LIFE_HELP_FILE
!AT_EDIT
HELP : EDIT
In editing mode you can move the cursor (an initially bright white
box around a field) using the cursor keys. INSert sets a point at
the current position of the cursor, DELete removes it.
To set or delete entire lines or areas you can change the cursor
state by pressing ENTER. Doing this once changes to draw-mode
(cursor is now bright green), pressing ENTER again changes to delete-
mode (cursor bright red). After three times the cursor is back into
move mode.
Pressing 'C' clears the board and 'I' inverts it.
When editing, you always work on the actual board. If you want to make
changes to the internal board you will first have to recall it.
If a mouse driver is found you can move using the mouse. Clicking the
left button changes the cursor, clicking the right button exits.

See also: Storing a board, Recalling a board

!AT_CLEAR
HELP : CLEAR
This clears the actual game board. A board in the internal memory is
not cleared by this operation! To do this, you have to store an empty
board.

See also: Storing a board, Recalling a board

!AT_RANDOM
HELP : RANDOM FILL
This fills the actual board with a random pattern. The contents of the
board before this operation can't be restored unless you've stored it
into the internal memory.

See also: Storing a board, Recalling a board

!AT_REMEMBER
HELP : STORE ACTUAL BOARD TO MEMORY
This stores the actual game board into an internal memory (not to disk!).
That's useful if you want to 'try and error' a little with a board, for
you can restore this saved board if your try didn't work as you wished,
without needing to load from disk every time.
This internal memory is used for the equality and the find tests. Editing
a board to find will delete the contents of the internal memory! None of
the other tests will affect it.

See also: Recalling a board, Analysis methods, Saving and loading

!AT_RECALL
HELP : RECALL BOARD FROM MEMORY
This recalls a board from the internal memory to the actual board. Use
this method rather than saving your board to disk every time, for you
don't have to specify a file name here.

See also: Storing a board, Analysis methods, Saving and loading

!AT_RUN
HELP : RUN
This starts the game with the actual board. The output depends on the
current output strategy settings.
If you chose any test mode, it is displayed in the text box as 1'000, EQUAL,
STABL or FIND, depending on your choice.
You can press ESC at any time to stop. If a test is running, you'll have to
quit the messages with another key.
A delay can be set if desired using the +/- keys, which change the value
in steps of 15ms. The value is updated on the screen only if changed.

See also: Analysis methods, Step, Storing a board, Clear
          Define output strategy, Define colors

!AT_STEP
HELP : STEP
This performs basically the same operation as Run mode with the difference
that a key must be pressed before each iteration and no tests are performed
even if set.
Additionally the current number of iterations is displayed.

See also: Run, Equality tracking, Storing a board, Clear
          Define output strategy, Define colors

!AT_OUT_STR
HELP : DEFINE OUTPUT STRATEGY
This specifies which output strategy is used in run and step mode. The speed
of the game depends heavily on this choice!
  No output   : use this for testing the speed of your machine
  Normal      : a point is set if it lives, otherways it's cleared
  Age         : the age of a point is displayed as different colors
  Radial      : the color of a point represents its distance from center
  3D points   : the age of a point is displayed as height in a 3D field
  3D pts flat : a point is a little above the others if it lives
  3D pts rot  : life as a rotating height field
  3D grid     : a full grid is drawn for the field (height field)
  3D grid flat: same as 3D_point_flat with a grid instead

See also : Run, Step, Define colors

!AT_GAME_STR
HELP : DEFINE GAME STRATEGY
This lets you change the rules of the game. Press a number between 0 and 8
to change the type of survival for the actual point. Using Fredkin's rules
the diagonal neighbours are not counted.
The original rules defined by Conway are:
 - A point survives if he's got 2 or 3 neighbours
 - A point is born if he's got exactly 3 neighbours
 - A point dies if he's got less than 2 or more than 3 neighbours
The original rules defined by Fredkin are:
 - A point survives or is born if he's got 1 or 3 neighbours
 - A point dies if he's got 0, 2 or 4 neighbours
Already little changes to these rules may affect the game drastically,
so go on and try ...

!AT_COLORS
HELP : DEFINE GRAPHICS COLORS
This lets you define the colors you want for the output in graphics mode.
If you're annoyed by the menu in the run and step modes or if you want to
use the program as a demo, set the text color to the same as the back-
ground color. This also turns off the display of our logo (the 'smiley' in
the right lower corner of the screen).

!AT_ANALYSIS
HELP : DEFINE ANALYSIS METHOD
This lets you choose from several analysis methods performed in run mode:
EQUAL  : After each iteration, the actual board is compared to the one in the
         internal memory. If equality occurs, run mode is interrupted and a
         message says after how many iterations this happened.
STABL  : Stops run mode as soon as a periodicity is detected. If so, the no of
         iterations since start and the period length (max. 1600) are given.
1'000  : Exactly 1000 iterations are performed. After that a message says,
         how much time was required for an iteration (mean value).
FIND   : A subboard of user defined size can be edited. In run mode the pro-
         gram will break as soon the subboard is found in the actual board.
Sound  : If on, a sound marker shows the completion of a test.
Melody : If on, a 'tune' plays while running ;-) .
All of these tests can be interrupted by user at any time.

See also : Run

!AT_LOAD
HELP : LOAD BOARD
This lets you load game boards from disk. Loading a board overwrites the
actual board. The internal memory is not affected by this operation.
Be careful with filenames: the program will exit if the file can't be found
(allowed are the normal DOS conventions for [[disk:]path\]filenames).

See also : Save

!AT_SAVE
HELP : SAVE BOARD
This lets you save a game board to disk. Only the actual board is written to
disk. Be careful with filenames: the program doesn't check if a file already
exists, in such a case the existing file is overwritten!

See also : Load

!AT_LOAD_CFG
HELP : LOAD SETUP
This lets you load a settings file from disk. The following items are loaded:
Game strategy for Conway rules, Game strategy for Fredkin rules, Output
strategy, Equality tracking flag, 1000-test-flag, Stability test flag, Flag
for Fredkin rules, Checker character, Delay duration, Nr of iterations,
Back-, Foreground- and Text-Colors, Sound flag, Find test flag, Subboard-
size for x- and y- directions.
At startup the program looks for a file 'LIFE.INI' in the actual directory,
if it finds it, it is loaded, otherwise the default settings are used.

See also : Save setup

!AT_SAVE_CFG
HELP : SAVE SETUP
This lets you save a settings file to disk. The following items are saved:
Game strategy for Conway rules, Game strategy for Fredkin rules, Output
strategy, Equality trackingflag, 1000-test-flag, Stability test flag, Flag
for Fredkin rules, Checker character, Delay duration, Nr of iterations,
Back-, Foreground- and Text-Colors, Sound flag, Find test flag, Subboard-
size for x- and y- directions.

See also : Load setup

!AT_EXIT
HELP : EXIT
This exits the program. No save is performed so be sure to do so if desired!

General information:
Being at the main menu and not entering any key for 2 minutes will start the
screen saver mode, which means that a game starts in AGE mode with slightly
modified rules to guarantee a long life. Pressing any key in this mode will
return to the main menu. Neither the actual board nor the internal memory is
affected by this.
You can enter the screen saver mode manually by pressing the F10 key.

To run the program you need at least a 80386 with 128KB of free memory and a
standard VGA board.

!END_OF_HELP_FILE
