Precision Software Applications Silver Collection 1

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Text File | 1991-12-11 | 40KB | 956 lines

ATCSIM V1.6 ----------- Air Traffic Control Simulator ----------------------------- A 3-dimensional graphical game with synthesized voice reply. Table of Contents ----------------- Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 System Requirement & Files Distributed . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Quick Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Command Line Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Graphics Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 To upgrade from V1.0-1.5 to 1.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 What is ATC ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Headings & Flight Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 What is a Flight Progress Strip (FPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Departure Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Arrival Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Transit Aircraft & Critical State . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Emergency Situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Other commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Registration & Discount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Skill levels & Jump to DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Distribution Policy & License Agreement . . . . . . . . . . 15 Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Revision History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2 ATCSIM V1.6 ----------- Air Traffic Control Simulator ----------------------------- Features -------- - first air traffic control simulator with 3-dimensional graphical display. You can actually see an aircraft leave the ground during takeoff. - first ATC simulator with synthesized voice reply, just like the real case over the radio. - simulation of a secondary surveillance radar display with a data-tag attached to each aircraft, showing its call sign, altitude speed and climb/descend indicator. - an airport at the center with 4 possible runways and 5 exits at the edges. - 2 types of aircraft simulated (Boeing 747 and Cessna 182) but you can change their performance and add another 2 types using the Aircraft Specification Editor (see below). - aircraft speed up on descend and slow down on climbing. - detail self-explaining on-line help. - variable wind effect which can be toggled on and off. - emergency situations such as hydraulics problem and engine failure requiring immediate actions to direct the aircraft to land as soon as possible. - 5 sound levels. - option to toggle between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional display. - change the speed of play from 1 - 9 seconds per 'tick' subject to skill level restriction. - 6 skill levels from beginners to experts handling 6 - 26 aircraft generated at different speed. - option to shell out to DOS. If you have 208K of expanded memory or 194K of free disk space, the program will swap most of itself out using less than 3K of conventional memory. 3 - option to save the game to disk and resume playing later. - change the aircraft performance characteristics using the Aircraft Specification Editor. You can optionally add 1 - 2 aircraft types. - various options can be set by command line parameters. - hall of fame with top 10 high scores. The game distributed is in a demonstration state. Although it allows you to try all 6 skill levels, it is limited to 3 aircraft for all levels. US$20 registration allows you to play as many as 26 aircraft in level 6. See topic "Skill Level". System Requirement & Files Distributed -------------------------------------- - Intel (TM) 8088,80286,386,486 processor running at any clock speed - graphics adaptor card: CGA, MCGA, EGA, VGA, IBM 3270 PC, AT&T 6300 and Hercules (TM) - DOS 2.0 or higher (but not MS-DOS 2.11!) - at least 256K of memory - hard disk optional ATCSIM is distributed as a self-extracting LHA archive as ATCSIM.EXE You only need to run this program to extract the following files: ASE.DOC - explains how the Aircraft Specification Editor works ASE.EXE - Aircraft Specification Editor ATC.DAT - data file ATC.DOC - this file ATC.EXE - the game REG.DOC - registration form REG.EXE - program to enter the registration password into ATC.EXE to unlock all the features * .BGI - graphics drivers Only the corresponding .BGI files for your graphics card is needed to run ATC.EXE (see Graphics Driver on the next page). REG.EXE is only needed to enter the password. Afterwards, it is not needed to run the game. 4 Quick Start ----------- If