HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: geoffs@eecs270x.engin.umich.edu (Geoffrey M Silverton)
Subject: Re: what do you want to know?
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 16:46:47 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor
Originator: geoffs@eecs270x.engin.umich.edu



>>
>>1. is there really a low resolution mode in CGA ?
>>   160 x 200 x 16 color GPHIC mode (not tweaked text mode..)
>>
>	It goes lower than that. Check out the nifty tunnler game.
>

Hi --

If you are referring to the two player tank battle game, Tunneler, 
with two scrolling views of the same world,  I wrote that game
(many years ago).  It uses the low-res 160x100x16 mode (yes, it really
is a tweaked text mode, so it wastes every other byte).  It does work
in CGA, EGA, and VGA.  I can dredge up the relavent old code and 
email it to whoever is interested.  I wrote it over 5 years ago in
Turbo Pascal 3 and assembler.  

Glad you liked the game!  

Geoff
_______________________________________________________________________
Geoffrey Silverton:  geoffs@engin.umich.edu
From: sill@zoe.as.utexas.edu (Daniel Sill)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: So... what are you all doing?
Date: 29 Sep 92 23:16:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: ut-emx.80763
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

hello to all...

this is my fisrt post here...if anyone would like, i have a game out on the net in a few
places...(just archie (-s) around for "GRAVITN1.ZIP")... the game is called GRAVITON v1.00
it is a clone of the old vector graphics game 'GRAVITAR'...it has a small video bug on some
super vgas...i have a newer version (1.01) that fixes the video bug for those who want it
(send me some mail and i will uuencode it and sent it to you via email)...

i would appreciate any comments...

daniel sill - the university of texas @ austin
sill@zoe.as.utexas.edu

-- 
Daniel Sill  - sill@zoe.as.utexas.edu
  The Department of Astronomy - the University of Texas at Austin
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: richid@owlnet.rice.edu (Richard Parvin Jernigan)
Subject: Warning: non- game-related post
Summary: Metalbase beta
Organization: Rice University
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 07:38:54 GMT

Sorry for posting this to a game-related board, but this is one of the better
places to find programmers.

I'm looking for beta sites for MetalBase 5.0, the latest round of a donateware
database engine.  It's a tiny, portable thing... I'm interested in Mac,
HP, DOS, Xenix, SysV, and particularly Sun 3 & 4 systems... if you've got
a little time to spare, reply to this and I'll ship you a beta release.

Thanks. :)

Richid
-- 
Things you don't hear on Star Trek:                  (richid@owlnet.rice.edu)
   "Uhura, I'm scared."
   "Shut her down, Scotty--she's suckin' mud."
   "Dammit Spock, that's the fifteenth NutterButter you've eaten today!"
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: jgostlin@malloco.ing.puc.cl (Javier Gostling)
Subject: Re: HELP!!
Organization: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 21:49:24 GMT

Virendra K. Saxena (saxena@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu) wrote:
: 
: 	HELP! I wrote a text file on my PC at home that I want to post here.
: 	When I upload it to my unix account here, it turns tabs and carriage
: 	returns into a bunch of gibberish(control sequences to be exact).
: 	Is there anyway to fix this problem? I'm using Procomm Plus 2.0.

Try to FTP it from a PC to your UNIX system. It should get a good file. If
things still go wrong, write the file using no tabs or non-standard characters.
If you still can't upload it, rewrite your file in the UNIX.   ;-)
: 
: 		deepak

-Javier (no nice .sig   yet)
From: aaron@clark.edu (Aaron Auseth)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Xmode mouse?
Date: 2 Oct 92 06:58:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: clark.1992Oct2.065853.24466
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver, Wa.  USA

I've seen this subject several times, but until now I didn't care.

I found XMOUSE11.ZIP, but for some reason I'm unable to get it to work with
Turbo C++ 3.0    I've even tried the non C++ compiler option.  The demo looks
great, but after I link in the OBJ's and try to initialize the mouse my 
machine locks up.


Am I missing something.  Are there any other Xmode Mouse wonders out there?
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel)
Subject: Re: Mouse in ModeX
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 01:57:08 GMT

pez@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Gomer Wilson) writes:

>We all know that the BIOS mouse routines don't function properly in
>ModeX.  Has anyone successfully written mouse routines that work with 
>Modex?  If so, could you post them here, or to an ~rFTP site, or
>somesuch?  Great thanks.  

