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The Arsenal Files 8
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ZWORDZ.DOC
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1996-09-22
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╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ ║
║ CorpSoft BBS (815) 886-9388 ║
║ 3 Nodes - USR 28.8 v.34 ║
║ ║
║ Z - W O R D Z ║
║ v3.6 ║
║ ║
║ MULTI-BBS Support ║
║ Supporting PCBoard, Wildcat!, Gap, QBBS, RBBS, Spitfire, ║
║ UltraBBS, Telegard, TriTel, and Remote Access ║
║ ║
║ Copyright 1996 ║
║ by Robert Neal ║
║ 317 Hickory Avenue ║
║ Romeoville, IL 60446 ║
║ ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Z-Wordz is released as SHAREWARE. You are granted a limited license to
evaluate the program. Try it out, if you continue to use it you are required
to register the program.
To register the program send $15.00 along with your name and BBS name
to: Robert Neal, 317 Hickory Avenue, Romeoville, IL 60446. See the file
MAILER.TXT for additonal pricing information and special discounts
available. You may also register ONLINE with Visa or MasterCard by
calling the support BBS at (815) 886-9388. Simply type CHARGE at the menu.
Once you register Z-Wordz, you will be given your own unique registration
number that will inform Z-Wordz that the program is registered. The BBS name
supplied with payment will be the name used to create your unique
registration number.
THIS SOFTWARE AND ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS ARE DISTRIBUTED "AS IS" WITHOUT
CHARGE AND WITHOUT WARRANTY, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL ANYONE INVOLVED WITH THE CREATION AND
PRODUCTION OF THIS PRODUCT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES, ARISING OUT OF ANY USE THEREOF OR BREACH OF ANY WARRANTY.
Z-Wordz is a online game, based somewhat on the board game CrossWords.
It's easy to play, making it great for all ages (my 7 year old son
finds it fun to play - and it stimulates his vocabulary), but it's also
challenging to keep players busy trying over and over to improve their
Z-Wordz average.
Z-Wordz is a game where the player tries to complete the Z-WORDZ (you'll
understand when you see the game) by completing three words all linked
together forming the Z-WORDZ (believe me, you'll understand when you see
the game) from a random selection of letters. In each round the player
is displayed a letter, this letter may be placed in the Z-WORDZ or
discarded. Players are limited to only 10 discards per round. Once the
Z-WORDZ are filled, Z-Wordz checks the words created against it's own
dictionary. Z-Wordz awards points for each correct word based on a set
value for each letter. Invalid words are ignored. Refer to the WORDZ.HLP
file for additional playing information.
As distributed, Z-Wordz has a dictionary file of over 950 three letter
words. Feel free to add your own to the WORDZ.DIC file using your
favorite text editor. Don't worry about making sure the list is sorted
as Z-Wordz doesn't require a sorted listing. You may make the WORDZ.DIC
file almost as large as you'd like, a test file of 3200 words was used
to test Z-Wordz. The routine used to validate words is so fast that even
with 3200 words, Z-Wordz was able to validate all three words almost
instantaneously.
Z-Wordz keeps track of dual scoreboards, one ranking each player on their
overall monthly average per round and a second ranking the top 10 Z-Wordz
scores for the month. Z-Wordz will automatically reset the scoreboard at
the start of each month, requiring no sysop maintenance after initial
set-up.
FEATURES OF Z-Wordz:
- Easy to install and requires no maintenance.
- Ansi colors and display.
- Terminates cleanly through exit code even on runtime error.
- Automatically creates a top score listing suitable for inclusion
as a text/bulletin file for display within your BBS. Both an
ANSI and ASCII file is created.
- Detects loss of carrier.
- Operates in local mode (either direct from BBS or from command line).
- Sysop function keys to return to the board, chat mode, user stats,
increase/decrease time, etc.
- Direct support for PCBoard, WildCat!, Gap, QBBS, RBBS,
Ultra BBS, Telegard, TriTel and Remote Access.
- Support for baud rates up to 115,200
- Support for COM1-15. Optional command line for non-standard IRQ's.
- Supports PCBoard environment variables %PCBDRIVE% and %PCBDIR%
- Support Fossil Drivers. A Fossil driver is not required to use the
program.
- Fully Multi-Node compatible.
- Support for multi-port digiboards, for use with PCBoard /M.
