R, U, or D to move left, right, up or down. You can also quit the game with or without saving it to play at a later time. If you save a game, the next time you start the program, the game will automatically load the game that was last saved. Once you have completed the game, you will be shown the scoreboard of previous winners, and you will be told that you won, and if you made it on the scoreboard. If you quit the game without saving, you will be shown the scoreboard, but you will not be on it. RUNNING THE PROGRAM THING is normally run without any command line arguments, and defaults to a game board of four squares by four squares. If you wish to play a game with a larger game board, you can do so by running THING with the arguments '-nx' where x is the number of squares down each side, the minimum squares that you can play with is '- n4', the default, and the maximum is '-n9'. If you wanted to play a game using a 9 by 9 game board, you would run the program like this; thing -n9 and you would have the largest game board possible at this time. When you save a game, the game board size is saved too, and running THING with any size specified will cause the size to be ignored if there is currently a saved game to play. CONFIGURING THE PROGRAM Configuration of THING is easy, the only thing that may have to be done is to set the TERM environment variable. For Unix and Xenix users, this should be set already when you logged in. For DOS users, you may have to set this if your machine is not 100% PC/XT compatible. THING uses the ASPEN SCIENTIFIC curses window development package, a package that closely emulates the UNIX curses package. THING defaults to using direct memory-mapped video I/O, this is the fastest mode, but it is also the least portable. If you have problems running THING without any TERM variable set, then try using these settings, one at a time until it works; TERM value description ibm-pc Color or monochrome memory mapped video output (default) bios-pc Color or monochrome IBM BIOS output ansi-pc monochrome ANSI.SYS compatible output (requires ANSI.SYS) c_ansi-pc Color ANSI.SYS compatible output (requires ANSI.SYS) Those modes that require ANSI.SYS have to have a line that reads "device=ansi.sys", in your config.sys file, for more information about ansi.sys and config.sys, consult your DOS manual. To set the TERM variable, you need to type something like this from the DOS prompt; "set TERM=bios-pc", or whichever TERM value you need. If THING is going to be run on a 100% IBM PC/XT compatible, then you don't need to set TERM, or you can set TERM to "ibm-pc". If THING will be run in MS-WINDOWS, TI-Emulate, or some other emulation environment, then try setting TERM to "bios-pc", if THING will be run on a machine which is not IBM PC/XT compatible, or if it is running on an emulator and "bios-pc" does not work, then set TERM to "ansi-pc" or "c_ansi-pc". COMMANDS WHILE PLAYING THE PROGRAM When THING is running, a line at the bottom of the screen will tell you how to turn the on-screen help on and off. All the commands are listed on the menu. The commands are basically of three types, movement commands, game exit commands, and miscellaneous commands. Movement commands. Movement commands are what allow you to move around on the game board and to move pieces around. When the game starts, your pointer is located on the upper left- hand game piece, you move it around using either the cursor arrow keys or by using keyboard keys. The cursor arrow keys are the easiest to use but may not work correctly on all ASCII terminals. When the cursor keys are not working correctly, you can use the four key listed below to move the game pointer around in the direction indicated. Key Direction Moved --- --------------- L Left R Right U Up D Down When you use the above four keyboard keys or the cursor arrow keys the game pointer will wrap around on the same column or row when the edge of the game board is reached. You can also use the TAB key to move to the right one position, and when the right edge of the game board is reached, the game pointer will wrap down to the first position on the next lowest row, or will to go the top leftmost position of you are already on the last game square. Exit commands. THING has two exit commands. When you are playing the game, if you wish to exit the game and save it until later, then you can press the 'E' key, if you wish to end the current game and not save it, press the 'Q' key. When the 'E' key is pressed, THING will say it is saving the game, and then will exit back to the computer's operating system, you will not be show the scoreboard, if you press 'Q' to quit without saving, you will be shown the scoreboard, and you will be told that you did not win. Miscellaneous commands. THING has two miscellaneous commands, if you press the '?' key while playing the game, the on-screen help will be turned on and displayed if it was already off, and it will be turned off and that help area of the screen will be cleared if it was already on. If you are playing THING from a ASCII terminal or a terminal emulator program it is possible for a burst of line noise to put random characters, or garbage on the screen, when this happens, hold down the key marked 'Control' or 'Ctrl' and press the letter 'L' and then release both keys, this will cause THING to rewrite the screen with all the garbage removed. THING is a rather simple puzzle program right now, if there are any features that you think would be nice to have added, please let us know and we will consider adding them. KNOWN PROBLEMS There are no known problems within THING at this time. SHAREWARE THING is user supported software for the IBM PC, compatibles, and for machines capable of emulating a PC/XT. THING is made available for a free ten day trial period. If you find this program useful or interesting, you may license the program for noncommercial use on one machine by sending $15.00 to: THING c/o Unistar, Inc. P. O. Box 23563 New Orleans LA, 70181 You may use all updates that you may receive via a bbs or from us free once you have registered THING. When you register the program, you will receive a disk in the mail with the current version of THING if there is a newer version from the one you are using. For those that do not have THING and would like to receive a copy you can do so by sending a $15 registration fee plus $4 postage and handling ($19 total) Please specify 360K or 1.2Meg disk (I don't have 3.5" disks). THING may be licensed for commercial use on up to 10 computers at a single site or set of contiguous sites for $75.00. A commercial site is defined as a business or individual using THING as part of it's business activities, including recreation and relaxation by it's employees (during lunch time of course.) Bulletin boards that charge a fee for access to the system or charge a fee for higher access to the files or 'doors' sections are classified as a business even though they may not be licensed as such in their local municipalities. Clubs, schools, universities and other organizations may license THING for $45.00 per 6 copies. If you use THING as part of a commercial demo or as a game for another application you must obtain a license from Unistar, Inc. and pay a $1/copy royalty for each copy shipped. All other rights are reserved. THING may not be changed or modified in any way except by the copyright holder. THING may be freely distributed for the ten day trial period as long as it remains in its complete form. Regardless of how the copy is obtained, it is requested that all users comply with the licensing agreement. All warranties are disclaimed, including damage to hardware and/or software from use of this product. In no event shall Unistar Inc. be liable to you for any damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use or inability to use the program, or any other claim by any other party. Contact Unistar Inc. for special modifications. Any suggestions or comments should be mailed directly to Unistar Inc at above address or via electronic mail to mark@unistar.UUCP or rex.cs.tulane.edu!mgse!napsac!wmb!liz!unistar!mark. History of the program release 1.0 30 July 1990 First shareware release Microsoft, MS-WINDOWS, MS, MS-DOS and Xenix are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, IBM and PC-DOS are registered trademark, and PC-XT is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. TI is a trademark of Texas Instruments Corporation. UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories. (c) Copyright 1990 Unistar, Inc. All rights reserved.