    Check out on wuarchive.wustl.edu, in the dos/mouse directory.
    There's a file there called xmouse??.zip or something like that.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 "Never believe anything a female says, unless it rips your heart out."
 -A brilliant discovery by me on Sept 27, 1992
  John A. Slagel, email: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: amitp@owlnet.rice.edu (Amit Jayant Patel)
Subject: Re: Discussion starter
Keywords: discussion started
Reply-To: amitp@owlnet.rice.edu
Organization: Rice University
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 19:10:31 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.171920.14307@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, vputz@nyx.cs.du.edu (Victor Putz) writes:
|> 
|> 
|> 
|> ..I tend to agree.
|> 
|> Nowadays, there is simply a tendency for more flash, less thought; Ultima
|> 7, which sold 50,000 copies day 1 of sales, is FUNDAMENTALLY no different
|> than it was several years ago.  It just looks better and the player
|> interface is all nice and pretty.  
|> The Sierra adventures rea no different;
|> I will no longer play any of them, since every puzzle seems to be of the
|> "put tab a into slot b" variety.

I agree about the Sierra adventures, but not about Ultima -- U6 and U7 are
object-oriented, and there's a lot more you can do in them.  Richard Garriot
told me a story about the beta testing of U6:  he had designed some place
that you couldn't pass unless you brought down a drawbridge, but the 
crank was on the other side of the chasm.  He had intended the players to 
use telekinesis to activate the lever; one of the testers killed a character,
threw the body over the chasm to the other side, and then cast Reincarnation
and took control of the character and turned the crank!

In the older Ultimas, the only way to solve a puzzle was a way that was 
thought of by the designers of the game.  (The same with every Sierra
game I've seen... :(  )  With the new Ultimas, there is sometimes more
than one way of doing something, which is more realistic.


		Amit

-- 
/\\ Amit J Patel, amitp@owlnet.rice.edu
\\/ I think I'm at Rice University
From: seanmcd@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: PowerPC: the ultimate games machine??
Date: 30 Sep 92 18:12:56 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

This might seem like a weird question, but is anyone thinking of writing games
for the PowerPC?
If the hype is right, this is going to be one fast machine, with 1992/3 level
technology for graphics and sound.
How about making a game card for this machine, with a wicked sound synthesizer 
w. multichannel sound plus graphics acceleration providing sprites, zoom,
rotation, etc.? I'm not going to do it, but does anyone see this as an
opportunity?
Or is the market too small or just too fuzzy right now?
BTW, this system is supposed to be able to seamlessly run window/os2/mac/aux 
under one interface. I'll believe it when I see it but it promises a lot!

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: Jari.Karjala@hut.fi
Subject: Re: So... what are you all doing?
Reply-To: Jari.Karjala@hut.fi
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: 26 Sep 92 13:32:20

In article <1992Sep24.141006.7621@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> vputz@nyx.cs.du.edu (Victor Putz) writes:
> Okay, project inventory time.  We've got a bunch of good programmers
> here... I'm interested in what y'all are working on both major projects
> (games) or minor ones(xmode libraries etc).  What's on y'all's burners?

	Well, I should not talk about ongoing projects, since they
	might not get finished, but...

	I have been writing StarMines II. It will be an arcade style
	game with similar controls as the original StarMines available
	as a demonstration of the Sprite Toolkit. SM II will have
	larger than screen playground (1024x1024 pixels) with tiled
	background. The basics, like sprite storage, animation,
	scrolling, video syncing, keyboard handling and collision
	detect are about ready. Missiles, explosions, alien
	intelligence, map creation etc. remains to be done.

	It will probably be released as Freeware, perhaps even with
	source (C/ASM). Timeframe unknown, this is only a hobby
	project. If someone is interested in helping, contact me
	through e-mail.

	(Harware target: 12MHz 286 or better with fast VGA. Current
	plans no include sound, I am not an expert on that subject)



--
/*-- Jari.Karjala@hut.fi -- The World is Just a Huge Fractal --*/
float o=0.075,h=1.5,T,r,O,l,I;int _,L=80,s=3200;main(){for(;s%L||
(h-=o,T= -2),s;4 -(r=O*O)<(l=I*I)|++ _==L&&write(1,(--s%L?_<L?--_
%6:6:7)+"World! \n",1)&&(O=I=l=_=r=0,T+=o /2))O=I*2*O+h,I=l+T-r;}
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: kennehra@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Rich"TheMan"Kennehan)
Subject: Re: real sprites
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 23:56:25 GMT



Hi!  Thanks for your reply!!!  I have a few questions for you:

1)  What courses did you take in order to be able to have the technical
    knowledge to build a VGA card?  I would LOVE to be able to do that!
   
