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1995-08-06
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README for pMARS version 0.8.0 - portable corewar system with ICWS'94 extensions
____________________
What is Core War?
Core War is a game in which two or more virus-like programs fight against
each other in a simulated memory space or core. Core War programs are
written in an assembly language called Redcode which is interpreted by a
Core War simulator or MARS (Memory Array Redcode Simulator). The object of
the game is to prevent the other program(s) from executing. For more
information about Core War check out the usenet newsgroup rec.games.corewar
and its FAQ list ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/games/corewar-faq
or send E-mail to Stefan.Strack@Vanderbilt.edu.
____________________
pMARS highlights
o portable, run it on your Mac at home or VAX at work
o free and comes with source
o core displays for DOS, Mac and UNIX
o implements a new redcode dialect, ICWS'94, while remaining compatible
with ICWS'88
o powerful redcode extensions: multi-line EQUates, FOR/ROF text repetition
o one of the fastest simulators written in a high level language
o full-featured, programmable debugger
o runs the automated tournament "KotH" at stormking.com and
ecst.csuchico.edu and the annual ICWS tournaments
____________________
Archives
pMARS and related programs are distributed as either source or binary
compiled for different platforms in one of these archives:
pmars08s.zip - C source, including UNIX and DOS displays
pmars08.zip - DOS binaries (386 and up)
MacpMARS.*s.cpt.hqx - Mac GUI code (* is the version number), Mac source
and binary may not necessarily be up to date with the UNIX/DOS
version.
MacpMARS.*.cpt.hqx - Mac binary
pvms08.zip - VMS binary
pvms08.zip - COM files to build pMARS and help system for VMS
ptools10.zip - pMARS related programs as DOS binary and C source: mts,
mopt, pshell, etc. These programs were previously part of the main
pMARS archive.
____________________
Documentation
pmars.6 is the nroff-source for UNIX man pages. You can install it in
/usr/man/man6 for use with the UNIX "man" command or format it with nroff
-man. pmars.doc contains man pages without control characters that have
been formatted for printing.
primer.94 and primer.cdb contain short introductions to the ICWS'94 draft
and the cdb debugger respectively. redcode.ref is a quick reference to
the redcode syntax supported by pMARS. whatsnew.080, a "must read",
describes the new pMARS features. CONTRIB has guidelines for porting
pMARS to new platforms and contributing new display code.
____________________
DOS executables
pmars08.zip contains two pMARS binaries. pmars.exe is a fast tournament
version without display capabilities; pmarsv.exe sports a graphical core
display in VGA, SVGA, standard and extended text modes. Both support core
sizes of up to several hundred thousand - the exact number depends on how
much free memory you have - and require a 386 or better processor. The
32-bit DOS extender go32.exe must be in the PATH for these programs to
run. More on the DOS binaries can be found in the addendum of pmars.doc.
____________________
Compiling the source
There are a number of C preprocessor symbols that control which version
of pMARS is compiled. To enable an option, include -DSYMBOLNAME in CFLAGS
of the makefile or uncomment the relevant section in config.h.
GRAPHX
This option enables a platform-specific graphical core display.
SERVER
Disables the debugger for a non-interactive tournament version. The
pMARS program that runs the KotH email tournaments is compiled with
SERVER enabled.
EXT94
Enables the experimental opcodes SEQ, SNE and NOP, as well as the
A-field relative addressing modes *, {, and }. This option should
usually be enabled. EXT94 also enables the P-space extensions LDP,
STP and PIN.
SMALLMEM
makes all addresses 16-bit as opposed to the usual 32-bit wide. This
limits core size to 65535, but also drastically reduces the memory
footprint of the program. We found that SMALLMEM reduces the
simulation speed of pMARS on most CPUs, with the exception of those
with a very small primary cache.
There are other compile directives described in config.h, in particular
some that fine-tune the UNIX curses display.
pMARS has been tested with various ANSI and non-ANSI C compilers. If
you can't get it to run or you had to change the source extensively,
contact the authors with a full description of the problems and
diffs to the source if applicable.
