home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Fatal Distractions!
/
fataldistractions.bin
/
appndxa
/
masters
/
pophint.doc
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-10-26
|
16KB
|
427 lines
POPHINT
A Pop-Up Hint System for IBM
Text Adventure Game Players
Version 2.0 -- October 1992
By
David Malmberg
Distributed by
Softworks
43064 Via Moraga
Mission San Jose, California 94539
(510) 659-0533
_______
____|__ | (tm)
--| | |-------------------
| ____|__ | Association of
| | |_| Shareware
|__| o | Professionals
-----| | |---------------------
|___|___| MEMBER
Copyrighted 1992 -- All Rights Reserved
By David Malmberg
JUST WHAT IS POPHINT?
POPHINT is a system to enable you to create and use "pop-up" or
"TSR" or "ram-resident" hint systems for any Text Adventure Game
that can be played on the IBM. POPHINT only requires 6K of memory
(in normal operation).
POPHINT is similar in purpose to UHS, the Universal Hint System,
available for IBM as well as most other computer systems. POPHINT
differs from UHS in that (1) it creates hints that can "pop-up"
while you are playing the game, (2) it is easier to use, and (3) it
is only available for IBM and compatibles.
The POPHINT system contains the following files:
POPHINT.DOC - The documentation file you are reading now.
MAKEHINT.EXE - A program that "Compiles" your Hints into an
encrypted file.
POPHINT.EXE - A TSR that "pops-up" your compiled,
encrypted Hint file whenever you hit Alt-H.
POPHINT takes as little as 6K of RAM memory
(at your option).
LGOP.TXT - A sample Hint file for the Infocom Text
Adventure Game "Leather Goddesses of
Phobos".
CAVEHINT.TXT - A sample Hint file for the HUMONGOUS CAVE game.
COPYRIGHT, ETC.
POPHINT is NOT in the public domain. It is a copyrighted work and
the author retains all rights.
However, POPHINT is being distributed free of any royalty. POPHINT
can not be sold -- other than a modest disk duplicating fee ($ 7 or
less) charged by disk vendors like PC-SIG.
Operators of electronic bulletin boards (Sysops) are encouraged to
post POPHINT and related HINT files for downloading by their users.
The POPHINT documentation may not be modified by users. The program
may not be separated from the documentation when distributed.
Printed or "Xeroxed" copies of the POPHINT documentation (i.e., this
"manual") may not be distributed or sold without the written
permission of Softworks.
While, the author has tried very hard to assure that POPHINT works
correctly and is free of "bugs", no guarantees or warranties of any
kind are expressed or implied. Anyone who uses POPHINT, does so at
his/her own risk.
CREATING A HINT FILE
The best way to understand how a hint file is structured is to study
the following example (which is an excerpt from the "Leather
Goddesses of Phobos" hint file included as part of the POPHINT
package):
; Leather Goddesses of Phobos HELP
;
; Based on UHS help file for LGOP and LGOP.FUN -- both files
; from the ADVENTURE file area of GAMERS forum on CompuServe
;*************************************************************
;
TOPIC 1 The Bar
QUESTION 1 What do I do here?
ANSWER 1 1. Order another drink.
ANSWER 2 2. What does your bladder want to do?
ANSWER 3 3. Go to the appropriate bathroom.
ANSWER 4 4. Use it.
ANSWER 5 5. Now just wait for a couple of turns.
;*************************************************************
;
TOPIC 2 The Prison
QUESTION 1 How do I get out of my cell?
ANSWER 1 The guards are really dumb! They are always forgetting
things. If you examine things carefully, you will
discover that they forgot to lock the cell door. So,
just open it by giving the command OPEN DOOR.
QUESTION 2 What should I do about Trent/Tiffany?
ANSWER 1 1. You'll need him/her later in the game.
ANSWER 2 2. Just ask him/her to follow you.
QUESTION 3 How do I decode that piece of paper?
ANSWER 1 1. What do jumbled letters usually mean in gaming
circles?
ANSWER 2 2. Word searches.
ANSWER 3 3. You can try to find the words with no list; or,
wait until Trent/Tiffany hands you something.
ANSWER 4 4. Like a matchbook.
ANSWER 5 5. The parts to the weapon are identified by solving
the puzzle on the matchbook.