2)  Can you recommend some good books on video cards that contain
    skematics diagrams?  

3)  What kind of equipment do you need to test and debug the circuits
    involved in the video cards?  

4)  How much does do the parts cost in general? where do I special 
    order chips?

I've been doing alot of thinking about the "sprite engine"  Here are
the features that I'd put in if I could build one:

1)  I'd make it comaptible with all IBMs (except the IBM pc jr.) from
    the lowly 8086 to the 80486...basically, if you have a card slot 
    and its an ibm, it'll run.  

2)  I'd have some on-board memory for defining the sprites.  Would a
    megabyte of ram do it?  

3)  I'd have some scaling and rotation features for the sprites (this 
    can come later...and is just wishful thinking :)  

4)  It should be able to output to a regular VGA monitor 

5)  Definitely an atari 2600 joystick port!!  (for those arcade style
    gamers!)  

That's all I can think of right now...I'll post the source code to my
pascal program once I go back to my room and get my disk.  See ya!

- Rich
  kennehra@logic.camp.clarkson.edu
From: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Mode X
Date: 1 Oct 92 02:02:44 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

uhs@jab.tucson.az.us (Rob Macomber) writes:

>I've gathered that mode X is an undocumented VGA screen mode, so I have two 
>questions:
>        (1) How do I get my monitor into this mode, using either 80286 
>                Assembler or Turbo Pascal 6?
>        (2) What are the advantages over mode 13h?

   Well, Rob, it was an undocumented mode. Now, there are all kinds of
   libraries out there.  I'll post the code for one called XLIB02.COM
   in the next followup.  You can also get code and text in Doctor Dobb's
   Journal Magazine from last year.  This mode has the advantage that it
   supports different resolutions and multiple pages and 4-pixel transfers
   from display to display memory.  You can also get the TWEAK09.ZIP file
   from WUARCHIVE that has Borland .BGI support for this mode. I haven't
   seen any code using turbo pascal yet, though. All C. Anyway, good luck!

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 "Never believe anything a female says, unless it rips your heart out."
 -A brilliant discovery by me on Sept 27, 1992
  John A. Slagel, email: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
From: sspst8+@pitt.edu (Sanjay S Patel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: what do you want to k
Date: 30 Sep 92 07:30:53 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <gate.3aNoRB1w165w@toz.buffalo.ny.us> cyberman@toz.buffalo.ny.us (Cyberman) writes:
>
>   Ambat Sasi S/o Palissery was espousing about 'Re: what do you want to k',
>   on [09-23-92  13:47] to All!
> ASSP> 1. is there really a low resolution mode in CGA ?
> ASSP> 160 x 200 x 16 color GPHIC mode (not tweaked text mode..)
>
>    So I've heard but I've never been able to find info on it
>    either.
>
	the 160 x 200 x 16 color mode was used in all the early Sierra
games. It is equivalent to the PC-Jr mode.  If you go to a library and look up real old back issues of Byte or PC-Tech Journal (I cant remember which one it was, probably Byte), there's an article on how to setup and program that mode of CGA.


Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: haasec@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Chris "Beta" Haase)
Subject: Re: Graphics in C 
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 20:34:09 GMT

mnewnam@eos.ncsu.edu (MARK  NEWNAM) writes:


>I jsut have a quick question.  I'm used to doing graphics in Pascal so I have
>a question about C.  In pascal if I want to write pixels straight to the 
>screen, I can just define the variable at $A000.  How can I do this in 
>Borland C++ or Turbo C?
>-- 
>**************************************************************
>**************************************************************
>* Mark Newnam                        * N    N CCCC SSSS U  U *         
>* InterNet: mnewnam@eos.ncsu.edu     * NN   N C    S    U  U *   
>* FidoNet : Coming soon              * N N  N C    SSSS U  U *     
>************************************** N  N N C       S U  U *   
>* "Programmers get overlayed"        * N   NN C       S U  U *  
>* "Protect your right to arm bears!" * N    N CCCC SSSS UUUU *       
>**************************************************************
>**************************************************************

