HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jr4e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeon Bahbac Rezvani)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: pallette in modex...
Date: 13 Apr 92 19:21:36 GMT
Organization: Junior, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Does anyone know how to change the palette in ModeX?

I have tried int 10h, but that didn't work for me..  I also tried direct,
but that didn't work for me...  Basically I want:

SetPalette(0-255, 0-63, 0-63, 0-63)

where 0-255 is the color register, and the 0-63 are red, green, blue
(respectively)...  I did something like..  Set up 03c8 for palette..  Then
use 03c9 (data reg) for the colors..  What I kept getting was that only the
green palette would change (at least it changed the right palette register)..
But, red or blue did squat...  Do I have to change some other registers in
order to do this or what? Anyone know?  Thanks..
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: GNU C++
From: rlee@bgsu.edu (Bob Lee)
Date: 14 Apr 92 14:47:57 GMT
Organization: Bowling Green State Univ.

With all this talk about C/C++ and the fact that it does seem to be the
language of choice among all you hard-core programmers out there, I was
wondering if any of you use the GNU C++ compiler package. I ftp'ed a discussion
on all the software GNU has for MS-DOS and there C++ compiler looked very
good. 

I just wondered if it's worth the time and effort to ftp it and install it
on my system, or just stick with Turbo C.

-BOB

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: cs911477@ariel.yorku.ca (JAMES E BENNETT)
Subject: Re: best graphics lib... and a other things
Originator: cs911477@t08.ariel.yorku.ca
Organization: York University, Toronto, Canada
Distribution: york
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 16:23:22 GMT


In article <1992Apr3.092216.14918@zooid.guild.org>, ross@zooid.guild.org (Ross Ridge) writes:
>> 
>> SORROW%oak.decnet@pine.circa.ufl.edu writes:
>> >Pertaining to REP STOSD, on my video card ( Diamond SpeedStart/+ w/1MB
>> >and Tseng Et4000ax ), I get roughly a 20% speed increase over 
>> >REP STOSW.  Althought I shouldn't in theory, in practice it works
>> >beautifully.
>> 
>> ross@zooid.guild.org (Ross Ridge) writes:
>> >I'll have to give it a try myself.  I was suprised to get a 100%
>> >speed increase using REP STOSW over REP STOSB.  Everything I had
>> >read up to that point said I shouldn't.
>> 
>> dme21270@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (David M. Erazmus) writes:
>> >If you're using a 16-bit video card on an AT bus then you SHOULD get a 100%
>> >speed increase due to the fact that you're moving twice as much memory in
>> >parallel as with the 8-bit instruction.
>> 
>> The problem is that not all 16-bit VGA cards are created equal, up until
>> about a year ago no VGA card supported 16-bit writes to graphics memory.
>> Well at least that's what an article in DJJ said.  

Well, all VGA cards support 16-bit CPU read/writes.  The video card just separates the access into 2 8-bit accesses.  What you can't do is do video to video moves because of the way 16-bit moves are brocken into 2 operations.  Any word access that requires a read(modify)write works rather weird.  Typically the high-byte (the one loaded last) is written to both the low- and high-byte of the destination word.  

If your just reading or writing to the video buffer (but not both in the same instruction) the 16-bit access should work properly for EGA and VGA cards.
 
   cs911477@ariel.yorku.ca
   James Bennett
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer,rec.games.design
From: anicolao@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Alex Nicolaou)
Subject: Re: Multi-player computer assisted games
Organization: Computer Graphics Laboratory, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 17:53:17 GMT

ghost@ra.nrl.navy.mil (G. Host) writes:
>For some time now I have had a design for a multi-player game
>for which the game master would sit on the master console
>and each of the players would sit on their own terminal.

 * Have you heard of MUDS? MUDs are a multi-player network variety of game.
Try reading rec.games.mud. Try telnet bigboy.cis.temple.edu 4000 (my favorite).
Then, you say, "But I'm not looking for a network game". You probably want
to write something for a grotty architechture like DOS ;-)
 So, step 2: ftp xerox.parc.com and get MOO from pub/MOO. Moo has the network
layer isolated, and is an example of a good programmable system with no 
memory leaks (unless you add them, as I have a number of times). You may 
also be interested in LPMud, and I think there is a version for the 386.

