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Text File | 1997-04-29 | 23.2 KB | 462 lines

!Help file for !Lottery (version 2.00 21st Mar 1997) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Shareware ©1994-7 Paul Vigay (30 day evaluation) This manual is also available as a StrongHelp file, called 'Manual'. (Read the 'History' file for details of changes between versions) Conditions of Use: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This application is SHAREWARE and may be copied freely subject to the following conditions being obeyed at all times. a) Copyright and all rights remain the property of Paul Vigay (the author) b) All files are copied in their entirety without alteration. The only exception to this rule is the !Lottery.data.Results file which may be distributed on it's own. This is the file in which the draw results are stored. c) Usage of this application is entirely at the users own risk. No responsibility will be taken for any loss or damage, financial or otherwise which may arise from usage of this application. (ie. if you spend all your money buying tickets and don't win, don't blame me) d) You register yourself by sending me a donation of £10.00. In return you will be eligible to receive free upgrades as and when I produce them. (in exchange for a blank, formatted disc disc and SAE.) e) If you use this program and it wins you stacks of money, any donations (such as RISC PC's/Land Rover Discovery's etc.) should be sent to the author at the address below, where they will be gratefully received. :-) f) This application should NOT be distributed by Shareware or PD libraries without my express written permission. This is so that I know who has the latest version, and I know you are not charging too much for it. Purpose ~~~~~~~ To win loads of money - quite simple really! Although it's probably impossible to predict the outcome of Saturday night's ball juggling, I have won quite a few tenners using this program. This program is under constant development, so make sure you have the latest version. Now, if I could just tweak it to guess all six winning numbers instead of three...... Use ~~~ Simply double-click on the !Lottery application to load the program onto the icon bar. This icon has six options on it's menu; Info,Graph,Analysis,Day, Country and Quit - These will be explained below. To activate the program click SELECT on it's icon to open the 'main' window. This will display a window containing a number of things:- At the top of this (Main) window is a pale yellow status bar. This tells you what the program is currently up to. To the right of this is the date of the current set of results. Below this are the draw results. To the right of the seven results are left and right direction icons. Clicking SELECT on these lets you step backwards and forwards through the results database in order to view previous weeks results. The number between the two icons is the week number of the displayed set of results. Below the results is a graph showing a cumulative plot of all previous results, indicating how many times each number has come up. The numbers on the left of the chart (Y axis) show the minimum and maximum number of times each number has come up. This chart automatically updates itself when you add new results. The average value of the current graph is shown on the top left of the graph. The graph type can be changed by clicking MENU over the graph and moving right from the 'Graph' option. There are currently four graph options:- 1. Break Even This plots a chart of how many wins you would need in order to recoup all the money you would have spent, should you have entered the same number of times each week up to now. 2. Frequency This displays the number of times each ball has come up. This is the default graph type. 3. Last Occurance This plots a graph showing how many weeks have elapsed since each ball came up last. 4. Max weeks gap This option is not implemented in version 1.17 If you click SELECT over the graph itself, a small icon to the top right of the graph will display the ball values whereever the mouse pointer is. To the right of the graph are various graphical icons with which to control the program. These are as follows (from top to bottom):- Multiple Databases ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Versions 1.19 and above incorporate the facility to store multiple databases, so that the results of the midweek (Wednesday) draw can also be stored. The facility is also provided to cater for foreign lotteries, namely the New Zealand one (although you'll need to provide me with precise details of the rules etc if you want me to add more support). The main menu has been ameded to contain a 'Day' and 'Country' option from which you can select the relevant database. Once selected, !Lottery will automatically re-calculate it's graphs and statistics to use the alternative draw results. N.B. Be careful that you have selected the correct draw database BEFORE you add any new results, as they will be added to the currently active database. The database files are stored within the "!Lottery.data.Results" directory. Add new results ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Click SELECT on the top icon to the right of the graph. The date and results icons will be blanked in order for you to enter new results, as revealed on Saturday nights. If you make a mistake or decide you didn't want to add new results after all, pressing ESCAPE will cancel and return to 'Browse' mode. The date doesn't specifically have to be in any format - it's purely for your reference