Magnum One/Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso/d26/tsgmeb15.arc/TSGMEB.INF

Text File | 1991-08-11 | 9.5 KB | 197 lines

                           - 1 -
Sun 11-August-1991

About TSGMEB in General
=======================

This package may be used and distributed freely for NON-COMMERCIAL,
NON-INSTITUTIONAL, PRIVATE purposes, provided it is not changed in
any way. (Repacking with another method, such as pkzip, is ok,
though.) For ANY other usage, such as use in a business enterprise
or at a university, contact the author for registration. Uploading
to bulletin boards is encouraged. Please do not distribute any part
of this package separately.

The programs are under development. Comments and contacts are
solicited. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to use
electronic mail for communication.
InterNet address: [e-mail]         (preferred)
Bitnet address:   [e-mail]
Funet address:    GADO::SALMI

The author shall not be liable to the user for any direct, indirect
or consequential loss arising from the use of, or inability to use,
any program or file howsoever caused. No warranty is given that the
programs will work under all circumstances.

Timo Salmi
Professor of Accounting and Business Finance
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa
P.O. BOX 297, SF-65101 Vaasa, Finland


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Timo Salmi GaME B release 1.5 ARC (TSGMEB15.ARC) includes the

*    *     * ** *         * * ***
following more or less educational games. It is an independent part
of my educational games set made up by TSGAME, TSGMEB, TSGMEC,
TSGMED, and TSGMEE.

TSGMEB15.ARC    Educational games II, Timo Salmi
Filename        Comment
--------        --------------------------------
REVEGAME.EXE    Arrange numbers by reversing
TSGMEB.INF      Document
TSGMEB.NWS      News announcements about tsgmeb
TSPROG.INF      List of PD programs from T.Salmi
TYPEVADE.EXE    Game for learning fast typing
WITPIN.EXE      Solitaire adaptation of draughts
----            ------             ------  -----
0006


TYPEVADE (Ver 1.3)  Game for learning fast typing
==================

   Typevade is an educational variation of space invaders type of
games. It is intended for teaching you to know your way fast around
the PC keyboard.
   You must prevent the characters invading from the left side of
the screen from reaching the right side, for as long as you can. You
shoot at the invading characters in front by typing them on the
keyboard. The characters in front protect the characters behind.
Thus the foremost invaders must be destroyed first. (Since version
1.2 you will have the option of playing from right to left as
proposed by Russel A. Fink, [e-mail].)