Good luck.

alex
From: janm@Prag.docs.uu.se (Jan Mattsson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: play by internet?
Date: 13 Apr 92 18:23:38 GMT
Reply-To: janm@student.docs.uu.se
Organization: UDAC, Uppsala, Sweden
Organisation: CS Dept., Uppsala University, Sweden

chetl@donald.tamu.edu (Chet Laughlin) writes:

>In article <9APR92.16231988@enh.nist.gov> tjb@enh.nist.gov writes:
>>Hi,
>>I noticed that some flight simulators allow playing against someone
>>else using a modem. I was wondering if it is possible to make
>>such a game that would link to the internet and allow many
>>players to play at the same time.

>There is such a beast that is part of the games package on your 
>standard Silicon Graphics machines.  There are several types of
>planes one can fly if I remember right.  There is some basic
>scenery and an airport also.  I think one can play up to 5 or 6
>people simultaneously.  I do know the network traffic can be quite
>demanding - there are rumors that a group of grads disconnect some
>of the SGI's around here from the main backbone late on weekend nights
>to duel it out amoung themselves.  One of the system's programmers 
>here seems to be pretty good at it.  I myself can't keep the plane
>up, much less release SAMs while performing some exotic manouver.

SAMs are ground-launched, so it's not surprising that you can't
fire one ;-)

An answer to the original question: ACM is a multiplayer flight-
simulator for X-windows/UNIX machines, available through anonymous FTP.

--
Jan Mattsson                    janm@student.docs.uu.se
Computer Science student, Uppsala University, Sweden
From: ddt@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: play by internet?
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:15:46 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

>Well, have you ever seen netrek. It is a game that allows 16 players at once.
>4 races, 6 ship types, best net game ever.

Actually, xtank is probably just a wee-bit nicer, but not in the team-sport
sense.  Netrek encourages team-effort like nobody's business, and that's just
not easy to do.  Xtank isn't client-server based, unfortunately, so you tend to
get games where friends fight each other 'cause they're the ones who organize
the game.

I wonder if UNIX games will ever be able to sell... (hope, hope), 'cause we've
got a hum-dinger we'll have ready in Nov.

	=-ddt->
-- 

: "What rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs, rolls over the neighbor's dog? :
:    What's good as a snack, and fits on your back? It's Log, Log, Log!      :
:      It's Looo-og, It's Looo-og, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood!          :
:       It's Looo-og, It's Looo-og, it better than bad- it's good!"          :
From: tjb@enh.nist.gov
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: play by internet?
Date: 9 Apr 92 21:23:19 GMT
Organization: NIST

Hi,
I noticed that some flight simulators allow playing against someone
else using a modem. I was wondering if it is possible to make
such a game that would link to the internet and allow many
players to play at the same time.
 does anyone here have any experience with such games(modem) and
knows how fast the line should be? I think that it can be possible,
because the only thing that needs to be transfered is the movement
each player makes, and if the number of players is limited to, say
10 at a time, that shouldn't be a problem.
Any ideas?
Bye,
Omri
barak@ee.bgu.ac.il
From: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Games Programming Publication
Keywords: Game Programming
Date: 10 Apr 92 13:15:18 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson, TX

John Talley writes:
>
>Does a technical magazine on games programming exist?
>
>What I'm interested in is a magazine like Dr Dobbs but dedicated to gaming
>issues.

The Journal Of Computer Game Design has been published for
about five years now.  As you might have guessed, it is
geared toward the design and philisophical side of things.
There are also occasional articles about various techniques
and algorithms, but not many.

The technical side of game programming isn't all that
much different from any other sort of real-time programming,
which would explain its lack of coverage.

--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
From: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: The Journal of Computer Game Design
Date: 14 Apr 92 13:10:40 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson, TX

Since there was some interest in my in my posting which
mentioned the JCGD, here's the info:

     The Journal Of Computer Game Design
     5251 Sierra Road
     San Jose, CA 95132

You can write for a sample issue.  The Journal is published
six times a year and costs $30 to subscribe.  It's a little
pricey considering that it is only 16 laser-printed pages,
but it is read by quite a few of the big game designers
(the current issue has articles by Jon Freeman and Dan
Bunten, to name a few names).

