Welcome to the light version of the Virtual Maze Book, Volume II.
This program is free but not public domain. It is a form of advertising, a way to make Macintosh users aware of a large and complex set of programs and specialized typefaces which can create mazes.
Over the past few years I have, off and on, played with maze creation using the computer. The result has been two books of mazes (Fascinating Mazes, published by Dover in 1993, and another, title yet unknown, in process, also Dover). I have learned that there are great many ways to have the computer organize randomness into a maze, and in my quest for variety I have developed nine of those ways. Some have been far more useful and interesting than others, but in this light version of the Virtual Maze Book (Vol II), I have included only the two that are most limited and least interesting. (Hey, it’s free so don’t complain. Also, if I had included the best method, you would have very little incentive to upgrade by buying my CD.) The program is not crippled in any other way (it saves and prints, and probably comes complete with the bugs of the original as well.)
If you just want to make a few mazes for yourself, your friends, or your children, this light version should serve you well. Enjoy it without guilt. (Warning: if you use even this limited version for commercial purposes, you exceed the implicit license of the software and, depending on how you do it, may violate copyright laws—especially if you use the included artwork which is in the form of maze fonts. If you want to use it for any commercial purpose, contact me.)
If you really want to get serious about mazes, buy the CD-ROM called Font Pro #5, Fun Type, published by Wayzata Technology. The main part of the CD consists of typefaces for both Macintosh and MS-Windows, but tucked into the Mac side is a Bonus folder full of goodies. Search in here to find the several megabytes of maze stuff (both Volumes I and II of the Virtual Maze Book, plus artwork for displaying mazes put into about 90 different specialized typefaces, plus various other items). If you love mazes, you will not regret spending the $15 to $25 that this CD costs. (If you have Font Pro #3, you already have an older version of this material. Unless you are a true maze fanatic, it is probably not worthwhile to upgrade to Font Pro 5 if all you want are mazes.)
Notes on the light version:
The program is called the Virtual Maze Book because it is very much like a trillion-paged book which you can open up more or less at random to see a maze. You can select the section you will open up by setting the dimensions and the type of maze you want to see in the Setup menu. As mentioned above, of the six sections in the full version, only the two smallest are available to you in this light version, the Type-ToCenter and the Type-NewThree. (In addition to the four extra sections in the full version of VMB II, there are three more in the Virtual Maze Book, Vol I. I split the book into two parts to make it easier to use.)
Once you have a maze on the screen, you can edit it in a number of ways using the Tinker Menu or solve it using the commands under the Solve Menu. For more help, look for the Help command under the question-mark menu.
In addition to the program, there are sample mazes constructed with some of the algorithms not included in the program, and two typefaces you can use to print out high-quality versions of the mazes constructed in VMB II.
You need to install them as you would regular fonts, save the mazes from VMB II, and then open and print these mazes from a word processor. (You can also print directly from the program, but the output will not be as good. You will print the bitmapped font.)
You can buy Font Pro 5 from a variety of software retailers or directly from Wayzata Technology. Wayzata Technology is at 21 Northeast Fourth Street, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, 55744; phone: 800-735-731; 218-326-0597; 218-326-0598 (fax); e-mail: WayzataTec@aol.com or info@Wayzata-Tech.com. www site at http://Wayzata-Tech.com
Report bugs to me at bobs@saintjoe.edu
This version should replace all earlier versions of this material, which goes under a couple of names, MazeMaker and Make-A Maze. Just make sure that the program you yank is by me.
The light version of the Virtual Maze Book may be included on any CD collection of shareware and freeware programs which has the policy of providing a free copy of the CD to software authors. Naturally you may not change the application or documentation in any way, and must include all of it. Any other CD publishers should contact me for permission at the e-mail address above.
(I am writing this in late 1995. I am confident that the above information will be valid through 1996, and fairly sure that it will be true through 1997. But be aware the further you, the reader of this message, are from 1995, the more likely it will be that this information will be outdated. Font Pro 5 may no longer exist, or the VMB may have been revised, updated, available somewhere else in an improved form.)
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Things different in the light version:
In addition to taking out four of the ways of constructing mazes, there is one other change in the light version.
In the light version, the NewThree method is automatically reformatted as a normal, square maze. To get the same result in the full version, construct a NewThree maze, and then press Command-H. I made this change because I thought it would prevent frustration on the part of new users.