when viewing previous weeks results. N.B. From version 1.19 onwards the next relevant date is automatically calculated for you and entered in the icon box. As you enter new results, the 'voice of the balls' will display immediate statistics on the number entered. Now you too, can immitate the guy on the telly with the good memory! The results are only added to the database when you press return after entering the bonus number. Until then, you can cancel adding by pressing ESCAPE. Versions 1.17 and above will also give you vital statistics on each number as you enter it. N.B. (version 1.09+above) You can enter numbers by clicking on the relevant number in the 'playslip' window (which opens automatically when you add results). You can edit previous weeks results (although it's unwise to, unless you made a mistake) by moving to the result you want and then clicking in the relevant icon. Make the change and keep pressing return until you get to the bonus number. Again, pressing return on the bonus number will save the changed results back in the correct position in the file. N.B. The results are actually stored as a text file within the !Lottery application. They can be loaded into a word processor and printed out if required. However, if you decide to alter them, make sure you keep the same format. The six digit number in the second line of the file is the number of results stored. It should always be six digits long, padded with leading zeros. Likewise, each result below ten should be preceded with a leading zero. Technical note: When you add new numbers !Lottery will automatically calculate a new statistical analysis file. The frequent combinations matches frequent combinations of x or more numbers, where x is 3 by default. As more weeks are added to the database, the number of combinations will grow quite substantially, thus !Lottery will automatically increment x if the number of frequent combinations becomes too large to manage (in excess of around 350). Should you wish to start from scratch or alter this value, you can load the file !Lottery.Resources.vars into !Zap or another decent text editor and change byte 4 in the file - which stores the number of balls to match in the frequent combinations. It is recommended to take a backup first, and allow for the fact that this is not recommended and may make !Lottery crash! Setting the random seed ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Of course, with lotteries being completely random, there's no chance of predicting the numbers with any deal of accuracy (or is there???) Clicking SELECT on the second option down lets you alter the seeding given to the random number algorithm inside !Lottery. For example you could enter someones birthday, or enter a number, or just set the numbers to completely random. If you enter someones birthday, !Lottery will calculate the number of days since today and their birthday and then use that number to set the random seed inside the computer. Enter the date in the following format:- DD MMM YYYY eg. 17 Jan 1995 or 01 Dec 1994 When you press return, the 'number' icon will automatically be set to the number of days between the date you supply and todays date. Alternatively, you can enter a number directly for 'number'. In this case the date will be cleared and the number entered will be used as the seed. - Click on 'Search' to try and find a random seed which will produce the currently viewed draw results as a result of seven consecutive random numbers. This will start at the value contained in 'Number' and keep going until either a) it reaches 2E9 or b) you get fed up and press ESCAPE to stop it. It's extremely unlikely that this will ever find a suitable seed, but I put this feature in 'just for the hell of it'. Other options are getting !Lottery to favour certain ranges of numbers, such as high, low, medium etc. or to bias the prediction in favour of either numbers that have come up frequently before, or numbers that haven't been drawn before. On versions 1.09+, the 'Stats' bias will bias it's numbers towards those favoured in the 'Statistical Analysis' window. On version 2.00 and above you can tell !Lottery to predict numbers within a preset range of the average weekly total for all weeks so far. Simply enter a value in the 'Average total' box and make sure the on/off option is set to 'on'. If on, each set of numbers predicted will total a value which falls within the requested percentage of the average total for each draw result to date. N.B. If when you make a prediction, the computer bleeps, it means !Lottery couldn't find any numbers within your seeding percentage and has increased the percentage automatically by 3 (maximum 99%). This may occur if you set the percentage to a small number and the bias to low or high numbers. !Lottery will make 250 loops using different numbers before it 'gives up' and just uses whatever percentage the 250th set of numbers gave. Making a prediction ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Having fiddled about with setting the seed (above) or not, clicking SELECT on the third icon down will actually make a prediction of six numbers for you. If the numbers win you *mega bucks*, please don't forget who wrote the program for you.... Versions 1.17 will also give a witty 'Mystic Madge' prediction each time you predict a set of numbers. From version 1.04 onwards, each time you run the program, each set of guesses is stored automatically as a text file (!Lottery.data.guesses) inside the !Lottery application. This guesses file not only stores each set of six numbers, but also the various