It is published by Chris Crawford, who should be no
stranger to anyone interested in computer game design.
He can be a little egotistical at times, but he does know
what he is talking about,

Note that JCGD deals with *design* and philosophy and
ramblings about the industry.  You won't find any
articles about how to program VGA graphics or what
languages to use etc--remember that the Journal is
targeting an audience which is assumed to know these
things already.  And the design side of things is
definitely more creative and interesting than the
programming side.

Hope this helps.
--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
From: aaron@clark.edu (Aaron Auseth)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Help passing data on multiplayer game.
Date: 8 Apr 92 16:43:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: clark.1992Apr8.164336.2791
Organization: Clark College, Vancouver, Wa.  USA

I'm attempting to make a multiplayer dungeon game like nethack, except it is
real-time, and it is running on a PC network (NOVELL).  I have a good portion
of the standalone dungeon part done, but I'm to the part of passing some
data to the other players PC's....

My current thinking goes like this:  each PC will need a map and linked lists
of items, monsters/players.  Eachtime something moves/drops/dies the map/list
will have to be updated on each of the other PC's.  I've decided to store
each level in a file when not being used, so when you enter a level the first
thing the PC will do is load level into memory.

Problems:  What happens when a player enters a level that another player is
already on?  Does player 1 save the level to disk, and player 2 load it?  Or
does player 1 send the date directly to player 2.  Since this is a realtime
game, saving/loading levels in the middle of play is restrictive, since on
a large level it might take a second or two.  The second solution sounds better
but since you can't send everything at once (don't want to slow player 1's 
machine down) how do you determine if the data has changed since you started
sending the data?  What happens when 5 players enter a level? (need to keep
it fairly simple)   I could possibly keep all the data in shared files and
update the files, but I'm worried about consistency.  I suppose I could lock
the file, but I fear this would slow things down too much if you had 20 players
or so.

I'd like to stay away from a DAEMON, even though (on UNIX) that would be the
simplist thing to do.  NOVELL requires you to write a NLM, and since the 
server isn't my playtoy...(well you know).  I suppose I could have a dedicated
PC sitting there storing the data and moving the monsters, but I'd like to find
another option.  The dedicated PC would be an 8088 (4.77MHz) and wouldn't be
able to keep up with the players PC (386 16MHz).

Help needed,
Aaron Auseth
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: checker@acf3.nyu.edu (Christopher Hecker)
Subject: Re: pallette in modex...
Organization: New York University
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 05:18:33 GMT


Accessing the palette in mode X is no different from doing it in any of
the standard modes.  The BIOS tends to do wierd things, so don't use it
while you are in mode X.  If you only need to set the palette once, why
not set it while you are in mode 13h with the BIOS, and then call the
routine that sets mode X?  Remember, though, you don't want the
set-mode-X routine to set mode 13h again...you'll only want to modify
the CRTC regs, and reset the clock.

Chris
From: jskubick@umiami.ir.miami.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Linear VGA RAM possible?
Date: 16 Apr 92 02:38:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: umiami.1992Apr15.223840.13334
Organization: Univ of Miami IR

Is it possible to forget segmentation altogether and treat RAM on
the VGA card as 1 contiguous chunk of memory on a 486 (assuming that
I'm planning to write a program using 486 assembly language in protected
mode with linear ram addressing)? Am I wrong in assuming that a 486 can
map the RAM on a VGA card (well, an S3 card to be exact) to a 1 meg
contiguous area addressable by the 486 as normal RAM? This is not merely
an academic question. I just bought a 486 PC 2 months ago, but I used to
be a fairly adept Amiga ML programmer (well, I still am, though I'm a PC
owner now...) I'm planning to write an R-Type - type game this summer 
that will put a 33mhz 486 and S3 card to good use (I'm not planning to
sell the game commercially, so I don't have to care whether it runs on
anything less). All of the books I've read on VGA programming mention
accessing VGA ram in 64k segments, though they all seem to be at least 
2-3 years old, and I'm hoping that they simply don't mention linear
VGA ram access because 3 years ago the 486 hadn't yet come into general
use. Thanks for your help!
Xref: sparky rec.games.programmer:2044 alt.msdos.programmer:1165
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer,rec.games.programmer,alt.msdos.programmer
Subject: Changing the Mouse Cursor
From: rick@sed.stel.com (Frederick Duske)
Date: 14 Apr 92 21:48:07 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: SED, Stanford Telecom, Reston, VA


Greetings!