____________________
Platforms
UNIX
A standard UNIX makefile is provided. If you specify the GRAPHX
directive, a character-based display using the curses library is
built. On some systems, it may be necessary to remove -ltermcap from
the LIB variable in the makefile.
UNIX/X11
If you specify the XWINGRAPHX directive, the X-Windows display
version of pMARS is compiled. You also need to change the link
library by uncommenting the "LIB = -lX11" line in makefile. X11
pMARS has a few new command line options that are described in
pmars.doc.
LINUX
The Linux/SVGA version of pMARS has been derived from the DOS
graphical version and therefore should behave very much like that
one.
Some notes for compiling the Linux/SVGA version:
* You will need the Linux SVGA library (libvga) version 1.12 or above
to compile pMARS for Linux (it may work with older libraries, but
I have not had an opportunity to test it).
* If you #define GRAPHX in config.h or in the makefile, the graphical
version will automatically be built unless you explicitely
specify CURSESGRAPHX.
* You will have to link with -lvgagl -lvga. makefile already contains
a sample definition of LIB with these libraries.
* The code assumes that Function keys etc. map to the 'standard'
escape sequences. pMARS will not recognize these keys otherwise.
* You need root privileges for the SVGA library, so either run pMARS
as root, or a better solution is to set the SUID bit of the
executable (do the following with root privileges).
# chown root pmars
# chmod u+s pmars
* The code assumes your mouse is available via /dev/mouse. This is
usually a link to the 'real' mouse interface, e.g. on my system:
# cd /dev
# ls -l mouse
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Mar 2 00:22 mouse -> ttyS0
* The second digit of the the argument to -v indicates (just like in
the DOS version) the graphics mode:
1 ... 640x480 with 256 colors
2 ... 800x600 with 256 colors
3 ...1024x768 with 256 colors
6 ... 320x200 with 256 colors
all other digits will result in the 640x480x256 mode.
Deficiencies/bugs of the Linux/SVGA version:
* Currently, the following keys are recognized by pMARS: F1-F10, the
cursor keys, insert, delete, home, end, page up and page down,
and Alt-a to Alt-z.
* The result of a fight is printed to the console after returning
from the graphical display -- only the last two lines or so are
not visible until you press <return>.
* Bug reports are welcome - just drop a note to m.maierhofer@ieee.org
DOS
We will continue to provide a compiled 32-bit executable for DOS, but
you can make your own executable if you want to experiment. You need
the free 32-bit DOS compiler DJGPP - a DOS port of gcc - and ndmake or
some other make program. pMARS also compiles with the 16-bit DOS
compilers of the Borland/Turbo C family, but the maximum number of
warriors is limited to 8 because of memory constraints.
The GRAPHX compile directive enables the combined VGA/textmode
display of pmarsv.exe. You can enable the graphics and textmode
displays selectively with the DOSGRXGRAPHX and DOSTXTGRAPHX
directives. If you so desire, you can even link in a curses display
using the PDCurses library by specifying the CURSESGRAPHX directive.
MAC
The Mac GUI version of pMARS, MacpMARS, will compile with Think C
and MPW C, possibly others. Source code for the interface/display of
MacpMARS as well as instructions on how to make the executable are
in MacpMARS*s.cpt.hqx. The GUI code has not been updated for v0.7 of
pMARS yet, so you need the base archive for v0.6 (pmars06s.zip).
VMS
pvms*s.zip contains command files to build pMARS for VMS flavors. You
need DEC C; VAX C will not work. This file also contains a complete VMS
help system.
OTHERS
pMARS should compile with Borland C++ for OS/2, although we haven't
tried it. The OS/2 version currently doesn't have a core display.
pMARS has also been reported to compile on Amigas.
____________________
Language support
All strings are contained in the file str_eng.c for easy translation into
languages other than english. If you would like to see pMARS speak your
native tongue, translate the strings and send the file to us. We will then
include the new str_???.c in the next release and might even release the
foreign language binaries.
