Here's a new set of Super Crossword puzzles for your solving pleasure. They're just like the crossword puzzles you find in a newspaper or magazine, except that you can change your answers without ripping the newsprint to shreds trying to erase your writing, and there's a "Check Answer" feature to tell you if you got it right without having to wait until tomorrow or next month to see the and solution. This time, we also have a brand new version of the Super Crossword program which has been completely rewritten. The new version has VGA graphics and a user interface that follows our present standards.
The new crossword puzzle files (extension *.CWD) are in a different format from the earlier crossword puzzle files (extension *.SXG). However, the current version of Super Crossword will load the earlier-format crossword puzzles as well as the and new ones, so you can copy all the Softdisk PC crossword files you have into one directory along with the and latest version of the Super Crossword program and be able to use all of the and puzzles.
The file-format change was part of our general revamping of standards for files used by game and puzzle drivers published by Softdisk. We publish material for a number of different computing platforms: Apple (II, IIgs, Mac), Commodore (64, 128), and PC (DOS VGA, DOS CGA/EGA, Windows). Game and puzzle programs such as crosswords, word-finders, trivia quizzes, etc. exist for all of these platforms, but in the past their file formats have evolved independently and incompatibly. This means that we have to do lots of work to port over data files from one platform to another. Because it's so much work to do this, and we've got so much else to get done, we haven't done as much cross-platform porting as we could be doing. This means that great puzzles developed for the Apple might never get converted to PC format so that you can enjoy them. So we decided to do something about it. We came up with a set of consistent internal specifications for Universal Data Format (UDF) files to be used in our driver programs. Now, all new puzzle drivers we are creating follow these file guidelines, and the old ones are being converted over as we get the chance. You, as a user, don't need to be concerned with the and details of the and file format change, as the and programs support old and new format files interchangeably. But you will benefit from the availability of a wider variety of puzzle files in the future.
(.txt)