/************************************************************************** Minerva 1.0d beta - Miinantallauspeli 1.0 Minefield Stomping Game Jouni Miettunen * jon@stekt.oulu.fi * Oulu * Finland * Europe * 1993 ***************************************************************************/ Howdy again, I'd like You to answer to these questions (some new!), but before that just try the program and then come back. I'd also appreciate all other comments You'd care to make. You *can* make the difference, some of You already have! Thanx! I thank you all for comments and especially for Postcards! Wow! Great! Wonderfull! Oh, I wish I was there.. but in the mean time: Should I make EGA version? Should I make SuperVGA (1M videoRAM) games? Any ideas for next brain-dead but simple-minded most addictive game ?? :) BTW there are 5 sections in this document: - Questions - Hardware - Bug Report - Network - Official Distribution Policy (at the very end). - Questions ------------------------------------------------------------ * Color Editor: I've seen in some programs a couple sliders (scroll bars) that manipulate all RGB (red-green-blue) values of a color or of all colors. What do these do and what's it called? Some keywords might be: brightness, tint, shade, tone, hue, chroma, saturation, luminance, intensity.. Which ones would You like to see in Color Editor? * Dialog: Can You exit dialogs? Would You prefer OK button in every dialog? How about a "Do You want to exit (Y/N)" dialog at the end? How do You expect cursor keys behave in dialog w/many radiobutton fields: is ArrowDown key the next radiobutton _item_ or next radiobutton _field_? * Dialog2: Should Help and Mine menu dialogs have "Previous", "Exit" and "Next" buttons to view the other related dialogs? Help and Mine menu dialogs are dialogs, which can be accessed via the first (Mine) and last (Help) menus. * Difficulty: Is Easy level too difficult? Should it be much too easy for absolute beginners? Are the following levels too difficult? I've managed once to solve Small-Impossible combination (when it still was 36%). In the current version (33%) Impossible is no more impossible .. Would You like to have a Custom field w/Your own settings? * Highscore: The results You see in Hall of Fame are random. Would You prefer that all results were easily beaten or would You like to have a harder challenge? Mines 1.0c had easy results == no challenge. Mines 1.0b had close to impossible and everybody played just Easy level :) Should You be able to select the level of difficulty of the generated scores in order to get the just right challenge for Yourself? * Language: Did You spot any spelling errors? Wrong words eg. Exteriors used to be Outlook, since it was a direct translation from the corresponding Finnish word "ulkon„k”".. (Outlook == something to happen in future, Exteriors == the look and feel of the environment). * Flame: I noticed that some of my personal opinions have slipped into the program.. Do You find them disturbing or offensive? Should I make a lame censored version to please everybody? Or should I offend everybody and remind about the current miserable and most troublesome state of Earth? IMHO it's not a nice world out there and we better do something about it before it's all gone. Forever. Anybody feeling guilty yet :) * Colors: Any opinions about used colors? Are minefield numbers color-coded correctly, can You see by the color how many mines there are? Is text too dark or small, are menus too bright? Is something too colorful or does something important vanish into background? Is something too small or should something be displayed as larger? * Manual: The program is supposed to be self-documenting. Was it? Did You find any of the Features eg. new game starts by pressing mouse button on minefield, when game is not running. Did You check the Help dialogs? Were they helpful enough? Did You press mouse buttons over statusbar? Also Mark_Button? Would You like to see a real Manual? * Interface: Anything else You found disturbing? I'm most interested in comments about the used Graphical User Interface. Did anything look or act weird? One didn't like the "Question Mark" icon. Anything else? Does something happen too fast or too slow? How about mouse movement, is it fixed now? Keyboard w/menus.. RSN :) * Memory: I don't reserve all needed memory at the beginning (needed max 200K). Do You get trouble in situations, where You don't have enough free memory? The program won't crash, You just don't get eg. HighScore. Yes, I know all about autopilots that flash "Memory allocation Error", when the plane crashes down (NOT referring to JAS Gripen :) * Keyboard: Any trouble with keyboard? At the moment menus can be handled via keyboard only by moving cursor over them and pressing mouse buttons via keyboard (control-left/right arrow) (that's why it's still Beta). Yes, ESC works correctly, but it's a special case. * ToDo: Any comments about the history.log and my plans for next version? Now there are too many to list.. or to do. And does anyone know what was the very first Mines game (Tom Anderson 1987, SunTools) ?? * Resolution: Should I make EGA version? SuperVGA w/21" monitors? Scale all by max available resolution? Would You rather have big