____________________
Version history
0.0.1 8/17/93: Initial release
0.1.1 9/1/93 : post-mortem debugger avoidable, doc fixes
0.1.2 9/9/93 : Mac compiler define fixed, initial core instr. not displayed
0.2.0 9/12/93: cdb command chains; ! repetitor
0.2.1 9/19/93: fixed display bug in cdb.c; max. instr. increased to 500
0.2.2 9/29/93: Text/Graphics display with cdb for DOS, -v, -K seeds RNG
0.3.0 10/23/93:DOS/Mac version simulator bug fixed, JMN/DJN fixed
0.3.1 10/27/93:fixed small bug in pmarsv.exe
0.4.0 1/19/94 : curses display, macros, scroll keys, registers
0.5.0 4/10/94: 2-panel cdb, pqueue, if, reset, SEQ, SNE, NOP
0.5.1 5/1/94: Graphics display for big core pmarsv.exe
0.6.0 6/8/94: A-field indirect modes, merged FOR/ROF and EQU pass, ;assert
0.6.1 6/22/94: curses display status bar, minor speed improvement
0.6.2 7/16/94: fixed } mode bug, ignores text before ;redcode
0.6.3 8/9/94: minor ;assert bug fixed
0.7.0 4/15/95: multi-warrior capabilities, -@, stdin warrior/option input
0.7.1 4/17/95: minor compatibility fixes
0.7.5 6/11/95: score formula option, linux/SVGA display, VMS port
0.8.0 8/5/95: LDP,STP,PIN; X Windows display
____________________
Disclaimer
pMARS source and documentation is copyrighted freeware. It may be
distributed freely as long as no more than the costs for media and
shipping is charged. Contact the authors for special arrangements.
The authors are not responsible for any damage resulting from use
of this program.
You are free to modify the source, but may not distribute the
modified source or executable without permission by the authors.
Please share any improvements you make with us.
____________________
Authors
pMARS is brought to you by:
Albert Ma (ama@athena.mit.edu)
Nandor Sieben (nandor.sieben@asu.edu)
Stefan Strack (stst@vuse.vanderbilt.edu)
Mintardjo Wangsaw (wangsawm@csos.orst.edu)
Alex Macaulay (macaulay@mundil.cs.mu.oz.au) wrote the Macintosh
front-end. Martin Maierhofer (m.maierhofer@ieee.org) contributed the
code for the X-Windows and the linux SVGA displays. Nathan Summers
(00ncsummers@bsuvc.bsu.edu) ported pMARS to VMS.
____________________
Join the team!
pMARS is a group project; apart from us four original developers, there
are currently people working on display versions for other systems.
We invite you to become part of the team by porting pMARS to even more
operating systems and GUIs. In particular, we would like to see pMARS run
under:
o OS/2 with PM display
o Motif
o MS-Windows/Windows NT
o Atari
See the file CONTRIB for details.
____________________
Questionaire
We need your feedback to guide our development efforts. Please take some
time to fill out the questionaire below and email it to
nandor.sieben@asu.edu. The improvements you suggest may be realized in the
next pMARS release!
----- CUT HERE ---------- CUT HERE ---------- CUT HERE ---------- CUT HERE -----
A) General:
1) Which corewar simulator(s) do you use, which most often ?
_____________________________________________________
2) What machine(s), OS(s) do you run corewar on ?
_____________________________________________________
3) Why do you prefer the simulator you use most often ?
_____________________________________________________
B) About pMARS:
1) What machine/OS do you use to run pMARS (Unix/DOS/Mac/...) ?
_____________________________________________________
2) What kind of coreviewer do you use most often (DOS text/graphics/
curses/none) ?
_____________________________________________________
3) How would you rank pMARS from 1 to 10 in terms of
speed __ ____________ (optional comments)
display features __ ____________
ease of use __ ____________
debugging capabilities __ ____________
stability __ ____________
4) What would you like to see changed/added in future releases of pMARS?
_____________________________________________________
5) Did you read the documentations files or do you depend on the online help ?
How would you rate documentation and online help?
_____________________________________________________
6) Do you use the menuing frontend pshell on DOS? If so, how do you like it
and what would you like to see added or improved?
_____________________________________________________
Check here if you would like to be informed of new releases by email:
__ email address: __________________
$Id: README,v 1.9 1995/08/06 20:36:40 stst Exp stst $