;*************************************************************
TOPIC 3 Venusian Jungle
QUESTION 1 What can I do about the flytrap?
ANSWER 1 1. Have you seen the matrix in Trent/Tiffany's cell?
ANSWER 2 2. Have you deciphered the message? If you haven't,
do so.
ANSWER 3 3. Hiss at it.
QUESTION 2 What is an alternate solution?
ANSWER 1 1. Go to Cleveland.
ANSWER 2 2. Remember that trap in the jungle with a hole in the
ground?
Etc., Etc., Etc....
The Hint file has several different kinds of lines:
COMMENT LINES:
Any line in the hint file that begins with an ";" is a comment
line. Comment lines are ignored by both MAKEHINT and POPHINT.
TOPIC LINES:
Each separate hint topic must be signified by being put on a TOPIC
line. For example, the in the sample given above, there are three
separate topics: (1) The Bar, (2) The Prison, and (3) Venusian
Jungle. Each TOPIC line must begin with the word "TOPIC" and be
followed by a number. These topic numbers must be unique and in
increasing order within the hint file, i.e., 1, 2, 3 and so on. The
various TOPIC "names" (i.e., "The Bar", "The Prison", etc.) will
appear on the "main choice menu" when POPHINT first pops-up the hint
file.
QUESTION LINES:
Each topic must have one or more QUESTIONS. For example, in the
sample above, TOPIC 1 has one QUESTION (specifically, "What do I do
here?"); TOPIC 2 has three QUESTIONS, and TOPIC 3 has two QUESTIONS.
Within a TOPIC, the QUESTIONS are numbered and must be in increasing
order being with number 1. These QUESTIONS will appear on
"sub-menus" after the user has selected the TOPIC to which the
QUESTION applies.
ANSWER LINES:
Each question must have one or more ANSWERS. For example, QUESTION
1 of TOPIC 1 has five ANSWERS, numbered from 1 to 5. These answers
will be revealed sequentially as the user of POPHINT repeatedly hits
the PgDn key. ANSWERS may extend over several lines within the hint
file. For example, ANSWER 1 for QUESTION 1 of TOPIC 2 is four lines
long, i.e.:
ANSWER 1 The guards are really dumb! They are always forgetting
things. If you examine things carefully, you will
discover that they forgot to lock the cell door. So,
just open it by giving the command OPEN DOOR.
Notice, that the text for lines 2 thru 4 of this ANSWER must be
indented under the appropriate text in line 1 of the ANSWER. If you
don't indent these follow-on lines, POPHINT will truncate these
lines where the indentation should take place -- and create and
display "garbage". So, don't forget to indent your continued ANSWER
lines!!
COMPILING YOUR HINT FILE
The program MAKEHINT is used to compile your hint file. This
compilation process creates an encrypted hint file (with an .HNT
extension) and then creates the various indices that POPHELP needs
to pop-up the correct hints, questions, and answers based on the
user's choices.
The compilation process is invoked by giving the following command
at the DOS prompt:
MAKEHINT InFile [OutFile]
^
|
optional
An extension of .TXT is assumed for the InFile. If OutFile is not
specified, MAKEHINT creates its encrypted hint file and names it
InFile.HNT.
For example, both:
MAKEHINT LGOP
and
MAKEHINT LGOP.TXT
will compile the LGOP.TXT hint file and create the encrypted hint
file LGOP.HNT.
WARNING: When MAKEHINT is creating an encrypted hint file, it
creates a temporary file on the disk. After the encrypted file has
been created successfully, MAKEHINT erases the temporary file.
However, in order for everything to work properly, you must have
enough free disk space to hold both the temporary and the final
compiled file. If you don't have enough disk space, MAKEHINT will
give you an error message and quit processing.
INSTALLING THE POP-UP HINT FILE
After you have created the encrypted hint file by running the
program MAKEHINT, you are ready to install the pop-up hint file. To
do this, you give the command:
POPHINT HintFile [Options]
HintFile is the pathname to the hint file you wish to use. So, it
is possible to have the POPHINT program and the hint file on one
disk and/or directory while the adventure game you are playing is on
another disk and/or directory.
The following options may be specified on the command line:
/B Force use of black and white.
/C Force use of BIOS rather than direct screen
writes.
/E Force the use of EMS memory (if available).
/H HotKey Specify alternate hot key for accessing hints.