   Use the memcpy, memmove, etc commands using the destination as A000, 
assuming you are using EGA. That should do it, or just use putpixel(X,Y,color)
which will have the same effect... Check your reference guide for the exact
definitions on mem commands... I haven't used them in a while.
Chris Haase
.
From: baylor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Baylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: So... what are you all doing?
Date: 26 Sep 92 20:04:21 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

>
>   Project inventory?  Right now my main project is Ultima Underworld II
>(writing & dungeon design).  On the back burner I've got a tile based puzzle

	Beats me. I never got the hang of bitmapping to polygons...

>game with a superhero them in 640*480*16 mode (which I believe I have the
>fastest sprite engine around for), an erotic story collection with


	And concievably the only one (love to see it or a demo)

>soundblaster music & nice illustrations, and I'm working with another fellow
>on a graphics terminal program with built in multiplayer games that'll work
>through any chat system.  The ultimate dialup system comes next year.  :)

	Well, i have/had a parser project on a very back burner and an
ultima-type (tile game) that's in need of serious revamping and some
monster routines on a back burner.
	Current projects are a book on writing games (supposed to be done
in december for final editing, but i really wouldn't count on it) and
a series of COBOL projects that are hardly games - COBOL isn't a language
you use for fun.
	Oh yeah, and i'm offering support for any true novices and putting
together lots of demo code - so far a sample parser, a vga sprite editor, 
keyboard demos (actually done by Josh at Utah state) and sooner or later
an example of scrolling in mode D 320x200x16 with a following explanation
of how Keen and similar games are done. Oh, and a pac man clone.
	But those aren't going to be games, or probably better, be very
small games, just enough to illustrate how other people do these things.
Teaching tools really.

						 - baylor
From: amitp@owlnet.rice.edu (Amit J Patel)
Subject: Re: Discussion starter
Keywords: discussion started
Reply-To: amitp@owlnet.rice.edu
Organization: Rice University
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 15:28:52 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.140559.26283@ringer.cs.utsa.edu>, sorourke@lonestar.utsa.edu (Sean J. Orourke) writes:
|> >	Actually, I thought that in early Ultimas, the only way to
|> >solve puzzles was to kill lots of monsters and get cool magic
|> >weapons so you could bash bigger monsters.  (*BIG* frown)  As the
|> >Ultima series increased in size, the story line became more and more
|> >important to the game, the player could interact with people in
|> >cities (thumbs up!), people would go to sleep at night, etc.  Some
|> >people might not be impressed by this, but I certainly was at the
|> >time...
|> 
|> I am/was impressed by this too, except when I'm waiting for someone to come
|> home or to wake up. :)
|> 

If you cast awaken, or if you make lots of noise, they'll wake up and
(acting sleepy) start yelling at you for waking them up, or act somewhat
annoyed at the least.  Sometimes they'll tell you to get out of the room
so that they can sleep...  :)

I love playing Ultima 7 not to "win" but to interact with the hundreds
(thousands?) of people, selling & buying food, talking, stealing a
cow, etc.  :) You can get a job at various places; if you talk to some
farmer, he will hire you to pick pumpkins for him; if you talk to some
baker, he'll teach you _how_ to make bread, and then he'll offer you a
job as an assistant baker.  You can use the wells & buckets to get
water, mix it with flour, put the dough in a bowl, put the bowl in an
oven, turn on the oven, and a few minutes later, you have bread!  In
U6 I think, you could milk cows, get milk, put it in a churner and get
butter...

In RPGs, you just fight monsters & try to accomplish some goal; in Ultima,
you can do whatever you want!  ("Top Adventurer retires and becomes a 
farmer!")