screen with few colors or small screen with lots of colors? Lots of minimal details or just a few big ones? - Hardware ------------------------------------------------------------- If You are able to test this program with any SuperVGA card, I'd be most grateful for that. Please tell me the exact name of the card and chip (eg. Trident 8900) and if there was any problem or if there was no problem whatsoever. Also testing the operating system (eg. Windows 3.1 DOS box) and any possible interesting technical combinations (eg. using a diskless workstation in network. NOTE: this might crash Your net, I don't know. Are networkable programs different that non-network? The normal error checking is done eg. w/opening and writing files). Processors: 8086 possible in theory. Anyone got a 8086 w/VGA ?? 80286 developed and compiled for this (16Mhz) 80386 no trouble 80486DX2/66 w/Windows NT 80486/33 Win 3.1 and OS/2 1.3 Operating systems: MS-DOS 5.0 no trouble 4DOS 4.01 no trouble Windows NT only in full-screen mode (keyboard buffering) (some beta..) Windows 3.1 DOS box OS/2 1.3 DOS box Videocards with problems: Compaq Tseng ET4000 adapter was broken, now fixed and works like a charm Trident 8900 whole screen was vibrating, also w/other programs Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 black gradually spread horizontally in _debug_ mode ?? Videocards - no problem: standard VGA written for this (256K video memory) Tseng ET4000 3x verified ok Trident 9000 Cirrus Logic SVGA (local bus) 1M videoRAM Sigma Legend 192 Sigma Legend GX (b&w) Paradise PVGA1A, WD90C00, WD90C10, WD90C11 Diamond Stealth VRAM 1.1 Diamond Speedstar 24X Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 VideoSeven 1024i IBM ValuePoint (some S3 chip) Others: RAM disk no problem 720k floppy can't write on it ?!? monochrome display no problem - Bug Report ----------------------------------------------------------- If You find a real genuine and repeatable Bug, please tell me: 1. Why do You think it's a Bug 2. Did You test with clean system - rename autoexec.bat to autoexec.old - rename config.sys to config.old - reboot - try to repeat the bug. Is it still there? - rename config.old to config.sys - rename autoexec.old to autoexec.bat - reboot 3. How to repeat the Bug 4. What was the used hardware/software combination - processor (80286+80287, 80486DX/2 33MHz) - memory size and type (640K, Extended, Expanded, Memory card) - operating system version (PC-MS-DR-DOS, 4DOS, NDOS, DESQview etc.) - video card name + type (eg. Trident 8800) - harddisk size and type (eg. ATI, SCSI) and amount of free disk space . do You use Stacker, DoubleSpace etc. software disk compressor . FYI: when was the last time You took a backup and unfragmented the disk? - is Your mouse MS Mouse compatible (serial) - any TSR's loaded or task swappers used - any accessory equipment eg. scanner, network card, CD - etc. 5. Can You give any advices how to fix the Bug - interrupt conflict - Should I check something instead of just assuming it's ok - Network -------------------------------------------------------------- BTW network users: I use INT13 AH=10 to check if drive is ready or not and understood that DL = 0x00 for floppy drives A: and B: DL = 0x80 for first harddisk DL = 0x81 for second harddisk How about CD disk, floptical, magneto-optical, Bernoulli etc. drives? How about network? BUG: 720k floppy is detected as write protected.. Now I assume A: and B: are floppy disks and C: is on the 1st harddisk, others are not checked, until I can identify, which harddisk is used (getdisk() doesn't do it). DOESN'T WORK W/720k FLOPPIES ?!? HELP!!!! /* check_disk ************************************************************/ /* get disk system status 0==No Error ************************************/ /*************************************************************************/ extern int check_disk (void) { union REGS regs; regs.h.ah = 0x10; switch (getdisk()) { case 0: case 1: regs.h.dl = 0x00; break; /* disks A: B: */ case 2: regs.h.dl = 0x80; break; /* harddisk C: */ default: return 0; /* others OK.. */ } int86(0x13,®s,®s); return (regs.x.cflag); } /*int check_disk*/ - Official Distribution Policy ----------------------------------------- If some Magazine or Shareware distributor wants to include Minerva on their supply or cover diskette, they need my written permission for it. I want to make sure they get the very latest version and that no outrageous fees are demanded for it. I offer a free program and don't want anybody cash in more than to covers acceptable distribution costs. Also I'd like to get a free sample of that which includes Minerva :) In case this wanders into Garbo, Simtel or Ulowell I hereby give my written permission to include Minerva on CD diskette made of those archives' collections. Others please ask. Garbo - garbo.uwasa.fi Simtel - wsmr-simtel20.army.mil or its successor oak.oakland.edu? Ulowell - ftp.ulowell.edu or its successor, whose name I never remember ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I thank You for Your co-operation, --jouni Mr. Jouni Miettunen Rautatienkatu 20 A 10 90100 OULU FINLAND - EUROPE PS. Please distribute this to other places, BBS, networks etc. I want more postcards == more energy to fix this :)