HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Sheeran_F@ndg.ceo.dg.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: time slices
Date: 9 Apr 92 11:38:10 GMT
To: xtank@eng.umd.edu, jacobs@hawk.cs.ukans.edu


The fact is, that every time you get a good setup going, a flock of 
those damn foriegn students waltz in, and, like, start working on 
CLASS work, and, like, compiling stuff and stuff.  And then bang, at 
4am, right in the MIDDLE of a good game, CRON spews out enough 
spurious BATCHwork to gag an ox.
 
It seems that even with 102 MIPS of super-deadly super-error free 
computational power, my AV 5000 (thats NDG AV 5000 to You, buster)
just seems to drag a wee bit at times when the job average mounts.
 
Im not Mr. Robot Xpert ( hell, Ive yet to write even ONE that works 
more than 90% of the time).  But it seems that giving them a 
percentage variable to consult for underflow (You used only 10% of 
alloted time) and an flag for overflow (TOO SLOW BUSTER!) would allow 
adjustment. Perhaps easier than "9/10 finished" notice to implement on
both ends, and adjusting to the pace would only take a few cycles to 
home in on, and this feedback phase would probably be cute, too.  
They'd each have a unique non-functional personality, just like 
drunks.  Honored to remain, your faithful servant, Slices of Frank.
( no phlamz pleez, I was phoren stoodint tu.)
From: nabil@ogicse.ogi.edu (Aaron Nabil)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Tactical support for HARM's in next version.
Date: 6 Apr 92 09:24:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.35931
Distribution: world
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR


I just finished adding tactical support for HARM's.  HARM's now send
telemetry back to the firing vehicle.  The information returned is
the HARM location (laser-gyro derived, 'natch) and the internal
"state" code of the homing mechanism. This info is display as a (very)
small blip on the mapper window, with the state being color coded.  You
can watch your HARM as it hunts an enemy down and see it switch between
the various homing modes.

I don't have any plans for sharing HARM telemetry BETWEEN vehicles, though
I haven't ruled it out entirely.

Lowlib support is possible, but considering the underwhelming amount of 
traffic generated by my announcement of lowlib RDF support, I think
I'll wait until someone says that actually need it before I knock another
few percent off my GPA to code it in.

Aaron
From: nabil@ogicse.ogi.edu (Aaron Nabil)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: Robot CPU (was Tactical support for HARM's in next version.)
Date: 9 Apr 92 08:44:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.36055
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR

Josh writes...
>[...]
>So what's a good time to set the slice_ending flag?  90% through?  95%?
>[...]

Why not ask the robot?

Aaron
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Date:  Wed, 8 Apr 92 13:16:02 edt
From: Sheeran_F@ndg.ceo.dg.com
To: xtank@eng.umd.edu
Subject: Never too many features!


2 cents: Don't let "the monocrome" issue keep you from implementing 
cool features with intuitive graphics.  more than half the computers 
ever made dont even have bitmap grafix, but no-ones making a vt100 
compatible front end (I think of APPLE-TREK with its littl #-sign 
photon toprpedoes quacking around the screen).  A more realistic 
example is the string or not to string question - alot of workstations
cant string, but so be it.  Those that can like robots, while 
those that cant are no worse off.
 
I don't have color, so I wouldnt be able to thrill to the 
scintilations of my HARMS, but the game wont be the worse for it so 
stick it in!
From: potter@silver.lcs.mit.edu (Robert Potter)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: Questions! Repost! Repost!
Date: 17 Apr 92 05:37:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: mintaka.1992Apr17.053715.20349
Distribution: usa
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science

In article <1992Apr13.173332.205@rucs2.sunlab.cs.runet.edu> bcolbert@rucs2.sunlab.cs.runet.edu (Brad Colbert) writes:
>3)  I think I have a bug in my HARM display code.  When I try to fire more 
>    than one launcher at a time they dissapear, and blink widely like ghost
>    images, but they do hit their target.

An ancient drawing-with-XOR problem.  Two identical objects at the same
location are invisible.  Suggested fixes:

	Don't use XOR (too late for this I guess).

	Add "noise" to the launch.  Normal weapons are fired with a small
	random factor added to the launch angle, so they're unlikely to be/stay
	perfectly overlapping.  I think a better (faster) solution is to bias
	the initial bullet position of each of the 6 weapons by one pixel in a
	unique fixed direction.