you are already familiar with air traffic control (ATC), you can play the game right away. Run ATC.EXE, choose your skill level, when the radar display appears, press <ESC> to see the menu, then press <H> to display help on command syntax, exit radials and restrictions. On the right of the radar display is a "rack" of flight progress strips (FPS), upper half for departures and lower half arrivals. If you find the wind effect too difficult, press <ESC><W> to toggle it off. If you find the simulation speed too fast, press <ESC><D><+> to increase the update interval. Command Line Parameters ----------------------- As of Version 1.6, various program parameters can be set by command line parameters as follows: Parameter Value Default value Effect -C 1-10 0=autodetect set graphics card manually (see Graphics Driver below) -D 1-9 1 set delay in seconds -L 0-6 asked from set skill level startup screen 0=resume saved game 1=novice 6=expert -M 0-4 depends on set graphics mode manually graphics card (see Graphics Driver below) -S 0-4 4=full voice set sound level reply 0=silent 1=sound warnings only 2=bell & whistle 3=voice reply ident only -T N or Y Y=3-D display set 3-dimensional display on/off -W N or Y depends on set wind effect on/off skill level - command line parameters can be entered in any order and in both upper and lower cases, e.g. atc -s0 -wn -l5 to start program in level 5, no wind effect and no sound. - the parameter prefix "-" can be replaced by "/", i.e. -wn /WN are the same. 5 - there is no space between the parameter character and its value, i.e. "-s 0" is wrong "-s0" is correct. Graphics Drivers ---------------- The program will detect the following 10 types of graphics card and load the corresponding .bgi driver file. If the program cannot detect your graphics card, you can manually specify the graphics driver to be loaded by adding a command line parameter when you execute the program. For each graphics card, there is a default mode which is the best for that card. You can override it by specifying a second command line parameter. -Cn Driver Driver -Mn Mode --- ------ File --- ---- ------ 1 CGA CGA.BGI 1* 320 x 200 color palette 1 4 640 x 200 black & white 2 MCGA CGA.BGI 4* 640 x 200 3 EGA EGAVGA.BGI 1* 640 x 350 16 colors 4 EGA64 EGAVGA.BGI 1* 640 x 350 5 EGAMono EGAVGA.BGI 3* 640 x 350 7 Hercules HERC.BGI 0* 720 x 348 black & white 8 ATT400 ATT.BGI 4* 640 x 200 9 VGA EGAVGA.BGI 1* 640 x 350 16 colors 10 PC3270 PC3270.BGI 0* 720 x 350 Legend ------ -Cn is the command line parameter to set graphics card -Mn is the command line parameter to set graphics mode an asterisk(*) beside -Mn is the default mode For example, type "atc -c3" to specify EGA graphics card with default 640 x 350 mode; type "atc -c1 -m4" to specify CGA with 640 x 200 mode. 6 To upgrade from V1.0-1.5 to 1.6 ------------------------------- If you are already a registered user of ATCSIM V1.0-1.5, version 1.6 is free. Replace all the files of the previous versions with those from this version and run REG.EXE using the same password I sent you before. If you have lost your password, send me the registration form quoting your registration number and I shall send you the password again. What is ATC ? ------------- Aircraft fly in and out of a large airport in fixed routes called airways. They are equivalent to the freeways for cars. Unlike driving where you can stop and look around, aircraft must keep on flying. The job of the air traffic controller is to direct aircraft from one place to another via radio and to keep them separated to avoid collision. He achieves this with the help of radar. In this game, the radar display shows the airport at the center of the screen with 2 runways. Each can be used at either end. At the start of the game, the program will decide which runway or runways may be used for takeoff and landings. There may be only one active runway or all 4 possible runways may be active. An active runway is shown on the radar display as a yellow[1] dotted line together with its approach area shown as a light-blue rectangle. There are 5 exits where departing aircraft will leave. They are shown as light-green brackets together with their names near the edges of the radar display. If the wind effect is on, a light-green wind direction indicator will be displayed on the upper right corner of the radar display showing the direction and speed in knots. Wind speed is from 6 to 25 knots. To see the actual direction of the wind in degrees, press <ESC><H><W> for help on wind. You have to direct departing aircraft to take off, climb to a certain altitude (at least 6,000 ft), to turn left or right so that they fly towards their destinations (the 5 exits). You have to direct