/M Disable message appearing while POPHINT swaps to
or from disk.
/N Force entire POPHINT to remain in memory (no
swapping).
/S Path Specify drive and/or directory for disk swapping.
/U Unload the pop-up hint program from memory.
/B OPTION
POPHINT normally auto-selects either mono or color based on what you
computer can display. Occasionally, you may want to use mono - even
on a color monitor. The /B option can be used to force the use of
black and white. You might wish to use this option if POPHINT's
normal color scheme does not have enough contrast when compared with
the colors used in the game you are playing.
/C OPTION
The option forces POPHINT to use the BIOS rather than to write
directly to the screen. The option is useful if you are using
DesqView or some other product that wants the applications running
under it to be "well-behaved".
/E OPTION
This option forces POPHINT to use EMS memory if it is available.
POPHINT's normal mode of operation is to swap itself in and out of
memory as required and to store most of its program on disk. This
limits POPHINT's memory requirements to only 6K of conventional
memory, but it does result in slower operation than if the all of
the program were in memory and the disk swapping were unnecessary.
If you have EMS memory available, you can use the /E option
to get POPHINT to run faster.
When not swapping to disk, POPHINT needs about 110K of memory --
either conventional or EMS memory.
/H OPTION
Using this option allows you to specify an alternate hot key for
popping-up POPHINT and accessing the hints. A hexadecimal value
specifying the HotKey you wish to use must follow the /H option on
the command line. For example,
/H 021E
would tell POPHINT to use the combination of the left-shift and the
"A" keys to pop-up the hints.
The hexadecimal value is made up of two parts of two characters
each. The first part which is made up by the first two characters
specifies the shift key(s) to be pressed and must be non-zero. The
second part which is made up from the last two characters specifies
the scan code for the hot key.
Scan key codes (in Hexadecimal):
Alt - 08
Ctrl - 04
Left Shift - 02
Right Shift - 01
A - 1E N - 31 0 - 0B F1 - 3B [ - 1A
B - 30 O - 18 1 - 02 F2 - 3C ; - 27
C - 2E P - 19 2 - 03 F3 - 3D , - 33
D - 20 Q - 10 3 - 04 F4 - 3E / - 35
E - 12 R - 13 4 - 05 F5 - 3F \ - 2B
F - 21 S - 1F 5 - 06 F6 - 40 ] - 1B
G - 22 T - 14 6 - 07 F7 - 41 ' - 28
H - 23 U - 16 7 - 08 F8 - 42 . - 34
I - 17 V - 2F 8 - 09 F10 - 43
J - 24 W - 11 9 - 0A F11 - 57
K - 25 X - 2D F12 - 58
L - 26 Y - 15
M - 32 Z - 2C
For example: /H 083F pops up hints when <Alt><F5> is pressed.
Unless modified, POPHINT responds to the following hot key:
<Alt><H> which pops up the hint system
Once the hint system has popped up, you may use the cursor keys and
the Pg-Up and Pg-Dn keys to move around. In addition, you may use
the following hot keys within the hint system:
<F1> Takes you to the Topic Menu
<Alt><F1> Takes you to the previous selection
/M OPTION
This option disables the "Swapping" message appearing while POPHINT
swaps itself in and out of memory and to/from the disk.
/N OPTION
This option force the entire POPHINT program to remain in "normal"
memory (with no disk swapping). This option is like the /E option
in that it causes POPHINT to operate faster, but the trade-off is
that POPHINT requires more memory.
When not swapping to disk, POPHINT needs about 110K of memory --
either conventional or EMS memory.
/S OPTION
This option enables the user to specify the drive and directory for
disk swapping for the POPHINT program. Normally, POPHINT uses the
"default" directory to store its "swap" files. If you wish to
change this to another drive and/or directory, use the /S option.
/U OPTION
When you are done playing the adventure game and no longer need
POPHINT, you should use the /U option to unload POPHINT from memory.
This option also erases POPHINT's swap files from your disk. These
files are "hidden" so they can not be seen when you do a DIR -- but
they are there and they do take up disk space -- so it is important
to erase them!
ALWAYS USE THE /U OPTION TO UNLOAD POPHINT FROM MEMORY AND TO ERASE
THE SWAP FILES FROM YOU DISK WHEN YOU NO LONGER NEED THE HINTS!!