Instructions for FTBL, a freeware football simulation
by Greg Olson (GJOLSON@BPA.GOV).
This is a simple Football simulation with stats from the start
of the 1995 NFL season. It is a minimal conversion of a program I wrote
for the Color Computer 3, and compiled using FutureBasic.
First run NFL to select the teams. (The cursor is moved with the
arrow keys - sorry.) Basic instructions are in NFL, and help can be optained
at user prompts in the main FTBL program (Type 'H'). Note that this version
responds both to the keyboard, and to menus. The program will run in the
background under System 7) All commands are issued by pressing a single key.
To quit any program, press 'Q', or select Quit from the File menu.
This version includes a Print Spooler. The statistics screens can be printed to the spooler manually, or will automatically be sent in the Auto mode. At the end of the program the spool can be printed or discarded.
Note: all files (programs, Teams.dat, etc.) must be in the same folder for the
game to work properly.
Programming notes:
On the CC3 the main FTBL program had to fit into 32K, so I created a separate
team selection program which contained the stats for a given year. Since the
language was interpreted, I could just edit the NFL code and give each version a
year suffix, e.g. NFL92, NFL93. Since the Mac version is compiled, I split the data
out from the NFL program. You can modify the stats as you see fit, but the program
will only read a file named STATS.DAT. Comments in the Stats file are preceded
by an apostrophe, and are ignored by the program. All other data must be
in the same format (numeric or alpha) and the same order.
Each statistic represents the relative strength of a team in a given area
(rushing, passing, defense against the run or pass, field goal kicking and punting,
and coaching stategy: -1=conservative, 0=balanced, 1=aggresive).
I compiled my stats primarily by using ave yards per rush, pass, etc, and giving the best (league-wide) average a .99, the worst a .72, and weighting everything in
between accordingly. (This becomes simply solving 2 simultaneous equations.)
If you enjoy the game feel free to modify your stats however you choose, but the
program will probably work best if you stick to values between .72 and .99
Note I modified the main program to use the new 1994 rules (2pt conversion, etc).
I also provided two versions of the 94 stats, one based on yards-per-game, and the
other on yards-per-play (STATS94.DAT and STATS94alt.DAT respectively).
