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- Notes on Adventure Environment
- written April 26, 1981
-
- This disk was written and and compiled under version 1.3x and
- will NOT compile under version 1.4 and later without changes to the
- source. Specifically dbuff in advent.h on or about line 134 must be
- declared so that it is compatible with the 1.4 file i/o. The com files
- on the disk will require at least a 46k system to execute, but
- recompiling under 1.4 will add about 1k to the memory requirements
- (except that 1.4 produces tighter code).
- The com files provided were debugged on a system including
- a 48k Altair equipped with 2 Micropolis drives, and a Processor
- Technology VDM.
- To begin play, type advent. To resume a saved game type
- "advent -r".
-
- Added notes on making this ADVENTURE work in BDS-C Version 1.43
- Environment written 17 May 1981 by L. C. Calhoun.
-
- At Robert Ward's request, I brought this program up on
- the 1.43 compiler. Only one change was required..to add the
- small section on buffering from BDSCIO.H to ADVENT.H, and to
- change dbuff[134] in ADVENT.H to dbuff[BUFSIZ]. I did review
- the other program files for potential changes, and added a
- title and note to the head of each for the record. The compile
- and link control syntaxes differ between V 1.4 and older versions.
- I made the appropriate changes, and created two submit files;
- ADVCOMP.SUB and ADVLINK.SUB. These must (of course) run on
- disk a:, but they are set up for all the c utilities to be on
- disk a: and the actual c programs with their .CRL files to be
- on b:. Just PIP these two sub files over to the a: disk where
- CC1, CC2, C.CCC, CLINK, DEFF* etc. hang out. Only one file
- needs to be read two times during linkage - TURN.CRL while
- EADVENT.COM is being linked. Otherwise, it went smoothly
- in conversion.
-
- Mr. Jaeger (me too, I must admit) was worried that
- the greater buffer size used in the standard V 1.43 library
- would have a bad effect on the program length. I compiled
- without the -o option for optimization. Lo and behold,
- the program appears to be considerably shorter. I was able
- to external set the data (-e6A00) much lower than in the
- submit files supplied. I could have even gone lower.
- I compiled a second time with the e option in CC1 to -e6A00,
- see ADVCOMP.SUB. Dog gone if the code didn't end at 5EC8.
- However, the variables end at 7CA1 even with the -e6A00,
- so I didn't bother.
-
- The re-compiles were done on an ALTAIR 8800B, with
- a 60K CPM 2.2 system, ADM-3A display, and TARBEL single side
- single density controlling four Shugart 801R's. I checked
- the elboeroom callouts during compile, and the least amount
- of elboeroom was 20K whilst compiling TURN.C. So, it appears
- that the re-compiled version will compile and run on
- a 40K system with about 4K of stack space. You can pick
- up another 2K of stack space by editing the ADVCOMP.SUB file
- for the option -e6000 if it's worthwhile. Thank you Mr. Zolman.
-
- ***********************************************************************
-
- Written on Sept 18, 1985
-
- Port of source code to the MS-DOS environment with the following
- target compilers:
-
- Eco-C88 Version 2.72
- Lattice C Version 2.14
- DeSmet C Version 2.41
-
- Most of the changes required involved the use of file I/O and the
- database offset index arrays used in the program. Conditional code
- was added at various points in order to allow the same source to
- compile under the three target compilers. The modules EADVENT.C and
- SAVEADV.C were modified from main drivers to called functions in order
- that the entire program could be linked into a single executable
- module.
-
- Under MS-DOS version 2 or higher the default number of files is one
- too few to enable the program to run. A FILES=10 should be added
- in your CONFIG.SYS file (I've been using 12).
-
- I was unable to get the Lattice version to operate properly using
- buffered file I/O. It appeared that the file offsets returned by
- lseek() and ftell() were incorrect while using buffered I/O. I'm
- still scratching my head over this one. I disabled file buffering
- on the Lattice version and it worked perfectly. Well .... not
- exactly perfectly. Lets put it this way, it operates properly. A
- dead snail could beat it in a race but it does operate as advertised.
- If anyone has a clue for a fix to this it would be most appreciated.
-
- All versions of the program were compiled on an IBM/PC with 640K and
- running under PC-DOS V2.10. The executable modules were also tried
- under PC-DOS V3.00 and on a TIPC with 512K running under MS-DOS V2.13.
- The program operated as expected under all configurations.
-
- Bob Withers
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Written on June 2nd, 1990
-
- The code was once again ported to compile under Microsoft C V5.10 and V6.00
- under both MSDOS and OS/2. Numerous changes and code restructuring were
- performed. See comments in file ADVENT.C for details.
-
- Bob Withers
-