-Robert
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: wayne@ita.lgc.com (Wayne McCormick)
Subject: missing files
Organization: Landmark/ITA Inverse Theory and Applications
Distribution: rec
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 16:53:29 GMT


I was just looking at the patches in /pub/xtank/contrib on ftp.eng.umd.edu.
The patch billwpatches is looking for a file called bullets.obj.  Where is 
this file?

I have xtank 1.3d on a SPARC.  Sorry if this has all been hashed out before.

--
Wayne McCormick                  | Landmark/ITA, Inverse Theory & Applications
wmccormick@ita.lgc.com           | Calgary, Alberta, Canada  
                                 | Phone:(403) 269-4669
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Date:  Fri, 17 Apr 92 07:53:14 edt
From: Sheeran_F@ndg.ceo.dg.com
To: xtank@eng.umd.edu
Subject: ARMOR QUANDARY


The vdesign.latex says that RamPlates should weigh half as much as 
front armor.
 
The code says:
          d.weight += (d.armor.side[0] / 2) *
               armor_stat[d.armor.type].weight;
 
Maybe this last line should read
 
                armor_stat[d.armor.type].weight * size ;
 
As it is, RamPlates are so comparatively light on big tanks that they 
are pretty much ubiquitous.  The latex file sounds good.  Thus 
RamPlates would cease to be omnipresent, and would reflect their 
intended purpose of being a special, instead of an ordinary.  The bad 
part is that alot of tanks will cease to be legal... 
 
Any comments?  Honored to remain, your dog-earred servant, FWS3
 
All my email is exactly 20 lines long.


Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: senft@eng.umd.edu (Matt T. Senft)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Re: Tactical support for HARM's in next version.
Date: 7 Apr 92 23:51:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: eng.1992Apr07.235128.16064
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park, College of Engineering

In article <35931@ogicse.ogi.edu> nabil@ogicse.ogi.edu (Aaron Nabil) writes:
>
>I just finished adding tactical support for HARM's.  HARM's now send
>telemetry back to the firing vehicle.  The information returned is
>the HARM location (laser-gyro derived, 'natch) and the internal
>"state" code of the homing mechanism. This info is display as a (very)
>small blip on the mapper window, with the state being color coded.  You
>can watch your HARM as it hunts an enemy down and see it switch between
>the various homing modes.
>
>I don't have any plans for sharing HARM telemetry BETWEEN vehicles, though
>I haven't ruled it out entirely.
>
>Lowlib support is possible, but considering the underwhelming amount of 
>traffic generated by my announcement of lowlib RDF support, I think
>I'll wait until someone says that actually need it before I knock another
>few percent off my GPA to code it in.

I'm glad to here there's some left.  Sorry, I didn't respond to your RDF
announcements, I've been very busy and sometimes not around.  Josh, Kurt 
and I have played games with it.  I also made some changes to Tagman.  I 
am interested in seeing additional support for it in lowlib.  But, again
keep in mind the fairness between humans & robots(as well as the 
monochrome issue.)  

Something, I mentioned earlier(before the newsgroup) which got no traffic
was what to do about varying performance for robots on different 
platforms.  I think the concensus at PIX is that its the robots 
responsiblity to alter its algorithms.  What's all your opinions?

    -Matt
 
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: stripes@eng.umd.edu (Joshua Osborne)
Subject: Re: Robot CPU (was Tactical support for HARM's in next version.)
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 92 06:25:52 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, Merriversity of Uniland, College Purgatory

In article <1992Apr07.235128.16064@eng.umd.edu> senft@eng.umd.edu (Matt T. Senft) writes:
[...]
>Something, I mentioned earlier(before the newsgroup) which got no traffic
>was what to do about varying performance for robots on different 
>platforms.  I think the concensus at PIX is that its the robots 
>responsiblity to alter its algorithms.  What's all your opinions?

But it is xtank's responsiblity to inform the robot of impending time
slice end...

(or pre-advise of the CPU speed, but that's more of a pain and I think it's
less useful to the robot...)

So what's a good time to set the slice_ending flag?  90% through?  95%?
-- 
           stripes@eng.umd.edu          "Security for Unix is like
      Josh_Osborne@Real_World,The          Multitasking for MS-DOS"
      "The dyslexic porgramer"                  - Kevin Lockwood
            "NFS only behaves properly..."                  - jik@athena
                "...when the computer is not drawing power." - rbj@uunet
From: igor@charles.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: need help running X on an NCD!  anybody??!??
Date: 13 Apr 92 04:11:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucdavis.12170
Distribution: ca
Organization: Bohemian Inebriation Association
Originator: igor@charles.ucdavis.edu

hello, would anyone know how to let Xwindows know that I'm logging in remotely
from this new terminal-thing in a lab here labeled simply "NCD"?  Do i need
a termcap sort of file to describe it?  Should I xpost this somewhere else?
thanks!!
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: lidl@sura.net (Kurt J. Lidl)
Subject: Re: some gripes about 1.3d
Organization: SURAnet -- 8400 Baltimore Blvd, College Park, MD 20740
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 05:42:11 GMT

In article <1992Apr15.030450.15009@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> potter@silver.lcs.mit.edu (Robert Potter) writes:

Jeez Robert, didn't your mother ever let you go watch Bambi?