weighting factors and seeding values that may have been selected. If you click in one of the predicted number icons, you can add you own predictions which will also be added to this file when you press ENTER on either number 6 or the bonus number (leave blank if entering a prediction). This file can be handy to print out and use as a handy reference to check off your numbers as they are drawn. (However, versions v1.08+ allow you to import this file back into !Lottery in order to automatically check for any wins - simply drag the file into the main lottery window. From version 1.11 onwards you can also click ADJUST on the 'predict' icon, to open a 'Block guess' window. This feature allows you to calculate a set of guesses (ideal for syndicates), which are subsequently checked against all previous draw results to find the set of numbers that would give the maximum number of wins to date. My thinking for adding this went something like this; If you have a set of numbers that would have given, say 20 wins so far, surely they may stand a better chance of winning again than a set which hadn't given any wins so far. To operate, enter a number (default 5) of lines you wish to predict and press RETURN. The computer will then constantly calculate a random selection of guesses (until you press ESCAPE) and automatically store the selection which gives the most wins so far. The number of loops is the number of sets of numbers used so far. Only click SELECT on 'Accept' if you wish to enter the best selection found so far into the 'Guesses' file (explained earlier). From version 1.12 onwards, the block guess also includes a graph displaying how many wins you would need in order to 'break even' ie. win back your bets. Click SELECT over the graph to give specific values (only when not actually calculating the block guess). Statistical Analysis: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Clicking on the fourth icon (to the right of the graph) will display various statistics relating to previous results. This is where you may start to notice any trends developing after a few months worth of results. Clicking MENU in this window will produce a menu displaying the following options:- Week by week: Displays a week by week analysis of results so far. - Useful for spotting trends or repeated sequences. N.B. Clicking anywhere in the table will display the relevant date. Pattern: As above, but scaled down to look more like a pattern. Clicking inside the window will display the relevant date and value. Frequency: Displays the 'Frequency analysis' window, containing each number, sorted in frequency order. Statistics: Displays a window containing various statistics such as frequent sets of numbers, distribution of numbers and various proportions of numbers. (If there are more than 4 sets of duplicated numbers, you can click on the '⇩⇩⇩' and '⇧⇧⇧' icons in order to go down and up the list) A textual file containing all of the 'Statistics' values is automatically created each time you load !Lottery. This is called 'Stats' and is saved inside the !Lottery.data directory. Printing your playslips (v1.09 onwards) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The bottom (printer) icon allows you to print out the actual playslips via the standard RISC OS printer driver application. Simply click SELECT on this icon and follow the on screen instructions. 'Abort' will stop the entire print run at any point. Closing the window also has this effect. 'Skip' will jump to the next playslip, missing out the current one. 'OK' will print the next playslip. Version 1.19 and above include the ability to set the number of weeks and which draw is entered on the actual playslip. Just click on the relevant icons at the bottom of this window. The printer margins can be adjusted by clicking 'Adjust' on the print icon. You can enter two values for the top and left margin indents, to align the playslips within your particular printer. All values should be in millimeters. This facility is mainly to enable you to compensate for the distance between the margins in the RISC OS printer drivers and the actual edge of the paper. N.B. Versions 1.17 and above allow you to print on the new 7 line playslips. You can toggle between 5 and 7 line playslips by clicking SELECT on the playslip in the 'printer margin' window. The actual sizes are now editable, if you know what you're doing, by editing the !Lottery.Resources.Messages file. Later versions will allow this to be set from within the program. Printer Dimensions of Playslip (v2.00 onwards) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Version 2.00 and above incorporate the ability to edit the actual dimensions of the playslip. However, you shouldn't really attempt this because every time a new version of playslip comes out I edit the program and set it up for you. The ability is there simply for advanced users to alter the dimensions of the marks on the playslip, to compensate for minor differences in printer output. Looking at the playslip with the black and white alignment marks at the top, you should view it as below. The "Playslip size name" can be any string of text you like, used to describe the playslip definition you are using. Up to five can be defined by opening the menu (click on icon to right of title box) and selecting one. The "Units" simply indicate whether the measurements are in millimetres or inches. The "No.of lines" is the number of ACTUAL entry boards on the playslip. This should be set to 7 for the latest 'combined draw' playslips. The "Vertical gap between top of page and playslip" is an