It was written as an alternative to revising for GCSE Latin, but I didn't do too badly in the end (I got a grade B)
You may keep it, distribute it, mutilate it with ResEdit and so on, as long as when you distribute it, the code is the same as when you received it. There are TEXT resources in the various files to tell you what you can do by way of mutilation. You must also include this readme file when distributing it.
If you want to put it on a commercially available freeware collection you should write to me or email me at the address below, telling me how much you intend to charge for the CD-ROM or disk. It will definitely be all right with me, but I would like to know about it so that I can tell my friends. You should also send me a copy of the CD-ROM or disk which you are distributing it on.
There is no charge for this software, but if you really like it you could always send me some money (I will either buy myself a decent compiler with it or donate it to the Standing Conference for Young Peoples Theatre). If you want me to send you the latest version please send £1 (Europe) or £2 (other places) and your address. Alternatively you can send me an SAE enclosing a disk.
The images used came from either my own drawing and photography, the Bloms Bulbs autumn '95 catalogue or from one of the Star Trek web pages. The blue-eyed thing is Mr H. Castle courtesey of N. Hobbs. If you feel that my choice of pictures is in any way infringing your rights/liberty/entitlements/etc please let me know as soon as possible and I will ammend all known archive copies of Tronish if your claims are not too far fetched...
-- TRONISH 1.3.3 -- CHANGES FROM 1.3.2 --
This is a minor update to sort out one or two niggles which people have had with 1.3.2
The starting blobs at the begining of each round now stay the same colours so that you know which player is which in 2 player games.
There is an option to turn off the more annoying types of enemies (invincible ones and duplicates of yourself)
Regenerating the prefs file doesn't wipe your scores.
One or two irrelevant things have changed (which should help to sort out some prefs file trouble-but may not)
-- Previous (badly documented) changes --
Big changes:
Tronish can now limit the speed of the line based on the Macintosh tick count - i.e. it will go at the right speed on any Mac no matter how fast it is. You can alter the speed limits for each of the three preset speeds (fast, medium and slow) from the "More Options" menu in pixels per second. If it is too slow on your Mac you can set one of the presets to "Flat out" and it will run at the same speed that it used to.
There is now a comparatively normal high score table, which functions in the same way as nearly every other high score table you've ever seen.
Tronish now works on 5200s, 630s and 500s as well as anything faster than an old mac II.
Small fixes:
The prefs icon no longer gets lost occasionally
The funky blobs try their best not to overlay each other.
It is no longer possible to get a high score by pausing the game.
The backgrounds and images files have been generally re-organised (backwards compatibility is not assured...)
You can regenerate the prefs file from within Tronish, reverting everything to the defaults.
-- COMPATIBILITY NOTES --
Tronish requires a Mac with a 68020 or better processor.
Ideally you should have the truetype version of Avant Garde installed in your fonts folder (or system file). If you haven’t, Tronish will use Chicago, which doesn’t look as nice. If you have bitmap versions of Avant garde in addition to the truetype one, you should remove them as they will make tronish look weirder than usual.
Ideally the Mac should have 256 colours - larger numbers of colours may mess up the collision detection, and smaller numbers just look crappy but work fine...
It adjusts to any size of monitor, but it may not behave on screens smaller than 640 by 400.
It definitely works on the following types of Macs:
Alan for telling me it was a real game, organising trips to London and being incredibly wonderful.
Gail for trying to have it emailed to her and being wonderful too.
Heff for bits of beta testing.
Allan, Paolo G. Cordone, Isaac Finnegan, Andrew Cooksey, Robert Barfoot (AKA Chris), Clint Hann, Paul Mulvaney, Gilles Bergeron and Eric Allen Schmenk for feedback and bug reports.
Rod and Ewok for services beyond comprehension.
Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Lancaster University for putting up with me.
The Lancaster branch of Dixons for being really nice and then really bitchy about me using their 5200.
Elli, Sue, Ian, Danni, Hanni, Simon, Helen, Michaela, Lee, Angela, Eammon, Stuart, Rowan, Jane, Jane, Jamie, Irina, Mr H, James, Gareth, Nicola, Pob, Des, Justin, Jack, Rik, Chris, Tommy, Jonnie, Jools, James, Tom, Tom, Gummy Bear and all the rest of them.
-- FEEDBACK --
If you have any problems which you think I should know about or if you want to distribute tronish, I can be contacted by mailing:
Sam Easterby-Smith
2 Dallas Road,
Lancaster.
LA1 1TN ENGLAND
or on the net at:
mta001@cent1.lancs.ac.uk
and
http://cent1.lancs.ac.uk/~mta001/
Also (especially if I can't fix the problem) you should send some hate mail to a certain multibillionaire from Seattle...