>Just tried 1.3d for the first time.  Compiling it went relatively smoothly,
>other than the #$%&^@ include-order "feature" in the Imakefiles (really,
>guys, if so mamy systems are "installed wrong", can't you just put in a
>workaround?!?).

What can I say?  I didn't screw up your system.  You fix it.
However, due to another problem (which was easiest to fix by
re-naming some files), this should be mostly fixed in the next
release.

>Oh, yeah, gnat failed to compile (on SPARC):
>
>/: write failed, file system is full
>compiler(iropt) error:  write_irfile: No space left on device

Yeah, configure your system with more temp space next time.  Again,
your system is broken, you fix it.  Anyone could read the man page
for "cc" and notice the glaring "-temp=/some/big/partition" flag
there...

>Other first-blush gripes:
>
>	Panzy has no visible front.  Annoying.
>
>	Panzy bitmaps need fixing.  Trike bitmaps STILL need fixing (badly).

Feel completely free to send in new bitmaps.

>	HARMS have mine-heads.  And pointless mount restrictions.

Not completely pointless.

>	Show/Pictures is broken.  Layout blown by new additions, and it only
>	animates when you move your mouse.

Yup -- I noticed this the day after we released it.  Haven't tracked it
down yet.

>	Lots of half-baked features.  By that I mean poorly documented,
>	incompletely implemented, and game imbalancing.  I include my own new
>	skidding code in this category (because of the bugs, mea culpa).

Well, oddly enough, Xtank is a beta system.  You want to fix things
fine.  Don't just gripe, do something.  I know that you have contributed
in the past.  Part of the new thing in the next release is a major
re-hash of the documentation, to docuement new features and caveats about
the code.

>	If Xtank doesn't get its favorite fonts, lots of displays break.

Hmmm -- don't know about this one.

>I just wish people would spend a little more time on fixing current bugs and a
>little less time on adding new "whizzo" features (and the bugs that come with
>them).

Flaming won't fix things.  Remember, we don't get paid to do this, and
all the submitted code isn't always perfectly bug-free.  Deal with it.
You get your money's worth.

								-Kurt
-- 
/* Kurt J. Lidl (lidl@sura.net)       | Unix is the answer, but only if you */
/* X.500: Power Tools for Power Fools | phrase the question very carefully. */
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Date:  Tue, 7 Apr 92 10:18:35 EDT
From: mike@hostmike.ksc.nasa.gov (Mike Koller)
To: xtank@eng.umd.edu
Subject: xtank

I have a Sun IPC running Sun OS 4.1.1 using the Open Windows (OW) v2.0 environment.  OW v2.0 doesn't have an imake utility so I was wondering how I could get xtank v1.3d to run in the OW environment??
From: afriedma@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Ariel Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: tagman
Date: 10 Apr 92 04:45:01 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio

Does anyone have a copy of tagman.c that compiles?  Mine gets
a type mis-match error detected for IsApproaching, 
IsClosing, and DeltaLoc.  I'm running on Sun 4.1.1, OpenWindows 2.


-- 
Ariel Friedman              |  "I'd rather laugh with the sinners
afriedma@ringer.cs.utsa.edu |   than cry with the saints."
friedman@lonestar.utsa.edu  |                             - Billy Joel 
cs274301011@utsa86          |
From: scooper@cats.ucsc.edu (Scott Cooper)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Sounds intriguing...
Date: 13 Apr 92 01:53:50 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz


I just picked up this newsgroup by accident, but it sounds awfully
interesting.   What is Xtank exactly and how can I get in on it?

scooper@cats.ucsc.edu
From: sharo@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Devros Himself)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: I have completed porting xtank1.3d to Sequent. Anybody want the changes?
Date: 8 Apr 92 01:55:37 GMT
Followup-To: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network


   I have gotten xtank working on a Sequent machine. Unfortunately, I don't have
the quota to store the source or the binary. As a result, all the work has gone
the way of the /tmp directory. 

