home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
PC-SIG: World of Games
/
PC-SIG World of Games (CDRM1080710) (1993).iso
/
2922
/
FIXES.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1991-08-03
|
17KB
|
371 lines
SER
NUM PROBLEM & FIX
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1029 - 9/30/89
SYMPTOM:
A couple people have reported that The Draftsman wouldn't
recognize their VGA card, although MJVGA ran perfectly.
PROBLEM:
A real good question! The source code for the VGA test is
identical in both programs!
SOLUTION:
I re-compiled The Draftsman using the same memory model as
MJVGA. I also added an option which lets you attempt to run
The Draftsman even if it doesn't see a VGA card. The
Draftsman has always worked fine on my system & on the systems
that I test it on. Therefore, I don't know if this fix will
work or not. If you should experience this problem, please
let me know.
1055 - The "official" release of Version 2.1
SYMPTOM
Someone with a VGA card reported that neither MJVGA nor The
Draftsman would recognize his card.
PROBLEM
I dunno.... Strange VGA card maybe???
SOLUTION
He tried the above-modified Draftsman and said it worked fine
after selecting "try anyway." MJVGA now includes this option.
SYMPTOM
If you select What's Left, then exit the What's Left screen by
clicking the LEFT mouse button, the screen re-draws and either
A) you return to the What's Left screen or B) you select some
other menu item or tile.
PROBLEM
You're SUPPOSED to leave the What's Left screen by clicking
the right mouse button, but in reality any button will get you
out. Using the left button, however, was putting a "left
button click" message on the stack. When the MJVGA game board
returned, it saw this message & acted on it -- possibly taking
you right back to What's Left.
SOLUTION
This was a simple one -- I just cleard the button stack after
exiting the What's Left screen.
SYMPTOM
The computer locks up after the game board is displayed.
PROBLEM
This has only been reported once. The fellow corrected the
problem himself by running MJVGA with the "D" command line
parameter to disable the monochrome display routines. It
seems that his computer didn't let MJVGA write to the "dead
space" where a monochrome card should have been. It usually
doesn't matter -- if there's no monochrome card, the data
just "falls into the bit bucket" and causes no harm. But he's
proven that in certain systems it DOES matter!
SOLUTION
Since the vast majority of people don't have dual monitor
systems, I've changed the default from using the second
monitor to NOT using the second monitor. Now, if you wish to
use two monitors, YOU MUST START MJVGA WITH THE "D" COMMAND
LINE PARAMETER!!!! This may inconvenience a few people, but
will increase default compatibility to everyone.
1105 - 2/10/90 (Problem not fixed -- serial # indicates revision
of this document.)
SYMPTOM
Someone reported that the abbreviated HELP command didn't work
properly. The regular HELP menu appeared instead of just the
number of moves left.
PROBLEM
MJVGA first checks the left mouse button to determine the
command. It then expects to see BOTH the left AND right
buttons pressed if you want the shortened HELP screen. If you
release the left button before the computer can register that
both are pressed, you'll get the standard HELP menu.
SOLUTION
I haven't fixed this one yet. It will be fixed in the next
release, though. Until then, if you experience this, just
hold down both buttons for a few extra moments to be sure that
MJVGA sees them. You shouldn't experience this unless you
either have a slow machine or are a fast clicker. I had to
load down my 25 MHz machine with four background processes
before it ran slow enough to let me see this problem.
1150 - 3/6/90
SYMPTOM
A couple people reported that they couldn't change "brush
colors" in The Draftsman. Clicking on the color squares did
nothing.
PROBLEM
This problem seems unique to Logitech's new Series 9 serial
mouse. To date, all reports involved that mouse. Moreover,
the Series 9 Bus mouse works perfectly! Only the serial mouse
seems to cause this problem. I traced the exact cause to a
timing problem. Briefly, I was asking the mouse which buttons
were pressed before it knew. Consequently, it was telling me
that NO buttons were pressed! My guess is that the bus
mouse's hardware is faster than the serial mouse's for obvious
reasons. The bus mouse was therefore able to register the
buttons faster than the serial mouse.
SOLUTION
The solution was easy once I found the cause. I just execute
a several-millisecond time delay before asking the mouse which
buttons are pressed. This seems to give the rodent ample time
to organize it's thoughts, even on my fast machine.