arriving aircraft to descend to a certain altitude (maximum 4,000 ft), to turn left or right so that they fly into the approach area (rectangle), 'clear' them for approach and clear them to land. [1] The color specified here is for EGA/VGA and it will vary depending on the graphics card. 7 To prevent collisions, aircraft fly at heights at least one thousand feet apart. When 2 aircraft are vertically separated by less than 1000 ft. and horizontally less than approximately 0.5 inch on the radar display, a collision is likely and the condition is called "near miss". The game ends when 2 aircraft collide in midair. Headings & Flight Level ----------------------- Flying is like sailing where direction is measured on a 360 degree basis. North is heading 0, east 90, south 180, west 270. Therefore, if you direct an aircraft to turn right heading 135, you tell it to fly south-east. Runways are named by its heading in tenth's of degree. Runway 09 is heading 90-99 east, runway 16 is heading 160-169 south south east. The reciprocal runways (takeoff and landing in the opposite direction) are respectively runway 27 and 34. Wind direction is measured from where it is blown. 180 degree wind means it is blowing from south towards north. Aircraft fly in heights measured in hundreds of feet called flight levels. A flight level of 30 means 30 hundred feet or 3,000 feet. Throughout this game altitudes are measured in flight levels and so are your altitude changing commands. What is a Flight Progress Strip (FPS) ------------------------------------- Air traffic controllers keep details about each aircraft on strips of paper called flight progress strips (FPS). These FPS are displayed on the right of the radar display in 2 sections, the upper half departures, lower half arrivals. The FPS of each aircraft consists of 2 lines of data, e.g. 24X 747 XKL 580 09 120 140 16 60 135 100 24X is the identification of the aircraft. It is the 'call sign' which you have to enter on each command. 747 is the aircraft type. In this game, there are 2 types of aircraft by default: Boeing 747 and Cessna 182. 747 is the fast jet which climbs and fly faster and 182 is the slower single propeller plane. You can change the name and performance of these aircraft and optionally add up to 2 aircraft of your own specifications using the Aircraft Specification Editor, see 8 ASE.DOC XKL is the name of the destination for departing or pass-through aircraft. For arriving aircraft, this field is blank. There are 5 destinations: Name Radials (bearing from airport center) ---- ------- ELT 93 ECO 125 DVR 162 EDS 232 XKL 322 This field will show a light-red 'may' indicating May Day - the call-sign for emergency if the aircraft is in distress. 580 is the fuel indicator for the aircraft. 747 by default starts off with 700 units of fuel and 182 with 500. They burn fuel while waiting for departures as well as flying. They use more fuel climbing and less descending. You should keep an eye on it. When an aircraft runs out of fuel, the game is over! 09 is the runway indicator: - when an aircraft is waiting for departure, either 09,16,27 or 34 will be seen showing it is waiting for take off at that runway. - when you clear an aircraft for take off, the indicator becomes 09T etc. to show that the aircraft is rolling down that runway. - after take off, and for arriving aircraft in flight, this field is blank. - when you clear an arriving aircraft for approach, the indicator shows 09A etc. - when an aircraft is cleared to land, the indicator becomes 09C etc. 120 is the heading that the aircraft is currently flying. 140 is the desired heading that you direct the plane to turn towards. When the plane is not turning, this field is blank. 16 is the altitude in Flight Levels (hundreds of ft) that the aircraft is currently flying (1,600 ft). 60 is the desired altitude you specified. When the plane is flying level, this field is blank. 9 135 is the bearing of the plane from the airport center. This plane is to the south-east of the airport. When the plane is waiting on the ground, this field is blank. 100 is the distance of the plane from the airport. It is approximately 95 units for the edges and 150 units for the corners of the radar display. Departure Example ----------------- A beep is heard and you see on the departure section a FPS with this entry: 24X 747 XKL 598 09 There are no aircraft around so you clear it for departure by this command: ATC : 24XT<CR> Plane : "Two Four rolling" The pilot replies in synthesized voice! When the plane gets off the ground, you hear a beep and it will be displayed on the radar by a cross (x) in 2-dimensional display and by a yellow circle and a line, together with a brown circle below the aircraft in 3-dimensional display. This is the shadow of the aircraft on the ground. A data-tag will also be placed near it showing its call sign, altitude, speed and an up- arrow (^). The bearing of XKL from the airport is 322. To fly to the exit XKL at 6,000 ft or above, you issue the command: ATC : 24X60L300 Plane : "Two Four climb to six zero left three zero zero" When you see that the bearing of the plane approaches 322, you tell it to turn right heading 322. It will then fly directly to XKL. If the wind effect is on, you have to adjust the heading accordingly, otherwise the wind will 'drift' the aircraft away from the destination. ATC : 24XH322<CR> Plane : "Two Four right three two two" Note: There are 3 turning commands: L,R & H. L and R explicitly tell an aircraft to turn left or right. The H command tells an aircraft to make the smaller turn (less than 180 degrees) to take up the desired heading. 10 Arrival Example --------------- You hear a beep and you see on the arrival section a FPS: 14C 182 396 65 90 245 158 A Cessna 182 at 9,000 ft is flying in from south-west. While it is outside the radar display, you cannot 'control' it. When it enters, you hear a beep and you enter this command to prepare it to land using runway 09: ATC : 14C40L40<CR> Plane : "One Four descend to four zero left four zero" The aim is to direct the plane to enter the approach rectangle at 4,000 ft or below. You can only clear an aircraft for approach while it is inside the rectangle. In 3-dimensional display mode, while the brown circle is inside the rectangle. If the wind effect is on and the altitude of the aircraft is within the effect of the wind, you have to adjust the heading accordingly. Otherwise, the wind will blow the aircraft away from the approach rectangle. Also, if wind effect is on and the wind is strong, say more than 20 knots, and is blowing from the tail of the aircraft, if you direct the aircraft for approach at 4,000 ft. the aircraft may miss-approach because the strong tail wind will effectively reduce the distance for descend. You should direct the aircraft for approach at a lower altitude if strong tail wind is blowing. ATC : 14CA<CR> Plane : "One Four approach zero nine" After you have cleared an aircraft for approach, it will automatically turn left or right to align with the runway and gently descend towards the ground using the Instrumental Landing System (ILS) on board! Before it touches the ground, you have to give landing clearance. Otherwise scores will be deducted. ATC : 14CC<CR> Plane : "One Four cleared to land" Transit Aircraft & Critical State --------------------------------- Transit aircraft are aircraft passing through your control zone. They are displayed in the departure section of the FPS with 11 a blank runway field. You should vector them to their destination with altitude of 6,000 ft. or more. To make the program more realistic, only one aircraft can be in the 'critical state' of 'cleared to land' or 'cleared for takeoff' for a particular runway and its reciprocal runway. For example, you cannot clear 2 successive aircraft to land using runway 09 although you can clear both for the approach. Emergency Situations -------------------- Occasionally, an emergency situation will arise. There are 4 types of situations will increasing severity: Type 1: Electrical problem. Effect : aircraft will dump fuel. Action : descend to approach altitude and vector to nearest approach rectangle. Type 2: Hydraulic problem. Effect : aircraft will dump fuel and reduce to Approach Speed. Action : descend to approach altitude and vector to nearest approach rectangle. Type 3: Rapid decompression. Effect : aircraft will dump fuel, reduce speed and descend to 1,000 ft. Action : vector to nearest approach rectangle. Type 4: Engine failure. Effect : aircraft will dump fuel, reduce speed, descend to 1,000 ft. and will be unable to maintain heading. Action : vector to nearest approach rectangle. Other commands -------------- There are commands to display help and high score, to quit the game, to change how fast the game is played, to change sound level, to shell out to DOS (so that your boss will not know!), to toggle between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional display, to save the game so that it can be played again from exactly the same situation and to toggle the wind effect. Press <ESC> at any time for the menu, press <Q> to quit the game, <H> for help and high score, <O> to jump to DOS, <D> to change speed, <S> to change sound level, <3> to toggle 2-D/3-D display, <V> to save the game and <W> to toggle wind effect on/off. 12 As from V1.6, you can set the sound level, delay factor, turn 3-dimensional & wind effect on or off as well as set the skill level from the command line at start up. See section "Command line parameters" on page 5. The <ESC> is also used to pause the game. Just press a key not assigned to any functions to resume playing. Registration & Discount ------------------------ Many months of hard work have been spent on writing this program. If you like this game, if you appreciate my work, please send me a contribution. The copy of this program you received is in a demonstration state limited to 3 aircraft for all skill levels. It lets you evaluate if it is worth $20 or not. After registration, you will be able to play as many as 26 aircraft in level 6. See topic "Skill Level" below. Registration is simple. Please print and follow the instruction in REG.DOC If you live outside USA or Canada please send me a bank draft or money order of either US$20 payable in USA or HK$160 payable in Hong Kong. Alternatively, you can send me cash in US/ Hong Kong/Australian dollars (A$25). The bank surcharges for a US dollar check drawn outside US/Canada will kill my living! Cash should preferably be sent by registered mail as I shall not be held responsible for any losses. After I have received your form, I shall mail you the password to be used with REG.EXE to register your own copy of ATC.EXE and I don't have to send you another disk. After registration, all the features of the game will be available and the program will display your name and address when you start the game. Each user will have his own unique password. If you send your registration before October 31, 1991, the following discount will be given: US$10 or A$10 or HK$80 for registration. However, only CASH will be accepted preferably by registered mail. Skill levels & Jump to DOS -------------------------- Level 1 : Trainee - play 'at your own pace' from as slow as 9 seconds per tick 13 - no fuel restriction - no exit restriction. Fly departing aircraft anywhere you like to 'get the hang of ATCing' - handle 6 aircraft generated at slower successions. Level 2 : Cadet - still no fuel restrictions - now learn to fly aircraft to their destinations - handle 10 aircraft. Level 3 : Officer - with full fuel & destination restrictions - handle 14 aircraft generated at faster successions. - wind effect is on by default. Level 4 : Supervisor - arriving aircraft may 'miss approach' due to poor weather condition or poor technique of pilots. They are low on fuel so you have to 'vector' them for another approach as soon as possible. - you may encounter emergency situations - handle 18 aircraft Level 5 : Chief - handle 22 aircraft - you cannot play slower than 5 seconds per tick - exit name will not be shown on the display - there will be more miss approaches and emergency situations Level 6 : Wizard - meet the greatest challenge and handle 26 aircraft at a busy airport. - you can only play at either 1 or 2 seconds per tick - new aircraft will be created every 28 ticks - more miss approaches and emergency situations At the start of the game, the program will check if you have enough expanded memory available (about 208K) to swap the program out when you shell to DOS, leaving only 3K of conventional memory used up. If you don't have enough memory, the program will open a hidden file SWAP.$$$ on your default disk and sub-directory. It will be 194K big. If you don't have enough disk space, the program will warn you and the program will jump to DOS without swapping, using up 195K of conventional memory. 14 Distribution Policy & License Agreement --------------------------------------- This software is distributed as Trialware = try before you buy. You are given 30 days to try out this product. If you are satisfied at the end of 30 days, please register. If you are not satisfied, you should cease using it. You are free and encouraged to distribute this program as widely as possible in its unmodified form. You should not charge a fee more than the cost of a floppy disk + postage and in case of Bulletin Boards, the normal connected charges if present. Please help trialware by uploading it to anywhere you think people are interested in. Trialware can only survive and continue to produce quality program at such a low price if the author does not have to spend a lot of money on advertisement and there are many users who do paid. Thank you in advance for your support! This program is supplied 'as is' without guarantee of any kind. The author will not be liable for any losses or damages consequential or coincidental to the use of this software. This software is copyrighted under International Laws applicable. You can only distribute the original trialware version of the program in its original package (the ATCSIM.EXE) freely. You cannot disassemble or reverse engineer the program or modify it so as to enable the functions and features for registered users. The only legal way to modify the file ATC.DAT is by using REG.EXE to enter the password supplied from registration and the ASE.EXE to modify the aircraft specification data. ATC.DAT after registration will become your personal copy and cease to be trialware. Distribution of registered personal copy is a violation of applicable Copyright Laws. Registration implies that you accept this license agreement. Acknowledgement --------------- The speech synthesizer module is by David Neal Dubois and Michael Day and is available in CompuServe's Borland Programming Forum A TP5.x Library as TALK.ZIP The execswap module to swap most of the program to EMS or hard disk during shell to DOS is by Kim Kokonen and is available in Borland Programming Forum A TP5.x Library as EXECSW.ARC The LZEXE compression program is from France and is available in CompuServe's IBM Systems & Utilities Forum Files Library as LZEXE9.ZIP 15 The module to process command line parameters is adapted from CMDLIN.PAS by Jim Walsh and is available in Borland Programming Forum A TP5.x Library as CMDLIN.ARC I wish to thank those of you who have uploaded this game to other information service and your local BBS. I also wish to thank all the software distributors who distribute my program. Revision History ---------------- Version 1.6 - April 20,1991 - add various command line parameters. - add hall of fame with top 10 high scores. - more realistic 2-dimensional display: aircraft represented by a cross (x). - add the climb/descend indicator in data-tag. - arrival aircraft now come from the exit destinations and not from random positions. - create more pass-through aircraft. - fix the critical state not saved/restored bug. - when you abort an approach, the critical state was not cleared, bug fixed. - fix the 4th aircraft name not saved bug in Aircraft Specification Editor. Version 1.5 - September 29,1990 - add pass-through aircraft. - use of 'critical state' to prevent clearing 2 aircraft to land on the same runway. - display aircraft while rolling on the runway during takeoff and landing. - fix the score overflow bug. - program clean-up: now only one .dat file for all the graphics card. Version 1.4B - April 21,1990 - there is a technical restriction in 386 and 486 which causes the program to hang in these machines. Bugs fixed. Version 1.4 - March 8,1990 - improved generation of emergency event for level 4 & 5. - add support for CGA 320 x 200 x 4 colors mode. - add level 6. - aircraft speed up on descend and slow down on climbing. - change altitude command & approach command simplified. - add H command to take up heading. - add optional second command line parameter to specify graphics mode. - allow you to break out of (to abort) an approach. 16 - in type 4 emergency (engine failure), the aircraft may spin round and round, bug fixed. - unfortunately, the herc.bgi driver that supports Hercules Incolor card was so 'buggy' that I've to removed it. If you have an Incolor card, the program still runs but there is no color, sorry. Version 1.3 - November 24,1989 - add variable wind effects. - add 4 types of emergency situations. - improved help screens divided into pages, added help on Flight Progress Strips. - add optional command line parameter to specify graphics card because the autodetect function doesn't work on some graphics card. - remove all the .bgi graphics drivers from the .exe file to save memory since only one driver is needed during execution. More graphics card are now supported. Version 1.2 - September 16, 1989 - add option to save/resume game. - add 3-dimensional display. - add Aircraft Specification Editor to change aircraft performance data and optionally add 1 or 2 more aircraft types. - randomly use 1-4 runways. Version 1.1 - August 1, 1989 - when the last active aircraft has landed/reached destination, the program will go haywire and may hang the system requiring reboot, bug fixed. - an aircraft may repeatedly miss approach. The algorithm has been rewritten so that it reflects the real situation better. Version 1.0 - July 21, 1989 - initial release. 17 Index ----- Topic headings are found on the Table of Contents on page 2 and are not included here. 3-dimensional display 11 Aircraft types 8 Approach rectangle 7, 11 Command Line Parameters 5 Commands turning 10 Data-tag 10 Distress indicator 9 Exit name and radials 9 Expanded memory 14 Graphics card 6 default mode 6 High score display 12 Miss approach 14 Near miss 8 Password 7, 13 Radar display 7 Restrictions altitude 7 horizontal 8 Runways 7 Wind effect 10, 11 wind direction indicator 7