   Still, I know all the changes necessary to make it go on a Symmetry. If there
is someplace I should put the necessary changes, or reconstruct the changed code
and FTP it someplace, let me know. BTW, the changes I made would have no effect
on non-Sequent machines. (i.e. I didn't un-portablize the code.) The only thing 
that doesn't work is the thread package--I'm no CS major, so I think you'll have 
to get that help elsewhere.

   So, if anyone's interested, and there is a place I can upload the modified 
code, let me know.
-- 
 ________________________________________________________________
/  Randy Sharo                    CEE, Purdue University         \
|  sharo@en.ecn.purdue.edu        devros@mentor.cc.purdue.edu    |
|  "I get by with a little help from my friends."-- The Beatles  |
From: afriedma@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Ariel Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: MultiSync Problems
Date: 9 Apr 92 00:44:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: ringer.1992Apr9.004422.8712
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio

I got xtank running!  I was happy for a while.  Now I can't get
anyone else on the game.  When I was make'ing, I had to do away
with MultiSync from the Imake file.  Here's what happens:
The other terminal xhosts, I add a player:0, the other person
is asked for a name, the vehicle name.  When the vehicle
name is not found, he is asked if xtank should try again.  After
entering no, his screen freezes and doesn't do anything else.
What's the prob, do I have to have multisync?  If so, why is 
it not compiling?  I'm running a Sun 4.1.1, Open Windows 2.


-- 
Ariel Friedman              |  "I'd rather laugh with the sinners
afriedma@ringer.cs.utsa.edu |   than cry with the saints."
friedman@lonestar.utsa.edu  |                             - Billy Joel 
cs274301011@utsa86          |
From: afriedma@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Ariel Friedman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
Subject: Patch implement
Date: 10 Apr 92 03:15:27 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio

How do I go about implementing a patch?  For that matter,
does anyone have a list of patches and what they do?


-- 
Ariel Friedman              |  "I'd rather laugh with the sinners
afriedma@ringer.cs.utsa.edu |   than cry with the saints."
friedman@lonestar.utsa.edu  |                             - Billy Joel 
cs274301011@utsa86          |
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer
From: wayne@ita.lgc.com (Wayne McCormick)
Subject: Re: missing files
Organization: Landmark/ITA Inverse Theory and Applications
Distribution: rec
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:14:54 GMT


Also, which patches should be applied and in what order?

BTW, xtank is great!  Keep of the excellent work...

--
Wayne McCormick                  | Landmark/ITA, Inverse Theory & Applications
wmccormick@ita.lgc.com           | Calgary, Alberta, Canada  
                                 | Phone:(403) 269-4669
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.programmer,rec.games.xtank.play
From: bwoodall@bilbo.qualcomm.com (Bill Woodall)
Subject: Re: Tactical support for HARM's in next version.
Reply-To: bwoodall@bilbo.qualcomm.com (Bill Woodall)
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 14:21:31 GMT

Matt said . .
[..]
>Something, I mentioned earlier(before the newsgroup) which got no traffic
>was what to do about varying performance for robots on different 
>platforms.  I think the concensus at PIX is that its the robots 
>responsiblity to alter its algorithms.  What's all your opinions?

You mean like have an index that a robot look (via highlib) at to see if
it wants to skip all/parts of cycle/cpu/whatever hungry code?

Sounds great to me!

Maybe make it do the index/benchmark/whatever at start-up.

There is still some code in xtank/Src/Fixed-Point that does some eval,
could something like be used (like speed.c)??

Just looked at speed.c, and one time ( I think I remember, BTN (before the
newsgroup) there was someone asking about platform performance.  Could we
use something like speed.c and how do you eval the different functions (int,
float,...) into the index??

BTW, here is my stats on my Sparc2
cc -O4 -o speed speed.c -lm

Num     Operation       Time (usec)
---     ---------       ----
 1.     int +             0.02
 2.     int >>            0.03
 3.     int *             1.64
 4.     int /             0.58
 5.     float +           0.05
 6.     float *           0.05
 7.     float /           0.46
 8.     double +          0.05
 9.     double *          0.10
10.     double /          0.72
11.     sqrt              1.15
12.     sin               3.65
13.     atan2            13.05
14.     dist              8.35
15.     fsqrt            15.95
16.     fsin              0.42
17.     fatan2            3.17
18.     fdist             0.25
19.     subroutine        0.15
20.     f2float           0.25
21.     float2f           1.35

	-Bill
--
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.play
Subject: Re: MAYDAY --- MAYDAY --- MAYDAY
From: nicaugh@otago.ac.nz
Date: 16 Apr 92 09:13:44 +1300
Organization: University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

> a) How do I use the 3D-Mode???? Is it implemented in the 1.3d version???
Not implemented as far as I know.
> 
> b) If I play ultimate-mode, there should be a disc surrounding one of 
>    the players cars...but nowhere is a visible disc...I know, that there
>    is a disc, because I`m able to steal it from another player..
This isn't a great way to post a patch but here goes.
In Src/Objects/bullets.obj
Add 1 to all_bullets_view (both declarations)
In all_bullets_pic yank the line above
#ifndef NO_NEW_RADAR
and duplicate
In all_bullets_bitmap yank the line above
#ifndef NO_NEW_RADAR
and duplicate.