offset from the RISC OS printer drivers to compensate for various printer margins. This was previously the Y Margin in previous versions. The "Horizontal gap" is as above but previously the X margin. The horizontal width and vertical height of playslip refer to the 'actual' physical size of the playslip. The "Right-hand distance to numbers" is the distance from the EDGE of the PAPER to the rightmost edge of the NUMBER square (ie. the edge of '5' in 'board G'. The "Distance between board sections" is the distance between the left edge of the box for number 1 in one board entry to the left edge of the box for number 1 in the next board entry. The "Top distance to numbers" is the distance from the top (ie the side with the black and white alignment marks on it) to the edge of the ACTUAL number boxes inside each board entry. (ie. from edge of paper to top edge of number 1 box in each board) The "Horizontal distance between number boxes" is the distance from the edge of one number box to the same edge on the neighbouring number box in the same board entry. The "Vertical distance between number boxes" is the distance from the edge of one number box to the same edge on the number box BELOW in the same board entry. The "Colour" of the 'Black mark' is the colour of the mark to be printed on the paper. This should always be black. The "Width" and "Height" of the 'Black mark' are the actual width and height respectively of the physical 'mark' printed for each number. This value is in pixels and should not really be changed from the default. "It could be you" end "The National Lottery" end __________ __________ __________ __________ __________ __________ __________ Which |£1 Board A| |£1 Board B| |£1 Board C| |£1 Board D| |£1 Board E| |£1 Board F| |£1 Board G| Draw |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| [] |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| [] |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| [] |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| No.of |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| Weeks |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| [] [] |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| [] [] |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| _ [] [] |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| | Vert dist [] |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| |[][][][][]| between |Lucky [] | |Lucky [] | |Lucky [] | |Lucky [] | |Lucky [] | |Lucky [] | |Lucky [] | numbers ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- |--------------| |------------| |-| Distance from Distance btwn Horiz distance edge of numbers entry sections between number to edge of (edge of one boxes ticket to edge of (edge of one to next) edge of next) Checking your predictions (v1.08 onwards) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By dragging a previous 'Guesses' file into any !Lottery window (or the iconbar), you can check the entries against the results displayed in the main browser window. If you have any winning combinations, the winning entries will be displayed. If 4 or more numbers are matched *** will be displayed in red next to the display. Version 1.19 and above will also scan previous weeks to see how many wins you might have had, had you entered your guesses in previous draws. Future Enhancements/Bugs ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As far as I have tested it, there are no bugs present. If, however you find what you think is a bug, please contact me, giving details of what you were doing immediately prior to discovering the bug. At present there is no facility to directly delete previous results. However, results may be deleted by loading the 'results' file (within !Lottery) into !Edit or !Zap and manually deleting the relevant line. Don't forget to update the results counter in the second line of the results file, making sure that it remains six digits long. You shouldn't need to delete any results though. As the lottery progresses, I hope to add more analytical functions in order to spot any mathematical correlations between the sets of results. Watch out for updates. Before you write to me suggesting extra ideas and features to add to !Lottery, I would like to point out that I already have a number of ideas to add to future versions. These are (and not in any particular order):- * Add instruction/help/payout details text windows. * Make the block-guess function multi-tasking. (not sure about this one, due to speed) * Export graphs as Sprite/Draw files. * Add 'Syndicate' management calculator/database. (not sure how to implement this one!) If someone has the details, it would also be interesting to see how the results correlate against the different lottery machines/sets of balls. My BBS (details below) also has a dedicated National Lottery area where people can discuss various aspects of the National Lottery. When logged on, just type *LOTTERY# Of course there are probably many other options/enhancements I could make, so if you think of something you think I could add, please contact me. Contacting the author ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ !Lottery was written by Paul Vigay, who can be contacted at: 104 Manners Road, Southsea, Hants., PO4 0BG England Latest versions and help are available 24hrs a day, 7 days a week from my BBS: Dial (01705) 871531 (ANSI,8N1) and mail the sysop if in trouble. Also, check out my web page at: http://rainbow.medberry.com/enigma/shareware.html or via Email: pvigay@cix.compulink.co.uk or Arcade/World of Cryton BBS Good luck and please enjoy :-)