   Let me tell you a bit about the background of this TYPEVADErs
game.
   Although I use the computer quite a lot both in my profession and
as a hobby, I very seldom play computer games myself. Not because I
would regard them as a waste of time, but simply because I usually
do not feel like it.
   Some people do consider playing games a waste of time, and even
try to discourage young people from doing so. I see games in a more
positive light. I think that they basically serve the same function
as playing does for children (and young animals for that matter).
Playing is a part of the learning process for coping with the
serious aspects of the later adult life. Furthermore, I see no
reason why adults should not play to be more dexterous, or just for
fun. (Why shouldn't using computers be fun, anyway. It is, after
all, the ultimate toy.)
   Speaking of computer games in particular, I think that a good
game should give knowledge and/or develop some skills. Typevaders
actually is based on the idea of developing typing skills. I came on
the idea in 1986 while having (for me) a rare go at a space invaders
game which my brother-in-law's son (who is very good at it) had
acquired. Playing such a game with a joystick develops skills more
reminescent of flying a fighter airoplane (or a lunar lander) than
what is needed in the most common mode of input to computers, that
is typing. This gave me the idea of defending against the space
invaders by typing. And I mean real typing, not a keyboard simulated
joystick. Now, if the invaders were letters and numbers, rather than
some alien forms, then the obvious thing to do would be typing the
invaders away. This is somewhat similar to what the typists do in
speed typing contests.
   Now I have a fair experience in programming, but I am far from a
really expert programmer. Nevertheless, as you can see from
TSPROG.INF I have written quite a bit (pardon the pun) of programs
some of which have had very nice feedback. Over the years I have
noticed, that the programming is far from the most difficult part,
even if some programs can entail tricky details. The real trick is
in coming up with novel and viable ideas. Perhaps my story of the
typevaders gives some clue how my ideas can come about.
   I would like to sidetrack by saying that although I like writing
programs, and utilize the computer a lot, this has so far remained a
hobby. My main profession is doing research and teaching accounting
and business finance at the university level. Fortunately this is
more or less compatible with using computers as a tool. And my role
as a moderator at the University of Vaasa garbo.uwasa.fi archives
also fits in nicely by bringing international contacts at this
geographically rather remote location, and, frankly, serves making
your university known.
   But let us go back to typevaders for a moment. I originally
programmed it for the ill-fated British Sinclair QL computer, which
was a very nice development with its Motorola 68000 processor and
128K of CPU in 1983. The Sinclair QL was technically clearly ahead
of this time (recall what PCs were like back then), but the
marketing and support were terrible flops. (I shall never get
involved with a British computer again, however revolutionary.)
Anyway, as with so many other programs in TSPROG.INF, I decided to
convert typevaders from the moribund QL to PC environment. When I
started looking at the (SuperBasic) listing of my QL typevaders, I
noticed one (actually several) problem(s). Turbo Pascal (5.0), which
I use in writing my PC programs, has a vertical scroll, but not a
horizontal scroll called PAN in SuperBasic. Panning means
"scrolling" the screen from left to right, rather than the normal
upwards scrolling. As you will notice after playing typevaders a
couple of rounds, the program could have been written with
relatively simple write statements, but I wanted to come up with a
real PAN subroutine for Turbo Pascal, and then write typevaders. To
make a long story short, the solution lies in writing to, and
moving, the video memory directly. I found some very nice ideas in
Stephen K. O'Brien, Turbo Pascal, Advanced Programmer's Guide in the
Borland-Osborne/McGraw-Hill Programming Series. I will still be
looking into my PANning routines to see if I can make them faster
just for the interest, even if this is not necessary for typevaders.
   Now with the new tsgmeb13.arc (now tsgmeb15.arc) and subsequent
releases of this games package, and looking back at the last section
above, I can inform you that I have written the fast Turbo Pascal
panning routines. They are available in my Turbo Pascal 4.0, 5.0,
5.5, and 6.0 units collection, which is /pc/turbopas/tspas24##.arc
(## = 40,50,55,60) at the time of writing this.

Usage: TYPEVADE [/h] [/s]
                  │    └─ suppress selftest
                  └─ help (same as ?)


WITPIN (Ver. 1.2)  Solitaire adaptation of draughts
=================

   Witpin is a simple game of wit where you have to get rid of as
many pins as possible on a triangular board. In a way this is a
solitaire adaptation of the game of draughts. To get rid of a pin,
you move another pin over it. You can only do this if the slot is
vacant behind the pin you want to strike out. At the beginning of
the game all except the central slot on the bottom row are occupied
by pins. The slots are labelled from A to Z and numbers 1 and 8. To
play, you first indicate the pin which you want to move, and then
over which pin you want the move to be made. The best result is if
at the end only one pin remains, and that pin is located in the
circled slot on the bottom row. Incidentally, is this outcome
logically possible? Have fun.
   The idea to witpin came from a game with a small circular plastic
board with slots, and small plastic pegs (pins) which I saw at a
dentist's waiting room.
   As I said already earlier in this information file, I do not
usually play computer games myself, and this goes for witpin as
well. But witpin involved some useful (although rather simple)
programming problems, which I enjoyed. One of them was the window
system. In fact witpin uses eight different graphics windows on the
game screen.
   Some CGA screens or emulated CGA screen have been reported to
suffer from flickering in playing this game.
   BTW, has anyone managed to solve this game, that is have only one
single pin remaining on the board?

Usage: WITPIN [/h] [/s]
                │    └─ suppress selftest
                └─ help (same as ?)


REVEGAME (Ver. 1.2)  Arrange numbers by reversing
===================

REVEGAME is a simple game of speed and deduction. You have to
rearrange the numbers from 1 to 9 in their correct order. You try do
this by repeatedly reversing the numbers up to a position you give
as the input. "Play long and prosper." :-)

Usage: REVEGAME [/h] [/s]
                  │    └─ suppress selftest
                  └─ help (same as ?)