- Yearly scoreboard with rolling 12 month top scores
FIRST TIME OPERATIONS
Simply create a directory for Z-Wordz and copy all files distributed
with Z-Wordz to this directory. Additional data files will automatically
be created the first time Z-Wordz is run.
CONFIGURING THE PROGRAM
Using your favorite text editor, edit the file WORDZ.CFG. Below is the
layout of this file:
C:\PCB\PCBOARD.SYS
Corporate Headquarters
Bob
Neal
15
0
0
NA
5
Line 1 = Full pathname of your door file. Formats supported by this
program are: PCBOARD.SYS, USERS.SYS, DOOR.SYS, USERINFO.DAT,
CALLINFO.BBS, DORINFOx.DEF, SFDOORS.DAT and
GTUSER.BBS, DOOR.SYS, and TRIBBS.SYS. When using
USERINFO.DAT, DOOR.SYS must be in the same
directory as USERINFO.DAT.
Line 2 = BBS name
Line 3 = Sysop First Name
Line 4 = Sysop Last Name
Line 5 = number of rounds per day that a player may play. I suggest
a daily limit of 5 to 10, but tailor to your own needs.
Line 6 = Registration number. Leave as 0 if unregistered.
Line 7 = Minimum percentage of plays to be included in the scoreboard.
Very useful for systems which use the average scoring
method. This percentage is applied against the highest
number of games by any player, all players then need to
play this percentage of games to be included in the
scoreboard. I recommend a setting of 10-20%. If set
at 10%, if the highest number of games played by a
player this month is 200, a player would need to have
played at least 20 games to be included in the scoreboard.
This is a handy feature to prevent users from playing
only once or twice and racking up a lucky high score
(and average) and ruining the interest for other players.
Line 8 = You can place the name of the user who helped pay for the
registration of the door. Several sysops have specified that
users have paid the reigstration fee for Z-Wordz. You can
now place their name on this line and their name will be
proudly displayed at the end of the game so that others may
recognize their contribtion to the operation of your BBS.
Leave this blank or NA if you do not wish to use this
option.
Line 9 = Maximum number of make up games per day. You can allow your
users to make up games lost because they were unable to
call and play. Enter the number of GAMES (not days) you
allow them to make up each day.
Line10 = Scoring method, either cummulative or average. Average
scoring was used in versions prior to v3.0. Due to
feedback, we converted to cummulative based scoring.
We again had feedback that users liked the average
method - now you can select which method you want to
use on your board to keep your users happy.
Note: This door supports the PCBoard environment variables %PCBDRIVE%
and %PCBDIR%. Non-PCBoard systems may also use these variables by
including the following either in your BBS batch or AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
SET PCBDRIVE=C: <- Drive letter of your BBS files
SET PCBDIR=\BBS <- Path of your BBS files
Then, in your WORDZ.CFG file, on the first line you may put:
%PCBDRIVE%%PCBDIR%\PCBOARD.SYS, %PCBDRIVE%%PCBDIR%\DOOR.SYS, etc.
This allows you to use just one .CFG file for multi-node operation.
EXECUTING PROGRAM
To execute the program, enter the filename followed by the config file
name (ie ZWORDZ ZWORDZ.CFG). If you are running the program from the
command line, you may optionally enter ZWORDZ LOCAL. The only problem
with this is the default user name sysop is used instead of the name on
your board. This is good for testing the game before putting it on your
system, but you should once play begins, execute the program locally
from your BBS or consistantly run the game from the command line when
you play.
You may also specify a non-standard IRQ. Put the IRQ number after the
.CFG on the command line. For example: ZWORDZ ZWORDZ.CFG /5. This
example tells the program to use IRQ 5 instead of the standard IRQ.
You may also use the procedure above and create a variable IRQ so that
you can pass the IRQ setting as: ZWORDZ ZWORDZ.CFG /%IRQ%
Some users may have had conflicts when using non-standard IRQ's on
Novell/Netware systems. Novell seems to use the "/" character for
parameter passing. You may not optionally use the "*" character instead
of the "/", for example ZWORDZ ZWORDZ.CFG *%IRQ% is valid. Both "*" and
"/" will work.
AUTOMATIC MAINTENANCE
The program will automatically during the first play of each new month
reset it's user file and top score listing. The previous months
scoreboard will automatically be renamed to ZWORDZ.OLD and ZWORDZG.OLD.
This can then be included as a text file to display the previous months
winners.
You should be aware of this so if you are starting a new game for the
first time towards the end of the month, the game will automatically perform
the maintenace come the first of the month.
As an option, you may pass the parameter "NEW" on the command line, for
example ZWORDZ NEW. This will reset _all_ Z-Wordz data files, including the
overall high scorer information.
FOSSIL DRIVER
Z-Wordz now includes support for FOSSIL drivers. This means that the
program will now work with Digiboard (for Wildcat M and PCBoard/M
versions) and other multi-port boards. To activate the Fossil driver
support just include /FD on the command line in your door batch file.
For example: ZWORDZ ZWORDZ.CFG /FD
If no Fossil driver is available, Z-Wordz will display a message
indicating such and exit cleanly.
This documentation will not go into the mechanics of how you set-up a door
program on your BBS. It is assumed that you have a working knowledge of
how to complete this task. It would be impossible for me to explain how
to install a door for all BBS programs supported by Z-Wordz.
SYSOP KEYS ACTIVE
F3 - Toggles the printer On/Off. Value is passed to PCBoard and/or
written to DOOR.SYS and USERS.SYS
F4 - Toggles the Page Bell on/off. Value is passed to PCBoard
and/or written to DOOR.SYS and USERS.SYS
F5 - DOS Shell. Allows SysOp to exit to DOS from inside a DOOR.
F7 - Toggles the Caller Alarm On/Off. Value is passed to PCBoard
and/or written to DOOR.SYS and USERS.SYS
F8 - Returns the caller involuntarily to the BBS.
F9 - Toggles the local display On/Off. Value is passed to PCBoard
and/or written to DOOR.SYS and USERS.SYS
F10 - Activates SysOp CHAT mode within the DOOR.
ESC - Deactivates CHAT mode. DOOR is resumed.
UP - Give the caller extra time while in the DOOR.
DN - Subtract time from the caller while in the DOOR.
HOME - HELP key for Status Line options.
ALT-N - SysOp next on toggle. Value passed to PCBoard. (PCBoard only)
ALT-X - PCBoard will exit after current caller logs off. Value is
passed to PCBoard. Not available on non-PCBoard systems.
FILES USED AND CREATED
ZWORDZ.EXE - The program itself
ZWORDZ.DOC - Documentation for the sysop to run Z-Wordz
ZWORDZ.DIC - Dictionary file
ZWORDZ.CFG - Configuration file
The following files will be created by Z-Wordz
ZWORDZ.USR - User file of current players
ZWORDZ - Top 10 scores in ascii format can be used as a bulletin
ZWORDZG - Top 10 scores in ANSI format
ZWORDZ.OLD - Previous month top 10 ascii bulletin
ZWORDZG.OLD - Previous month top 10 ANSI bulletin
ZWORDZ.DAT - Contains information for scoreboard
ZWORDZ.HI - Contains overall high score information
ZWORDZ.AVG - Data file for scoreboard
ZWORDZ.TOT - Data file for scoreboard
CONTACT ME FOR SUPPORT
If you encounter any problems you may contact me at CorpSoft BBS
(815) 886-9388.
I can also be reached via the RIME network in the SYSOP, DOORS,
SHAREWARE and BBS SOFTWARE conferences as well as the COMMON conference.
I can also be reached via Internet e-mail at bob.neal@corpsoft.com. or
via FIDO at 1:2235/886 (Bob Neal@1:2235/886).
If you have any suggestions for improvements for this program, please feel
free to let me know. This game has included suggestions from users during
beta testing.
DISTRIBUTION SITES
As always you can find the latest version of War of the Words available
for downloading from CorpSoft BBS.
CorpSoft BBS (815) 886-9388 (3 nodes with automatic ring-down,
running USR 28800 v.everything)
We also accept Visa and Mastercard. Register online with your Visa or
Mastercard by calling CorpSoft BBS, simply type CHARGE at the main menu
prompt.
User's with FIDO capabilities can FREQ the latest version of my software
from me at 1:2235/886. The magic names for my software are:
WOTW War of the Words
KING Kings are Wild Solitaire
CARD Card Sharks
BOWL BBS Bowling Solitaire
GOLF Links Golf
ZWORD Z-Wordz
CORPSOFT All my shareware releases
You can also download our files via our web site. Visit us at
http://user.aol.com/corpsoft
To further make it convenient for people to download my software, you can
also login to my support BBS by enter CORPSOFT GUEST when prompted for
your name. You will not need to go through the new user information
questionaire and will immediately be able to download my shareware.
Please note that if you wish to register online, you will need to
set-up a user account so that your registration keys can be made available
to you.
ADOPTED BY OPTION (Registered version only)
Many sysops are fortunate to have their users offer to register a door
they enjoy playing. You can now give recognition to the user or users
who assist in contributing to the registration of this program. Simply
enter their name(s) on the appropriate line in the configuration file.
When unregistered, the door will inform the user that they can adopt
the door and refers them to ask you for details. You can give the
user the registration form for them to send in if you'd like.
After the program is registered, each time a user quits the game a
screen will be displayed informing other users who contributed towards
the registration of the game.
If you wish to disable this option, enter NA on the line in the
configuration file.
TROUBLESHOOTING
- If you are running this Door on a 486 system and encounter an error
message "ERROR 6 - OVERFLOW ERROR" or you experience irratic Keyboard
Timeout messages, you may have to put the following in either your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file or in the batch file you use to call this program.
SET NO87=ON
If you are running on a 486 system with co-processor under DesqView, you
may alternately set Math Coprocessor in each window to YES.
- If you encounter an ERROR 62 when the program first is loaded, this
will usually indicate that there is an error in your .CFG file.
Recheck your .CFG file to verify the proper format (if you use the
WOTWCFG program you should never encounter this error).
- An ERROR 70 message means you more than likely do not have SHARE
loaded. This is typically only required for multi-node systems.
VERSION HISTORY
v3.6 - New feature - database is now kept which keeps the stats for
each game, including the top scorer and high score. In
addition, the letter set is also included plus the number
of words that can be made from the letter set for that game.
New feature - Scoreboard now will also include the top scorer for
each game. In addition, when each game is played, the top scorer
for that game is displayed at the end of each game.
v3.5 - More work on the letter selection, looking better each time ;)
Revised the word dictionary files adding several new words
to the list, now at 978 words.
v3.4 - With the new year I found that the yearly scoreboards displayed
an incorrect date for the December rollover information, the
date was shown as 12/96 instead of 12/95. Fixed. Also, the
incorrect yearly scoreboard information will be corrected the
first time that the "Y"early scoreboard is displayed within the
game.
Still having problems with poor letter selection. Seems that the
PC just doesn't generate a very random random number. Rewrote
routine which hopefully resolves the problem with too many
repeated letters showing up once and for all. Had four other
systems test the results all with positive results. If you
still have problems, let me know.
v3.3 - Getting reports of the same letter being selected one after
the other. Revised the letter selection routine to check
for the same letter number being selected. The revised routine
should prevent the same letter from being selected over and
over - let me know if this still occurs.
Revised Help section.
v3.2 - Added option to select scoring method, either cummulative
or average scoring.
Revised letter selection routine so that all players have
the same letters to play in each game number.
Updated word dictionary, 11 new words added.
Compiled with new I/O library version.
v3.1 - Made change to the routine used to display the ANSI
screens. Appears that some systems would pause during
the display of the file. This problem appears to be
limited to specific hardware and software, therefore
it was not widely released due to the minor upgrade.
v3.0 - You must run ZWCONFIG CONVERT to conver your user file
to the new format used for this version.
Added option to make up missed games.
Added YEARLY scoreboard to show the top scores for each
month on a 12 month rolling basis.
Revised scoring to now reflect accumulative scoring.
Removed option for minimum number of plays in light of the
revised scoring.
Revised letter selection routine to try and avoid too many
"Q", "Z" and "X"'s from always appearing.
v2.2 - Found that the minimum number of plays routine would not always
filter out players with less than the minimum number of plays.
v2.1 - Had a sysop mention that ZWordz would never return ANSI graphics
for his users. Odd set-up, OS/2 with fossil driver. Added option
to check if ANSI, if not, ZWordz will now ask the user if they
have ANSI. This now allows those odd setups to run ZWordz.
v2.0 - Rewrote scoring options for program. Prior version gave
multiplier credit for word placement, now multiplier is based on
number of words completed. This should make the game more
challenging as users won't be so inclined to load the word #3
with high rated points and ignore the first two words. Also
added bonus points for unused discards.
Revised scoreboard. Previous version based inclusion of user
score based on static minimum # of plays. The minimum # of plays
is now based on a percentage of the highest # of plays of all
players. This restricts players from simply popping in and
playing a few rounds and knocking off your regulars who have
many more plays.
Fixed quirk that allowed a player to quit in the middle of the
game. Found that some users may do this if his score is not
going to be high. Now if the player quits, he's given 0 points
and the round is included in his stats.
Fixed problem with erratic display with multi-port boards.
Thanks to Steve and Pat of Midwest BBS for taking the time to
work through this problem with me.
Added option to display who adopted the door. Several sysops
have indicated that users have assisted in the registration fees
for my doors. This now gives you a chance to give that user
recognition.
v1.4 - v1.3 was a major screw-up. I picked up what I thought was the
v1.2 final release code and recompiled for v1.3. As I changed
nothing in the code (purpose of new release pertained to revised
I/O library only), I didn't do any testing before release. Bad
move, code I picked up for 1.2 was not the final code. Needless
to say, v1.3 used OLD filename conventions of Z-Wordz for the
data files.
This release fixes the above problem and includes the new I/O
library for the fix of fossil based multi-port boards.
v1.3 - Recompiled using new I/O routines. These new routines fix
problem with fossil based multi-port users who were experiencing
random characters at the start of the program.
With the revised I/O routines, Z-Wordz no longer support
CHAIN.TXT BBS format. The author of the I/O routines has removed
support for this file format, sorry.
v1.2 - Recompiled using routines which support PCBoard /M and WildCat
IM digiboard versions.
Renamed data file names to be consistent with ZWORDZ program
name (must run ZWUPDATE.BAT after installing new version to
automatically rename the files)
Added file ZWCONFIG.EXE, configuration file editor. Makes
creating and/or editing the configuration file easy to do,
simply fill in the blanks.
v1.1 - First, a new name. Previously named WORD-Z, now called Z-WORDZ.
Users upgrading from v1.0 will need to rename their WORDZ.CFG
file to ZWORDZ.CFG and update their door file batch and menu
files. All data filename for Z-Wordz has been kept the same
from Word-Z.
Revised the routine that randomly selected letters, a vowel now
has a better chance of being selected.
Expanded and refined the dictionary file. Now over 950 words and
based on the words found in the Official Scrabble Players
Dictionary.
Added option to require a minimum number of plays before a
players score is shown in the top 10 scoreboard. This prevents a
user from playing 1 time and getting a high score that is
impossible to be with repeated plays.
Fixed a bug where a player was allowed to play one more time
than the sysop had configured.
Fixed a problem with the file I/O. Did not have all file access
opened for SHARED I/O. Users with a multi-node system may find
that a user was suddenly kicked out of the game. Now fixed, all
file read/writes are done under a SHARED access.
v1.0 - (03/05/93)
Initial Release
*DISTRIBUTION SITES*
As always you can find the latest version of Z-Wordz available
for downloading from CorpSoft BBS.
CorpSoft BBS (815) 886-9388 (3 nodes with automatic ring-down,
running USR 28800 v.everything)
Also, I have a support conference on Salt Air BBS (home of PCBoard).
Join conference #71 (CorpSoft Support). I will always have the
current version available for download on there as well as answer
technical support question.
We also accept Visa and Mastercard. Register online with your Visa or
Mastercard by calling CorpSoft BBS, simply type CHARGE at the main menu
prompt.
User's with FIDO capabilities can FREQ the latest version of my software
from me at 1:2235/886. The magic names for my software are:
WOTW War of the Words
KING Kings are Wild Solitaire
CARD Card Sharks
BOWL BBS Bowling Solitaire
GOLF Links Golf
ZWORD Z-Wordz
CORPSOFT All my shareware releases
Those with FTP capabilities can FTP my software from:
europa.com cd /outoing/DOORS/corpsoft
To further make it convenient for people to download my software, you can
also login to my support BBS by enter CORPSOFT GUEST when prompted for
your name. You will not need to go through the new user information
questionaire and will immediately be able to download my shareware.
Please note that if you wish to register online, you will need to
set-up a user account so that your registration keys can be made available
to you.