I am attempting to do some graphics programming on my PC (25MHz 386).
I would like to load a small color graphics image (PCX, GIF,
whatever!) as the mouse cursor.  I know that this is possible as I
have seen it done by other packages (ex. Grasp), but I have no idea
how this may be done.  Any Ideas?  Thanks in advance!

-- Rick Duske
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         Rick Duske         |  "The two most common things in the Universe
     rick@.sed.stel.com     |       are hydrogen and stupidity."
                            |                -Harlan Ellison
From: cd2a+@andrew.cmu.edu (Court Demas)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Maze Generating Programs
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:21:36 GMT
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


Due to the *enormous* response I received, I am no longer forwarding
those messages about maze-generation algorithms and programs.

I am going to write up a file on the subject and try to include the gist
of what the posts said.  It seems like this question comes up really
often (I asked it once myself :-] ).


It should be up in about a week or so.



-court
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: kwong@isis.cs.du.edu (ken wong)
Subject: Getimage() question?
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 15:58:05 GMT


Can anyone explain how getimage() read its data, I was wondering if a
image existed 64k, does that mean we will have to use huge pointer instead
of far pointer, (far pointer will wrap-around). Svgabg31.zip mention that
it can read image over 64k, does that mean it takes a far pointer as a
correction: a huge pointer as a parameter?  Any help would be appreciated.
From: yue@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (Kaizhi Yue)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Use Joystick for the Game Megaman on PC
Date: 16 Apr 92 18:14:47 GMT
Reply-To: yue@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (Kaizhi Yue)
Distribution: na
Organization: Univ. of Calif., San Francisco




We have a game MEGAMAN that runs on PC. It has three kinds of
actions: "jump", "fire" and "move horizontally". All these three can be done
with keyboard. We tried to use joysticks to perform the actions. While
we succeeded with "jump" and "fire", we can not invoke the action of moving
horizontally with a joystick.

I am quite ignorant about games and PC programming in general. My
naive question is: Does it take some sophiscated programming on PC to
make this to work and what kind of programming that would be. It would
be nice, of course, if someone has already solved exactly the problem
for the exact game. But a general direction will also be helpful.


Thanks in advance.


             Kaizhi Yue

P.S. in case there is a more appropriate news group to send this
message, I would also appreciate someone letting me know about it.
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: jdl47513@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jason Lowe)
Subject: Re: Linear VGA RAM possible?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 23:28:10 GMT

I believe this may actually be possible.  I was programming SVGA assembly
code a while back, and I do remember reading something about the Tseng Labs
ET4000 chip set (SpeedStar I believe uses these) can map its address space
into higher memory.  I am pretty sure the ET4000 is the only Tseng chip that
claims to do this.  Ahh, here I found the text I read this from:

Excerpt from _Programmer's Guide to the EGA and VGA Cards, Second Edition_
by Richard F. Ferraro:

(page 932)
The [Tseng Lab ET4000] can be configured to access memory in a linear or in a
segmented fashion through the SLS field.  This linear addressing mode forces
all display memory to be continuous. ....  If the SLS Field is 1, this linear
mapping scheme is enabled.  If 0, the standard VGA segmented memory mapping
scheme is enabled.  ....it is possible to place the VGA into high memory where
there is room to place one Megabyte of display memory into a contiguous
address space.  This allows the ET4000 to ignore the bank selection registers.

[text goes into more detail..]

If you have an ET4000, this seems possible according to Ferraro.  I could not
find, however, any mention of exactly what address this linear space shows
up at, or even how to specify it yourself.  I was interested in using this
linear mode, so I called Speedstar.  The person I talked to seemed to not
know the chipset could even do this.  He suggested calling Tseng Labs direct.
If anyone finds out how to do this, or if it is truely possible, please let
me know.

-- 
Jason Lowe      |   //       | Take the Oath.  Watch Ren and Stimpy!
stimpy@uiuc.edu | \X/ Amiga! | "And look, he's beating up on our cheese!"