	:)


	Amit

-- 
/\\ Amit J Patel, amitp@owlnet.rice.edu
\\/ I think I'm at Rice University
From: Eric.Kjellman@f99.n121.z1.FidoNet.Org (Eric Kjellman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: So... what are you all doing?
Date: 29 Sep 92 01:43:20 GMT

Hmmmmmm well, right now I'm working on an RPG named Stormer... main problem being lack of a decent system to program it on (IBM PC/XT w/ CGA monitor aslfkja;ldkjfa;l)

hey, as long as I'm writing this... I'm using QB ver. 4.5 and I've got a monitor that is CGA, but for some reason, runs 16-color tandy graphics, but nothing recognizes it, so if I want to game a game with it, I have to override it somehow. Now, QB doesn't recognize it, and QB doesn't believe in overrides. Anyone know of a way I could program with it? It'd be alot better than the CGA palettes. :)

see ya


 * Origin: NineJackNine (1:121/99)
From: checker@acf5.NYU.EDU (checker)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: UNREAL, canned or not? (was: Re: what do you want to know?)
Date: 1 Oct 92 01:37:25 GMT
Organization: New York University

morley@camins.camosun.bc.ca writes:
>No need to get your shirt wet, UNREAL isn't as impressive as it first seems...
>The majority of their stuff seems to have been generated via Autodesk's
>3D Studio 2.0  I have 3D Studio 1.0 and 2.0 and I recognise all the textures
>and fonts, etc.

Certainly the title screens (texture mapped fonts) are pre-generated,
but I would doubt the rest of it was.  If they were going to make it
canned animation they could have made it look much nicer than they did. 
The effects presented are only impressive if they were generated in real
time, and they looked just `dirty' enough to convince me that they were.
None of the segments seemed out of reach given some nice assembly
programming; in fact, most of them used obvious gimicks to get the `ooh
wow' response.  I'm not trying to downplay the demo, as it was quite
impressive, I'm just trying to point out that it was just that,
impressive, not unimaginable.

I haven't looked very closely, but the texture mapped face was the most
impressive of the lot; it seemed to be truly general texture mapping.

Chris
From: psmith@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au (Paul Jeffrey Smith)
Subject: Re: what do you want to know?
Organization: University of Tasmania at Launceston
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 01:42:12 GMT

Hi,


	A few friends an I have been drooling over the latest release of the Unreal demo that Future Crew, as well as their release of the Fishtro Demo.  And quite frankly, these guys are impressive.

If any of you have seen Fishtro, I have worked out how to do the exploding letters bit quite well, although not quite as well as theirs.

What I would like to know is how the hell the can do the World Vector part of the demo.  Its the rotation see, that gets me.  Sure, sure there are algorithms evvery where that can rotate.  No problem there

But how do you do it FAST!

I can do it using look up sin and cos tables, but even then its not THAT quick.

I don't have algorithms for rotating the viewers point, only other objects.

Here are a few questions.

1.) Does one rotate all points or is there a spify alogrithm that can do them all real quick based on one rotation.

2.)How does one incorporate the rotation of the viewers view point in the calcultion.

3.) How do they (or any one else) determine the shading for the different polyogns based on a light source.

and last, and most importantly

4.) How the hell is it done so quickly!

If you haven't seen Unreal, and you have the means (a 486 is REAL handy, as well as a Sound Blaster Pro, music's great), then I suggest you get it, and have a gander.

Thanks in advance.

And sorry if I'm posting it in the wron ara.

regards
Paul Smith
psmith@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au
From: tinsel@uiuc.edu (Thomas Aaron Insel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: PowerPC: the ultimate games machine??
Date: 30 Sep 92 23:20:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.BvEzHJ.54L
Reply-To: tinsel@uiuc.edu
Organization: Masticating Illini
Originator: tai50080@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu

seanmcd@ac.dal.ca writes:

> This might seem like a weird question, but is anyone thinking of writing games
> for the PowerPC?
> If the hype is right, this is going to be one fast machine, with 1992/3 level
> technology for graphics and sound.
> How about making a game card for this machine, with a wicked sound synthesizer 
> w. multichannel sound plus graphics acceleration providing sprites, zoom,
> rotation, etc.? I'm not going to do it, but does anyone see this as an
> opportunity?

If it's anything like a mac, it will have multichannel sound built in.  If
it's as powerful as I've seen claimed, a graphics accelerator wouldn't
make much point for games.  The only thing we need is an ADB joystick...
-- 
Thomas Insel (tinsel@uiuc.edu)
  "Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt." 
					-- Clarence Darrow
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: ctaylor@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au (Christopher John Taylor)
Subject: Where to get X mode library Hobbes ?
Organization: University of Tasmania at Launceston
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 04:09:37 GMT

As the title says where do I get this from.

A message was posted to say that it was uploaded to nic.funet.fi
but I could not find it as an anonymous user.

It is called hobbes3.zip apparently.

C TayloR