MacFolklore Wacky Fun Documentation

MacFolklore: The Original Macintosh History Quiz Game

MacFolklore is a game that quizzes you on the history of Apple and the Macintosh. The original version was released in 1995 and had about 50 questions. MacFolklore II contains over 200 questions including many that were suggested by users of the original game. In fact, you can even add your own questions to MacFolklore by submitting them to KlepHacks from the MacFolklore home page on the web. More information on that below...

Table of Contents

Installing MacFolklore II

 To install MacFolklore, simply copy the MacFolklore folder onto a hard drive. Make sure that the files "mac" and "apple" are in the same folder as MacFolklore II. That's it!

How to Play

 Ready to test your knowledge of the Mac? Double-click the MacFolklore icon to play the game. You'll see a cool screen with four puffy buttons. Select one of the top two buttons to take a quiz. You can quiz yourself on either Apple History or Macintosh History. At the end of the quiz you'll be rated and you can play again for another 10 questions or try the other quiz.

About "Puffy Button Technology"®

 MacFolklore II is the first program to take advantage of the revolutionary new development in graphical user interfaces - Puffy Button Technology (PBT). PBT was invented by researchers at KlepHacks Shareware during July of 1996. Early testing showed that PBT can greatly enhance the user experience of any program.

PBT operates on the premise that conventional buttons have become boring to users. You see the "OK" button hundreds of times per day. It always looks the same. Even so-called 3-D buttons provide little relief from the monotony. Our research team believes that 3-D buttons are boring because they are air-filled. There's nothing exciting about these buttons.

PBT represents a new frontier in button technology. Instead of 3-D buttons filled with air, PBT buttons are filled with various other substances. The PBT 1.0 spec (which was used in the development of MacFolklore II) specifies that buttons be filled with a creme-like substance known as "Button Goop". This substance is carefully hand-injected into each button to give it the unique sense of feedback when it is pressed by the user. The result is a truly exciting user experience.

The success of early PBT prototypes has opened new doors for the KlepHacks research team. We are currently experimenting with Puffy Buttons filled with gelatin dessert, chocolate pudding, water, jelly, and other substances. This technology will be licensed to developers and is likely to show up in applications soon.

Questions and Answers

 Q: Who are you?

A: My name is Scott J. Kleper. I'm a sophomore at Stanford University, originally from Pittsford, New York. I'm 19 years old and I've been programming Macs for about four years. I've been writing shareware for almost as long. My other programs include NetBots, HTML Markup, HTML Markdown, Jot, and PowerSpaceTabsPlus. All are available from the KlepHacks web page at http://www.printerport.com/klephacks/


Q: Why did you write MacFolklore II?

A: When I was in high school, I wrote a little text-based program to quiz me on vocabulary for my Spanish class. I could easily write new files for each group of vocab words. Shortly after that, I was asked by a sysop of a local BBS to write some sort of online game for his board. I thought that a quiz game about the Macintosh would be a good idea, so I started to adapt my Spanish program, called Grade A, to an online BBS program. That project never happened, but a few years later, I revived the program and made it a stand-alone game called "MacFolklore". That was in early 1995. I've gotten a lot of feedback, and written many more programs since then. MacFolklore II was written from scratch and includes many questions available only to registered users of the original program. MacFolklore II retains the low shareware price of $5.


Q: Isn't there some game from MacUser...?

A: A few months ago, I was contacted by Owen W. Linzmayer, author of "The Mac Bathroom Reader." He told me that he was hired by MacUser to write 1000 questions about the Mac for a game they were working on he asked for my help and I allowed him to use around 200 questions from MacFolklore. A little while later, MacUser delivered a game called "You Don't Know Mac" to their subscribers that turned out to be pretty similar to MacFolklore. Their version is pretty good, but it doesn't support the new "Puffy Button Technology" and is somewhat hard to find. And that is all I have to say about that.


Q: Where did the questions come from?

A: Most of these are questions I thought up after reading several books about the Mac in 1994, when I seemed to have a lot of free time. Many were suggested by beta users of the original MacFolklore and users of MacFolklore. I highly encourage users to suggest questions for addition to the MacFolklore quiz banks. You can do that at http://www.printerport.com/klephacks/folklore.html


Q: How can I add my own questions?

A: If you register MacFolklore II (for only $5, what a bargain!) I'll send you instructions on how to write your own questions file. It's actually quite easy. You'll also get a special version of MacFolklore that allows you to select custom files as well as the latest versions of the questions files.


Q: Can I use questions files from the original MacFolklore?

A: Yup, just rename the files "mac" or "apple" and they should work just fine. There are a couple of files floating around the net that users have created for use with MacFolklore. Many of their questions are now a part of the full distribution.


Q: What's the "Grade A testing engine"?

A: When I wrote the precursor to MacFolklore that tested me on Spanish, I called it "Grade A". It used a pretty simple testing engine to quiz me on vocab. That engine has gone through intense modifications and it now a fairly versitile and very efficient C++ interface for any type of quiz game. If you're writing such a program, feel free to contact me for tips on some stuff to consider when writing a quiz game.


Q: I work for a user group, CD-ROM publisher, or magazine. Can we give out your program?

A: If you're going to be distributing it electronically or on disk, you may distribute MacFolklore II without notifying me. However, I still request that you send me a quick note letting me know where it's going to be distributed. If you are going to write an article or review of MacFolklore II, I really really really want to read it. Please please please send me a copy of the article. If you're going to be distributing MacFolklore II on a CD-ROM, you must notify me first. I will generally grant permission for distribution, but I want to know which CD it's going to be on. Send permission requests, reviews, etc. to:

Scott J. Kleper
Attn: MacFolklore II
klephacks@kagi.com
134 Caversham Woods
Pittsford, NY 14534-2834
USA


Q: What's going to happen to MacFolklore in the future?

A: I'm going to continually update the questions file with corrections and suggestions from users. You can add questions by sending me email or going to the MacFolklore web page. Registered users of MacFolklore II will get the latest versions of the questions file.

Registering MacFolklore II

 Writing shareware is a lot of work, especially for a college student. If you enjoy MacFolklore, why not send me $5 and get more questions so you can enjoy it even more?

If you do decide to register MacFolklore II, you'll get the latest versions of the questions file, including questions added by me and other users. You'll also receive a special version of MacFolklore that allows you to create your own tests on any subject.

Registration costs $5 for a single copy. If you are a registered user of the original MacFolklore, send me email and I'll hook ya up with the new version for free.

The prefered way of registering is to send me a check directly. Make your $5 check payable to Scott J. Kleper and please include your email address if possible. I can also take traveler's cheques, money orders, and international money orders in US dollars.
Send checks to:

Scott J. Kleper
Attn: MacFolklore II
134 Caversham Woods
Pittsford, NY 14534-2834
USA

The alternate way of paying is through the Kagi shareware payment service. Paying through Kagi allows you to use a check, credit card, or electronic payment. To register through Kagi, just double-click the "Register KlepHacks" program that came with MacFolklore II. If you didn't get the Register program when you downloaded it, it is available from:

ftp://htc.rit.edu/pub/register-klephacks.hqx

Again, please include your email address so that I can send the registered version to you as quickly as possible.

Kagi also now offers a way to register electronically through the web. More information is available at http://www.printerport.com/klephacks/register.html

One last thing about registering. I really appreciate it when people send comments about and suggestions for the program. I read them all and if you supply an email address, I'll probably contact you. If you use the Kagi method, you can still send comments.

About the Author

 I'm currently a sophomore Computer Science student at Stanford University. I've been using the Macintosh since 1984, when I was just tall enough to reach the keyboard and just curious enough to wonder why the screen wasn't color like all other computers. I started programming in BASIC when I was in third grade and I've never quite gotten over it. Sometimes I have nightmares about GOTO's. When I was a freshman in high school, I got my first Mac of my very own, an LC. I dug up an old copy of Microsoft BASIC for Macintosh, a terrible implementation of a terrible language. I still wanted to program Macs though, so I took a few classes in Pascal at the Rochester Institute of Technology when I was a sophomore in high school. I came to Stanford for a summer program in 1993, where I learned how to program in C. At about the same time, I started reading Mac programming books to learn some of the toolbox calls. My first programs were pretty bad. I hacked together a really pathetic paint program in a few weeks and called it ScottPaint. I started a game after that was called Reality Sucks, but never got very far with it. My first real Macintosh program was actually begun as an attempt to learn how to display text and receive input from users for Reality Sucks. I put together a little text editor with the old-style TextEdit records (assuming falsely that they'd be easier to learn) and gradually added features to it. That project became known as Jot, which I worked on for about a year. During my senior year in high school, I wrote a bunch of little programs like HTML Markdown, which converts HTML into text, PowerSpaceTabsPlus, which converts strings of spaces into a single tab, and MacFolklore, which quizzes you on the history of the Macintosh. During the summer of '95, I did some contract work with HTML and wrote HTML Markup as a way of automating really repetitive conversion tasks. This past summer, I wrote NetBots, an Internet agent program. All of these programs are available from the KlepHacks web site.

If you have any questions, feel free to send me mail at klephacks@kagi.com

Special Thanks

 Many people have helped me with this project and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank as many of them as I can think of. I'd like to thank my dad, Michael Kleper, for raising me on Macs instead of PCs. I'd like to thank Randy Stahl for getting me started with Mac programming. I'd like to thank all the people who suggested questions for MacFolklore. If your name isn't listed here, please send me email and I'll be sure to add it!

I'd also like to thank Courtney Clark for moral support, and the guys on my hall for getting me away from the computer once in a while. I'd also like to thank my mom. Thanks, mom!

Legal Stuff

 MacFolkore II is ©copyright 1996, by Scott J. Kleper. You may copy and distribute the SHAREWARE version of MacFolklore II as long as you include all the documentation and everything that came with it when you downloaded it. This program is shareware. If you use it, you are obligated to pay for it. See above for payment/registration information.

No warranty is included with this program. Use it at your own risk. There are no known bugs with this program. However, the author is not responsible for any problems caused by it. The author is not responsible for the accuracy of the questions that come with MacFolklore II.

This program may be included in online file areas and archives. It may be distributed through user groups and shared with other users. CD-ROM publishers MUST contact me at klephacks@kagi.com before including MacFolklore II on a CD-ROM product.

If you would like to review MacFolklore II for an online or traditional magazine, please contact me so that I can see a copy.