1234 - 6/1/90 The "official" release of MJVGA version 2.2
SYMPTOM
See the write-up for S/N 1105.
PROBLEM
See the write-up for S/N 1105.
SOLUTION
I've changed the mouse-check routine so that you'll get the
abbreviated help whether or not the left button is still down.
I have a suspicion, though that this problem may have been
caused (at least in part) by the Logitech Series 9 serial
mouse problem described above. If you should still experience
this, PLEASE be sure to tell me whether you have that
particular rodent or not.
1355 - 7/21/90
* NOTICE *
This release is the first to be compiled with Borland's new
Turbo C++ compiler. The compiler is supposed to be compatible
with all software written with Turbo C 2.0 which is what I've
been using. But my efforts to even get MJVGA22 to compile and
link under C++ have led me to believe otherwise! I did get it
to work, though, so the differences aren't insurmountable.
I've already noticed one performance difference in MJVGA
compiled on the two compilers. The sound from the C++
compiled file seems "choppy" compared to the same thing
(almost!) compiled under C 2.0. I may be wrong, but I think
C++ does some form of "multitasking" to get & dispatch
messages to the objects. This "stealing" of CPU time would
account for the choppiness. If anyone has a better
explanation, (or a way to overcome it), please let me know.
I've finally added the long-promised fix to let the "L" tile
set loader access more than 24 tile sets. Actually, I HAD to
because I now have more than 24 of them! It's still not done
in graphics mode (although I AM planning to), but at least
it's better than it was.
I've also added a built-in registration form printer.
Pressing CTRL R at any time during the game will print a
registration form to printer port LPT1. See manual for
complete details.
SYMPTOM
Only the first thirteen tile sets can be accessed via the "L"
command with a Microsoft mouse, although a Logitech mouse can
access the maximum of 24.
PROBLEM
When the screen goes into text mode, the Logitech mouse
remains in the 640x480 mode while the Microsoft mouse
switches to 640x200. (I don't know what others do.) To
approximate the screen line, I was >>4'ing the Y coordinate
from the mouse. Unfortunately, since the Microsoft mouse was
only returning a maximum value of 199, the largest line number
possible was 13!
SOLUTION
This was simple enough! I just changed the shift from four
places to three. Problem solved!
1404 - 9/1/90
SYMPTOM
If you remove a tile pair, select a tile which was just freed,
back up a move, then select a match to the tile just selected,
they'll both go away -- even the one that's no longer free!!
PROBLEM
A selected tile is verified only before highlighting it, not
before actually removing it. So, the tile was verified as
being OK and later removed without further verification.
SOLUTION
I actually had code in place to solve this problem, but just
forgot to call it! Whenever a menu item is selectd, I SHOULD
de-select any tile that's been selected. I forgot to include
the call when BACK-UP is selected. All I had to do was insert
that call and the problem was solved.
Many thanks to Erik Brooks for discovering this strange
problem!
SYMPTOM
The 'T' key is used to bring up the list of tile sets available.
PROBLEM
This in itself isn't a problem -- but the manual says you
should use the 'L' key to load tile sets!!! OOOPS! I GOOFED!!!
SOLUTION
I could have changed the manual, but I decided to change the
program to accept 'L' instead of 'T'. Why? Because the 'L' is
used on the command line to load a tile set and I thought I should
use the same letter in both places to try to standardize things a
bit.
1487 - 12/1/90 The official release of MJVGA version 3.0 (a month
earlier than I expected, believe it or not!)
* NOTICE *
There have been a lot of subtle changes to MJVGA for this
version, so I probably caused more bugs than I fixed. If you
find anything strange, please let me know!
SYMPTOM
If you somehow work the dragon from left to right & have only
the two left-center tiles remaining, the inner of the two is
still not consideed "free".
PROBLEM
I never thought anyone could get to that tile from the other
end, so I never bothered to declare it free if the two tiles
that it's blocking are removed. But, of course, someone has
proven me wrong! Actually, TWO PEOPLE have already gone
through the game that way & have found the problem!
SOLUTION
This one wasn't too bad. I just added logic to free the
afflicted tile when the two to its left are removed.
1579 - 12/25/90
SYMPTOM
EDITHOF doesn't seem to work -- the name field contains
garbage.
PROBLEM
Here's the first problem caused by all my changes. It seems I
changed the HOF file, fixed EDITHOF to accept it, then changed
the HOF file specifications again -- without fixing EDITHOF
again! So, EDITHOF was looking in the wrong place for the name
-- and all it found was junk.
SOLUTION
All I had to do was get EDITHOF back "in sync" with MJVGA's HOF
file. It was a rather simple fix.
SYMPTOM
When the fancy new windows close, they don't restore the screen
properly.
PROBLEM
I have no idea. I've never seen this problem on any test
machine. Furthermore, it has only been reported by one person
so far. She said that her machine uses the Trident VGA
chipset, so that may have something to do with it -- but I'm
not sure. If you experience this problem, please let me know
EXACTLY what hardware & software (stuff loaded from your CONFIG
& AUTOEXEC files) you're using.
SOLUTION
The problem hasn't been solved yet. It's reported here only
for documentation purposes. If you happen to run into it,
PLEASE LET ME KNOW because I've never seen it & can't correct
it until I have some idea of what's happening here!
1637 - 1/20/91
ADDITIONS
Starting with this serial number, MJVGA30 will support the
Adlib sound card. See the What's New or .DOC file for complete
details. I also added auto-sensing to the No Moves Left
message. Again, see the manual or What's New file for complete
details.
Since these additions are rather trivial, I didn't think they
were worth a new version number -- nor were they worth sitting
on until the next release. So, I just added them to the
current release.
1704 - 2/21/91
SYMPTOM
When you cancel a message with the RIGHT mouse button (although
you're supposed to use the LEFT), the PEEK/ROTATE/REMOVE menu
may pop up.
PROBLEM
I never bothered clearing the right-button queue, since the
left button is supposed to be used to cancel messages.
SOLUTION
I just clear the right-button queue along with the left-button
queue whenever a message is cancelled. Now you can use either
button to cancel a message.
SYMPTOM
The QUIT verify box sometimes comes up & then quickly
disappears
PROBLEM
Only one fellow reported this problem -- and I think his mouse
button was "bouncing" (producing a double click) for some
reason.
SOLUTION
Just to be safe, I inserted a slight time delay and a
de-queueing call after the QUIT select and before the verify
box. This should cure the problem -- if indeed it IS a
problem. I couldn't duplicate it, so I won't say whether it's
fixed or not.
1775 - 3/12/91
SYMPTOM
If you work the dragon in from the left to the two rightmost
tiles excluding the the two "offset" ones, the tiles can't be
selected -- you're told that the tiles aren't gree.
PROBLEM
To see if these tiles were free, the code just looked at the two
offset tiles. If they were gone, these tiles were considered to
be "free", otherwise they were considered to be blocked. I
never bothered to check if they could be moved to the left.
SOLUTION
I wish they were all this easy. I just added a check to the
left. One interesting note -- awhile back (see fixes for #1487)
someone reported that they couldn't remove the inner "offset"
tile to the left if the two "standard" tiles were removed. That
problem was valid and was fixed -- but they never should have
gotten that far! This problem should have surfaced first. They
should NOT have been able to remove the two rightmost "standard"
tiles to the left to free up that inner "offset" tile. I have
no idea how they found that problem without running into this
one!
1853 - 5/1/91
SYMPTOM
When you remove the last two tiles, you see the No Moves Left
message before going to the congratulations screen.
PROBLEM
This isn't exactly a bug, because when there aren't any more
tiles left, you really DON'T have any more moves. However, it
IS rather ridiculous to display at this point.
SOLUTION
They don't get much easier. I just don't check for moves left
if there are no tiles left.
2021 - 8/3/91
SYMPOM
The registration form print command wasn't appearing in the "K"
menu selector.
PROBLEM
I forgot to add 1 to the number of items in the menu last time I
added something.
SOLUTION
Add 1 to the number of items in the menu. I think this may also
solve a hang-on-exit problem. Although I wasn't providing space
for that one extra menu item, I was writing stuff to it.
Needless to say, this could have been overwriting something
important.
Note: The listed serial number is the first which contains a
fix. All releases with later (ie larger) serial numbers will
also contain the fix unless otherwise stated.