Sorry I can't give you the patch a bit nicer.

BTW has anyone got threads working on a hp720, I've got it
going on our decstation & sgi boxs. Also on the decstation
I'm missing the declarations (include files) to get XMultiSync
going can I just copy these from another source eg SGI.
(Please no flames about X11 revisions, I mean are the declarations 
generic X11R3, X11R4 declarations).
Thanks for a great game (pity I still can't eat buddy at ultimate ;-))
Nigel
From: marsh@wharton.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.play
Subject: What is XTANK?
Date: 14 Apr 92 11:24:43 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

What is XTANK?


							MARSH@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU
From: michael@sisters.cs.uoregon.edu (Michael Franklin Matsel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.play
Subject: Ultimate in Xtank
Date: 14 Apr 92 09:22:54 GMT
Organization: /local/lib/rn/organization

Um, I've just starting to play xtank, and I can't figure out how to
play Ultimate Frisbee.  It says the disk will start on one of the player,
but I can't see it, and we cannot figure out where/what the disk is.  I'm tried
both color and BW screens, and nothing.....  Can anyone show me the error of
my ways?

MM

-- 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
<>          Michael Matsel                     michael@sisters.uoregon.edu  <>
<>                                   -or-       matsel@cie.uoregon.edu      <>
From: woodside@nneph103.BNR.CA (Kevin Woodside)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.play
Subject: Xtank For HP Series 400?
Date: 10 Apr 92 12:40:04 GMT
Reply-To: woodside@bnr.ca
Organization: Northern Telecom Canada

Has anyone successfully compiled Xtank on the HP400 system?  If so,
I'd like to know where they got the source, so that I might try
compiling it myself.  Also, any hints as to what they had to do to
compile it, etc, would be GREATLY appreciated.
 
Thanks in advance,
 
Kevin

                       _________________________________
       *               | INTERNET : woodside@bnr.ca    |       __
** **  ****  Northern  | MAINFRAME: WOODSIDE at BNRMER |  | / |  \ |    |
******  **   Telecom   |_______________________________|  |/  |__/ |    |
**  **  **   Canada    |"The above opinions are my own,|  |\  |  \ | /\ | 
**  *** ****           |not those of Northern Telecom."|  | \ |__/ |/  \|
**  **   **  (Ottawa)  |_______________________________|
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.play
Subject: need xtank
From: sbgros@skcla.monsanto.com
Date: 16 Apr 92 10:42:05 GMT
Organization: Searle, Skokie, IL
Nntp-Posting-User: fleet

hi,
  i just started to read some of these messages and I am interested in xtank
where can i get a copy of it and for what platforms is it available for?

thanks

scott gross

no sig for me my name says it all
From: nabil@ogicse.ogi.edu (Aaron Nabil)
Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.play
Subject: Re: HARM questions
Date: 10 Apr 92 20:22:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.36122
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR

nweaver@ocf.berkeley.edu (Nicholas Weaver) writes:
>
>	What is the real tracking system on HARMs.  My friend was 
>driving a Pansy (an overgunned one) with a fuel cell with his radar
>off, and my HARMs were still locking in and killing him.  What do they
>track on then?  Is it tank size?  Radar?  Engine Type?
>[...]

The "real" tracking system is radar emission, however the backup tracking
in the version you are probably playing is radar reflectivity, ie, the
HARM uses radar to find likely targets if it can't get a lock on an 
emitter.

The next HARM version will contain, unfortunatly, more changes, as playtesting
has revealed several undesirable "features" that need to be adjusted.  HARM's
intrinsicly need some kind of backup tracking since an emitter can shut 
Radar down and move a few feet over and be entirely missed by a HARM.
HARMs weren't intended to be flown entirely on backup tracking, which as
you pointed out, is entirely possible.  The next version will address this
issues better, sorry for the inconvience.

Aaron

Newsgroups: rec.games.xtank.play