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1991-02-15
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-=( LiveSystems Trivia online game )=-
(C) Copyrights 1990, 1991
Author: Gerhard Hoogterp
FidoNet: 2:283/1.2
SIGnet: 27:4331/106
BitNet: HOOGTERPG@HENUT5.BITNET
SnailMail: KremersMaten 108
7511 LC Enschede
Holland
Table of contents:
Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Shareware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Standard features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Program specific information . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Trivia, the game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Other trivia features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Some answers to questions: . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
-=( LiveSystems Software, (C) Copyright 1990,1991 )=-
Disclaimer:
Use this product totally at your own risk. As usual with
shareware software, the author of this program shall not be
responsible for any damage as result from the usage of this
program. The only right you gain by registering is the right to
use updates of this program without paying again if and when
available.
Shareware:
This program is distributed as shareware. This means that you
should pay if you continue to use this program. The amount of
money involved is low. I ask only $5 or 10 dutch guilders as
registration fee for my doorprograms. So send those few bucks..
Remember, a happy programmer is a productive programmer!
Especialy for Trivia there is an other way of "registering" too.
Make a questionnairy .TRI or .TQ file and upload it at the
LiveSystems support board with a msg telling me so...
Of course are TRI files with less then 50 questions also
welcome..;)
See the TRIC.DOC file for some more info.
The LiveSystems support board is:
Action board Alphen
2:281/604
01720-37926 in holland
You can send your shareware fee to:
Gerhard Hoogterp
Kremersmaten 108
7511 LC Enschede
Holland.
Giro: 1806776
Special thanks go to Bart Burkels and Ron Huiskens, my beta-
testers who dared to run this program on their systems while
still bugridden. Also thanks to all the people who did send me a
mail telling about bugs they found.
Page: 1
-=( LiveSystems Software, (C) Copyright 1990,1991 )=-
Standard features:
All my doorprograms use a turbo pascal unit I wrote to make
writing doors easier for me. This also implies a number of
standard features for all my doors.
- Local ANSI/AVATAR is handled by the program itself. No need
for an ansidriver for the local screen.
- The sysop can type along with the user. Keystrokes from the
local keyboard are accepted anytime.
- Desqview awearness. Whenever the program is waiting for
userinput timeslices are given back when desqview is
detected.
- Multiline support. When you run a multiline RA setup,
recordlocking is applied. You should ALWAYS run the dos
program SHARE.EXE in such a case.
- Internal carrier and timeout detection. When the carrier
drops or when a user times out control is given back to RA.
The timeout time is the same as the time you installed for RA
itself. Three warnings are given before the door drops back
to RA (in case of timeout that is)
User must have at least 5 minutes time left to enter the
door.
- The most important user installed toggles are honored. ANSI,
Screenlenght and More [Y/N].
- Online mail is detected and shown to the user. There's no
reply option as these programs are no chat doors..;-)
- On the local screen the RA monochrome mode is honored.
- While showing a file the [P]ause and [S]top keys are
detected. After a [P]ause every key restarts the transmission
again.
And further do all the programs have the LiveSystems housestyle
appearance for the user and for the sysop. On the bottom line
there is a local statusline with the name of the user, where he's
from, the time he has left in the door. Also there are two
toggles shown, [DV] to indicate that desqview was detected, [ML]
to indicate that the program is running in a multiline setup.
Page: 2
-=( LiveSystems Software, (C) Copyright 1990,1991 )=-
Installation:
The installation into RA is very simple. First of all you should
check if the RA environment variable is set. This variable points
to the directory where the RemoteAccess configuration files are
found. These are used by all the programs. Further you should
make sure that SHARE.EXE is loaded into memory when you run a
multiline set up. EVERY setup where it's possible to have two
programs accessing the configuration or messagebase files at the
same time needs recordlocking. Not loading Share.exe is begging
for troubles!
Installing is easy, just follow the next steps:
- Make a directory somewhere on a disk.
- Copy all the files from the distribution archive into this
directory.
- If you want to store the supportfiles of the doorprogram in
an other directory than the program itself, you can set an
environment variable pointing to that directory. (See below
for program specific information) Normally all the support
files are expected to be in the same directory as from where
the program is started. I.e. the same directory as the EXE
file.
- Make a type 7 menu entry in the menu of your choice with in
the optional data field:
<Path\><PROGRAMNAME.EXE> -T:*T [Other optional parameters]
- And update the ANS and ASC files connected to this menu.
That's all there is to it.
If you like you can also make intro and goodbye screens for the
doorprogram. They should be stored in the same directory as the
EXE file.
