An attempt to release Factory as a commercial program failed a few years ago (it's a long sad tale), so now here it is in full shining shareware glory. If you see the commercial demo version of Factory 1.0 anywhere, please remove it.
The shareware version has allows you to play through the entire month. Registered users receive a serial number which will activate Factory's ability to open and edit new month files.
Unregistered and unmodified copies of Factory and all of its accompanying files may be freely distributed electronically (via the Internet, online services, BBS's, and the like). Factory may NOT be distributed via Shareware CD ROMs or other such complilations for which end users are charged a fee without the author's express permission.
Since version 1.0, background music has been disabled. Here's why:
- The assembly code I was using to mix and play heavily compressed samples is wreaking havoc on more modern macs.
- Updating the code to use new sound drivers and properly play background music would take more time than I have right now.
- The music file doubled the size of the archive.
- Frankly, the music was never anything to email home about anyway.
Pre-AV Mac users may experience some choppiness as sounds are played. If this bothers you, turn the sounds off or trash the sound file completely.
Other than registration feature and removal of music, little has changed.
Note that when you are actually playing Factory (when the menu bar is blacked out), normal Macintosh event handling is bypassed, so background processes will not function.
All standard disclaimers apply. This software is provided as is with no express or implied warranty. It's fairly clean near as I can tell, but use it at your own risk.
Check out the Factory Web Page http://www.rdrop.com/~pcal/factory for the latest info, or email me at pcal@agora.rdrop.com.
