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Adam M. Ulrich Atari ST Series 1431 South 302nd St. Med/Hi Resolution Federal Way, WA 98003 (206) 941-9361 COMPUSERVE 71566,1470 Football Forecaster Documentation F O O T B A L L F O R E C A S T E R I N T R O D U C T I O N Inside Football Forecaster Football Forecaster was designed around the principle that each team , unbothered by injuries, contract disputes, strikes, and weather, will maintain a certain level of play throughout the entire season. If their level of play drops, their rating will reflect it. If their rating was too low or too high at the start of the season, it will be reflected in the dramatic rise or fall in the rating. Last season, in the "BOTTOM TWENTY" were the Indiana Hoosiers. After winning the first four games, they were by no means a top twenty team yet, but they moved into the top 70. They never won a game the rest of the season, and they stayed right around the 70th - 80th spot in the ratings the rest of the way. This is an example of how the rating system I have employed works. Football Forecaster can handle 255 teams in a single database. It has enough space to handle 16 weeks of games in that database. Each team's name can be up to 29 characters long, and each teams's conference name can be up to 5 characters long. Ratings have no limit, however the highest I've ever seen one is the 1985 Nebraska Cornhuskers, about 25.5. This was after they had won by such scores as 63-0 over Oregon, 52-25 over Illinois, 41-3 over Kansas State, 49-0 over Iowa State, and 56-6 over Kansas. This was early in the season, however, and they soon came down to a more human level. Running Football Forecaster The files that you need to run Football Forecaster are the following: FTBL.PRG TERMCAP FOOTBALL.DTA COLLEGE.DTA FTBL.PRG is the run/time code for Football Forecaster. TERMCAP is the terminal capabilities file that is used with the compiled run/time code. The source code is written in BASIC. I used Philon/Fast Basic-M to compile it. FOOTBALL.DTA is the relative file database for the 28 NFL teams. COLLEGE.DTA is the relative file database for 192 Major College Teams. I plan to increase this number to the maximum 255 next year with the inclusion of several more I-AA conferences. I also plan to rewrite Football Forecaster in C, adding a few features, such as a full screen editor for the schedule. I prefer running Football Forecaster on a ram disk, but a conventional 3.5 inch disk works fine as well. If you have the files in a subdirectory, you must have the TERMCAP file in the root (top) directory. Click on FBTL.PRG and the menu will appear. Edit the Database This option allows easy access to the database to change mistakes, or enter schedules, or change ratings; whatever should occur. I have strived for 100% accuracy, checking the schedules several times, however my sources may have been inaccurate. Before editing any database, make a backup! It is a good idea to always have a backup database. It could save alot of hassle. The first prompt that appears asks for the database name. If you wish to edit the FOOTBALL.DTA then just press return; otherwise, enter the database name and press <RETURN>. If you make a mistake, don't worry. A message will tell you that the file was not found , and to try again. If you are sure that you typed it right, press a <CONTRL> & <C>. This will take you back to desktop. Check the directory and make sure the databases you want to use are in the current directory. The next prompt asks for the team number. If you don't know what number the team is, don't worry. We'll get to that later in the print team list option. Once given a legal number, one in the range of the database limits, the team's number, conference, name, overall record, conference record, and rating will appear. If you wish to edit one of these, enter the appropriate key at the prompt. If you wish to stop editing at this point, or wish to edit another team, press <RETURN> and the prompt asking for the team number will appear again. Pressing <RETURN> takes you to the main menu. While editing the schedule, keep in mind a few things. You must enter whether the team is at home, away or playing at a neutral field, and also the team number playing. If both are not entered, you will get strange output on the predictions. Be sure to enter a bye if the team is not playing that week. You may change the number of points scored for the team you are editing, but not for the opposing team. You must edit their schedule to change that, although their score does appear on the screen. The next and previous functions take you to the next and previous week's game. It won't go lower than one or higher than sixteen. Predictions After choosing this option, you will be prompted for the database name and week number. You will then be asked to enter the header that you wish to appear at the top of each page printed. It is a good idea to put the database name , or some reference to it, the week number, and the date on this line. It comes in handy when looking up past weeks performance. Next Football Forecaster asks you if you would like to have totals printed at the bottom. This option is usually used after the weeks final scores have been entered. It prints out accuracy percentages, average point difference, etc. Be sure to use it BEFORE you update the ratings, because the predictions change once you change the ratings. The totals option is of no use before the final scores have been entered. The final prompt asks whether you wish the output sent to the screen or printer. Football Forecaster actually sends the printer output to a file, called "lineprin.ter". If it exists, it appends it on the end. To print the file, go back to desktop , click on "lineprin.ter", and choose the print option. Be sure that once you have as many copies as you want of it , delete or rename "lineprin.ter", or Football Forecaster will continue to append printer output onto its end. The output is as follows. The first thing printed is the name of the team favored to win. Next comes the number of points actually scored by them. This will be a zero until the final scores have been entered. After the " by " is the predicted spread. The number in parentheses is the actual spred. This will also be zero until final scores have been entered. After " over " is the underdog's name. Finally, the number of points actually scored by the underdog, also a zero until final scores are entered. Enter Weekly Scores This option is used to enter the final scores into the database, rather than using the edit option. After the prompt for the database name and week number, each team's name will appear with a prompt after it. Type in the number of points that each team scored. Make New Database If you have a local high school league, or a local community college league, or maybe you follow the Canadian Football League, or you are still holding out for the USFL (Good Luck), you can create your own databases. The first prompt asks for the new database name. Next, Football Forecaster asks whether the database will be a college or pro database. I'd use the pro option for high school leagues. There is a difference in the home field advantage and the relationship of rating to number of points scored between pro and college. You are then asked for the number of teams in the database. Once this is entered it cannot be changed. Then you will be prompted to enter each teams name. Once all the names have been entered, each name will appear prompting you for their rating and conference. If you're not sure about the spelling of the name, or what conference they are in, or exactly how you want to rate them, make a note of it and go on. You can always use the edit option to change it. It is a good idea to enter the names in some kind of order. I prefer alphabetical. Once completed, your database is ready to have the schedules entered with the edit database option. Team By Team Schedule After the database name and team number prompts, you will be asked whether you wish to have it on the printer or the screen. The output prints the team's number, conference, name, rating, overall record, and conference record, and each weeks number, opponent, opponent's rating and record, as well as the score of the game. Pressing a return at the team number prompt will return you to the main menu. Weekly Schedule As in the Team By Team Schedule option, after the database name and week number prompts, you will be asked whether you wish the output on the screen or the printer. The output prints the visitor's name and overall record, then the home team's name and overall record. If the word " Vs " rather than " At " appears, the game is played at a neutral field. Update Ratings This option is used after the final scores have been entered, and a prediction list, if desired, is printed with the totals option. The prompts ask for the database name and the week number. The week number used is the same week number that was used to enter the weekly scores. The output prints each team's name, old rating, amount the rating was increased or decreased Negative numbers in this column meaning decrease, and the team's new rating. This output can be sent to the printer or screen. It also updates each team's overall record and conference record as well. Print Team List This option is the most flexible option, giving a wide variety of responses. Earlier I said if you didn't know the team numbers, you would find out later. Using this option, you can print out team lists, sorted by team name, number, conference, overall record or rating. After the database name prompt, you will be asked which of these you wish the output to be sorted by. Experimentation is the only way to find out all the things you can do with this. Sorting by conference will produce an output that groups each conference together, with the highest to lowest ratings within the conference grouping. You can remove the rating, overall record and conference record, or the conference name if you wish. You can reverse the order if you wish. The offset numbering function, changes the numbering to start with the number one, and in conjunction with the sort by conference, will number each conference starting at one. You can print a partial list, such as 1-20 for the Major College Top 20. Or print the 173- 192 teams in a sort by rating option of the college.dta database using the reverse and offset functions, and the output will be the "Bottom 20" , starting the numbering with one, using the lowest rated team as the first team printed. The header will be printed at the top of each page. Hints for Using Football Forecaster You may notice that the names in the databases have underlines in them. Unfortunately, 80 columns is not quite enough room to print all the information that I wanted to print, so I had to shorten something. Most team names were shorter than 23 characters, so I chopped all the team names off at the 23rd character. But this produced a sloppy output, so I included a function that started at the 23 character and worked backwards until it found a space, and chopped it off there. However, this too was pretty sloppy. It would change things like the "Marshall Thundering Herd" to "Marshall Thundering". The underline in place of spaces in all the nicknames, cuts it back to the school/city name. At all prompts asking for a one letter response, the keys above the keypad, the "(,),/,*,-" can be used in place of the letter asked for. This was included for speed and accuracy in editing/entering schedules. If the following prompt appeared, Sort By (N)ame, (C)onference, (R)ating, (W)in/Loss or (#)Number --> The "(" could be used for Name, the ")" for the Conference, the "/" for Rating, the "*" for Win/Loss, or the "-" for the Number. They correspond as they appear across the screen. The (Y/N) works with these keys also, Yes being the "(", No being the ")". Same for (P)rinter or (S)creen. Also, upper or lower case can be used (e.g., "P" or "p"). The <CONTROL> & <S> pressed simultaneously can be used to stop the scrolling of output sent to the screen at any time in the program. The <CONTROL> & <Q> restarts the scrolling. Conference Abbreviations NFCW National Football Conference - Western Division NFCE National Football Conference - Eastern Division NFCC National Football Conference - Central Division AFCW American Football Conference - Western Division AFCE American Football Conference - Eastern Division AFCC American Football Conference - Central Division YL Yankee League WAC Western Athletic Conference SWC SouthWest Conference SWAC SouthWest Athletic Conference SLC SouthLand Conference SEC SouthEastern Conference SC Southern Conference PCAA Pacific Coast Athletic Association PAC10 PAC10 OVC Ohio Valley Conference MI Major Independents MEAC Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference MAC Mid-American Conference IVY Ivy League IAA Division II - Independents GSC Gold Star Conference GCAC Gateway Collegiate Athletic Association CL Colonial League BSC Big Sky Conference BIG8 BIG8 BIG10 BIG10 ACC Atlantic Coast Conference If you have any questions regarding this program, feel free to contact me via Email at 71566,1470. The files, Football.dta, and College.dta currently have the 1986 schedules. When the 1987 schedules are available you will have to update these files. If you wish, you can create a database to follow a local High school league, or any other league that you wish. I hope you enjoy it.