Program specific information:
Program name: Trivia.exe
Environment variable name: TRIVIA
Intro ANS/ASC file: TRIHI.ANS/ASC
Goodbye ANS/ASC file: TRIBYE.ANS/ASC
Other optional parameters: -N:*N NodeNr
-P:*P Commport override
-S:Off Noise default OFF
(Use NO parameter for
default ON!)
Page: 3
-=( LiveSystems Software, (C) Copyright 1990,1991 )=-
Trivia, the game:
Trivia is a game of questions and answers. The goal is to answer
as much questions correct as possible. the nice part of this
trivia doorgame is the ability of the SysOp or his users to
prepare new questionnaire datafiles for other players.
The trivia door program can handle up to 255 datafiles which can
contain as much questions as the author likes and can dream up.
When you enter the trivia doorgame, you're presented a main menu
with the following options:
Select a subject:Make a choice out of the available databases
that the system has online. There should be at
least one database available. (the TRIVIA.TRI
file MUST be available) a player can only play
a subject once per session. Choices marked with
a star (*) are timed games. There's a limited
time to answer.
Play Trivia: Play the game using the currently selected
subject. The program askes questions and you
can answer pressing the number in front of the
possible answers. Use the [S] stop key whenever
you like, but remember: You have to answer at
least 30 questions, or all questions whichever
comes first, to make a chance for the Hall Of
Fame. A red star appears between the brackets
when a player reached the point where he can
enter the hall of fame.
See the Hall Of Fame:
Shows you the hall of fame with the 15 best
players. The hall of fame is an overall
recording of the best players, the subject
doesn't matter.
View statistics: Trivia keeps a statistics file of every TRI
file. Whenever a game is played this file is
updated. With ths option the player can examine
a screen with information about the current
selected game. This way the player can get info
on how well other people did on a questionair.
Page: 4
-=( LiveSystems Software, (C) Copyright 1990,1991 )=-
Help on trivia: Shows a short help file.
Quit: Stops the Trivia doorgame and returns the
player to the bulletinboard.
Other trivia features:
Trivia remembers which questionnaires the last player played.
This is to protect the hall of fame from players who try a
certain questionnaires until they have a 100% score.
Trivia does this by creating a PLAYER??.MEM file (where the ? is
the node number of the RA node) which contains the name of the
player and information about which questionnaires (s)he played.
The file is reset whenever a NEW player logs on, so even logging
off and logging on again willnot help. There has to be at least
one other player between two tries on a TRI file.
Note that in a multiline environment the player can log on to an
other line to try again.. (Don't tell your users..;)
It's probably a good idea to delete all the *.MEM files when you
put a new TRI file online, or sort the directory or whatever, as
the MEM file relies on the order of the files in the TRIVIA
directory. This COULD go wrong when the same user wants to play
again and you changed or added something to the directory..
To make your own trivia questionnaires you can use the program
TRIC. It has it's own documentation as I felt that it would be
nice to put this file online for users who like to create TRI
files, but don't have their own BBS to run trivia.
Page: 5
-=( LiveSystems Software, (C) Copyright 1990,1991 )=-
Some answers to questions:
I got some mails asking me why I did things the way I did. Well,
here are some of the answers.
- The 30 question lower limit to go for the hall of fame.
I decided for this limit to prevent the hall of fame to become
filled with 100% scores. If there is no low limit, a single
good answered question would give that 100% 30 questions or all
is just a limit I liked.. Same goes for the statistics b.t.w.
only those players who go for the hall of fame appear in the
statistics. Same reason applies here too..
- Why the *.MEM files?
Well, I didn't like the idea of players playing a single game
until they got the 100%. That would be to easy (certainly when
the hint option is used) Trivia is a game about knowledge, not
about learning and guessing right. So I wanted to make it
impossible to play a game to often. On the other hand, to keep
a file with all the players and the games they played would be
a major maintenance task. Besides, games are added and
removed.. It would be overdoing it. So I use the MEM files. A
player can play a game more than once, but not in the same
session. (S)He has to wait until an other player resets the MEM
file. It's a compromise, but good enough. If you don't like it,
just put a DEL C:\TRIVIA\*.MEM in your post-RA batch.
- The spitfire converter.
I added it because of the users of the english version. Most
TRI files until now are dutch and as far as I know there's only
one single english file. To give foreign users a chance to make
the game more attractive I wrote and added the converter.
Please, if you use it, add the name and info of the original
author to the TQ file. If he or she askes for a shareware
contribution, pay it.. It's a hell of a job to make a nice
questionnary, they deserve it!
Page: 6