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: tvangod@ecst.csuchico.edu (Skud the Great)
Subject: Re: play by internet?
Organization: California State University, Chico
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 07:03:48 GMT

Well, have you ever seen netrek. It is a game that allows 16 players at once.
4 races, 6 ship types, best net game ever.


later

tvangod@csuchico.edu
From: jvm@cc.gatech.edu (John V. Martinez)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Help passing data on multiplayer game.
Summary: Hey! That sounds like Token Bus!
Date: 16 Apr 92 01:38:00 GMT
Organization: College of Computing

[long (but informative and well-conceived) description of "ring" protocol
 used to handle passing data in multiplayer game deleted]

this sounds suspiciously like the IEEE 802.4 token bus protocol - did you think
this up yourself? If so, what inspired it? (If you are unfamiliar with the 
protocol -- I give that about a 5% probability -- you will be really wierded
out at how close you are to it.)

For those of you who didn't post that article (the vast majority of readers,
I would guess :) this is a good time to put in a plug for generalists! Take
time out every once in a while and read up about something that's only 
peripherally related to your field -- graph theory, networks, game theory,
genetic engineering, plumbing.... Lots of time the problem you are trying
to solve has been solved by someone in another field, but you'd never know it
from a literature search because the names are different, but the structure
of the problem is the same.

-(-- John
jvm@cc.gatech.edu





-(-- John V. Martinez (jvm@cc.gatech.edu) | NIC Handle - jvm | (404) 303-8212
          From Plato's REPUBLIC:          | Eccentric Genius by day,   :)
     "Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?"      | Starving Student by night, :)
"Who will clean up after the custodians?" | and all-around great guy.  :)
From: warwick@cs.uq.oz.au (Warwick Allison)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Conways' game of Life simulation needed
Date: 16 Apr 92 00:16:57 GMT
Reply-To: warwick@cs.uq.oz.au

In <sg5ghINNj53@pebbles.cs.widener.edu> mlee@cs.widener.edu (Morgan Lee) writes:

>I am looking for Conways' game of Life algorithm. This algorithm is
>preferably written in dynamic structures and C or Pascal language.
>Any suggestions will be welcome!

xlife has a VERY good implementation of Life, supporting a univers of
infinite dimensions (well, long int, anyway), with only inhabited parts
mapped.


Warwick
--
  _-_|\      warwick@cs.uq.oz.au            / eastings genistas /
 /     * <-- Computer Science Department,  / giantess seatings /
 \_.-._/     University of Queensland,    / teasings tsiganes /
      v      Brisbane, Australia.        / -------- -------- /
From: rjwalsh@maths.tcd.ie (Robert Walsh)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Bitmap Rotation/Scale
Date: 8 Apr 92 19:46:50 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Organisation: Amalgamated Durables

In <7464@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> warwick@cs.uq.oz.au (Warwick Allison) writes:

>rjwalsh@maths.tcd.ie (Robert Walsh) writes:

>>Does anyone know how to map a bitmap of arbitary size into an polygon
>>of arbitary size (the simplest example is mapping a bitmap into a
>>square)? 

>Yes.  Clip it.

>Seriously, it all depends HOW you want it mapped.  I could map a large
>image to a small square by clipping it.  You have to make some constraints
>before you can start devising an algorithm.

>One possibility would be to have the following restriction:

>	If pixels A and B and on the same horizontal line in the original
>	and they both appear in the final, then they must be on the
>	same horizontal in the final.

>Now the problem is simply one of mapping a line of pixels:

>         ************************************************

>to a sequence of lines of pixels:

>    *************  ****************************     *******


>Easy.
>Warwick

I don't think that was quite what I meant. Suppose I map a bitmap
onto this:

       ----
      /    \
      /    \
      ------

then I should get a bitmap appearing to hover in three space. The
bitmap should be scaled squashed at the top and fatter down towards
the bottom. If I map it onto a square, it should be an exact scale
replica of the original bitmap.

Extending the above further, I should be able to map the bitmap onto
something like this:

      /\
     /  |_
    /     |
    \______\

and have it scaled properly all across it.

Am I asking to do something that only a Cray could manage in realtime? Is
this feasible on a 33Mhz 386?

>--
>  _-_|\      warwick@cs.uq.oz.au            / eastings genistas /
> /     * <-- Computer Science Department,  / giantess seatings /
> \_.-._/     University of Queensland,    / teasings tsiganes /
>      v      Brisbane, Australia.        / -------- -------- /
--
rjwalsh@maths.tcd.ie   \ The above comments are not Trinity's.
Robert Walsh             \ Hell, they're not even mine!
Advanced Development Group \
Trinity College, Dublin.     \
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer