[editor : Carl T. Helmers Jr., Christopher P Morgan] [publisher : Virginia Londoner, Gordon R Williamson] [art : Holly Carmen LaBossiere, Deborah Porter] #Magazine
#Abstract
Although the mysteries and menaces lurking in the shadows of this issue's cover may exist only in the minds of an imaginative Adventure player or the cover artist, Robert Tinney, that doesn't make them any less real to the person playing the game. This issue explores the many aspects of Adventure and Adventure-like games. It includes two complete Adventures in BASIC, an excellent introductory article ("On the Road to Adventure," by Bob Liddil), two articles on the state of the art in Adventure games, and a handful of game reviews.
This issue also contains "Computer Testing," an article by Steve Ciarcia, as well as the second parts of several articles continued from the November graphics issue: "Micrograph," "Graphic Color Slides," and "A Simplified Theory of Video Graphics."
[author : Christopher P Morgan] #Edito #Book
Extract : « In going through the scores of articles that cross my desk each month, I've begun to notice that many of them are poorly written. I'm talking here not so much about incompetent writing (although the number of spelling and syntax errors is alarming), but rather about misguided writing, writing that is difficult to read, unclear, or wasteful of the reader's time. The problem is certainly not BYTE's alone. Editors of other magazines have told me much the same story. Thinking about possible solutions to the problem led me to write this editorial. The quality of technical writing affects all of our readers in one way or another. Whether you program for a living or just for fun, you need to write clear, concise documentation to accompany your programs. And you undoubtedly have to write reports as part of your job or your studies. There are tricks to good technical writing. I'd like to describe some of them here, and list some sources of information that have proved helpful to us in our writing work. I've also included a list of recommended reading at the end of the editorial. [...] »
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The most exciting computer games are those with two machines and two or more players.
[author : Ken Wasserman and Tim Stryker] #Listing #BASIC #Interface #Game
Extract : « [...] In the case of two-machine games, the answer turns out to be surprisingly simple and inexpensive. Most microcomputers come already supplied with a generalpurpose, 8-bit, parallel I/O (input/output) port poking out the back someplace. For those that do not, an add-on port of this type can generally be purchased at nominal expense. As in the PET, the port should ideally have the property that, even though configured for output, it will still return a correct reading of the states of the pins involved when a "read" operation is performed on it. [...] »
A computer is useful for automating any process-even hardware testing.
[author : Steve Ciarcia] #Electronic #Listing #BASIC #Algorithm #Diagnostic
Extract : « Suppose for a moment that you are a custom-electronics manufacturer. You have accepted a job to produce 1000 sequential-controller boards for a major photocopier manufacturer. (It is not unusual for large companies to farm out control subassemblies.) For all practical purposes, the controller board is a microcomputer that has various output combinations in response to designated inputs. As a subassembly manufacturer, you have the responsibility for testing the controller boards as well as building them. [...] »
This month we demonstrate the use of subroutines to generate equation plots, histograms, regression and monthly analysis graphs.
[author : Alan W Grogono] #Listing #BASIC #Graphics
Extract : « [...] These listings also demonstrate the use of these subroutines in building special-purpose programs that generate a desired kind of graph. The programs listed here are designed to run on a Compucolor II with extended disk BASIC and at least 16 K bytes of programmable memory.
The first three graph programs have been written as part of a single program (see listing 1); the equation plotting, histogram, and regression routines all use the subroutines unaltered. Both the histogram and regression routines use a statistics subroutine at line 11400 that calculates the arithmetic average (program variable MEAN) and the standard deviation (variable DEVIAT). The monthly analysis chart routine, given in listing 2, illustrates how the graphics subroutines can be modified for a new application; the subroutine lines in listing 2 are the only lines being changed, not the entire subroutine. As before, the variable names used in these listings have been chosen to describe their function . [...] »
Part 2 details more about this surprisingly simple high-resolution video display.
[author : E Grady Booch] #Electronic #Display #Graphics
Extract : « [...] Part 2 will feature the hardware for a lowcost display processor, called Micrograph, which implements this instruction set. You can find the essential characteristics of Micrograph listed in table 1. The processor's hardware, including a circuit description, construction hints, and enhancement ideas, will be the topic of the latter portion of this part of the series. [...] »
The man who first brought Adventure games to microcomputers gives us an entire listing of one of his most enjoyable games.
[author : Scott Adams] #Listing #BASIC #GameAdventure
Extract : « [...] Pirate's Adventure was first sold commercially to run in Level II BASIC on a 16 K-byte TRS-80. Both the Adventure-interpreter program (in BASIC) and a data file created by the Adventure-editor program were on the cassette tape. After you loaded the interpreter program, you used it to read the data file, an operation that took 20 minutes but allowed me to compress a lot of Adventure into very little memory space. [...] »
This device comes close to being the world's first pocket-sized personal computer.
[author : Bruce Carbrey] #ComputerPortable #Review #Listing #HP #Algorithm
Extract : « These days, the introduction of a new pocket calculator is usually greeted with a yawn. This is because calculators have become so commonplace. So what's all the excitement over the Hewlett-Packard HP-41C? The answer is that the HP-41C has novel features that place it a cut above all other calculators and blur the distinction between calculators and personal computers. Hewlett-Packard, not usually given to wild claims, ventures to suggest in the HP-41C Owner's Handbook and Programming Guide that the calculator "can even be called a personal computing system." What are the features that separate the HP-41C from the pack?
• twelve-character, true alphanumeric display
• expandable, nonvolatile memory
• plug-in peripherals: magnetic card reader, printer,
read-only memory application packs, and a bar-code reader
These, plus a host of convenience features, make this calculator the most versatile machine ever. [...]
I found the HP-41C far more pleasurable to program and use than its predecessors, primarily because of the alphanumeric display capabilities. [...] »
Applesoft BASIC is well suited to the writing of games, as this program shows.
[author : Bob Liddil and Ten Li] #Listing #BASIC #GameAdventure
Extract : « Lost Dutchman's Gold is an Adventure game that takes place in the Old West at the turn of the century. The object of the game is to find the gold (and other treasures) hidden in the Lost Dutchman's Mine and successfully find your way out. The Adventure starts in an abandoned miner's shack where you'll find a rifle and a shovel. If you can find it, there is also a map of the mine hidden somewhere to help you on your Adventure. This program (see listing I) is written in Applesoft BASIC and requires 24K bytes of memory and one disk drive. [...] »
Explanations of color-video techniques and some of the quirks of microprocessor systems are provided.
[author : Allen Watson III] #Display #Graphics #HowItWorks
Extract : « To produce color television displays we need a picture tube with a phosphor screen that can be made to glow in different colors. This is done by a method similar to the half-tone method of color printing; a full-color picture is made by superimposing three single-color images made up of very small dots. At the normal viewing distance the dots are too small for the human eye to resolve, so that the colors appear to merge into a single image. The inside of a color television screen is covered with an array of small dots of three different phosphors that glow in red, green, a blue when struck by electrons. By carefully controlling the brightness of each colored dot we can produce any color we desire. (See text box, "The Primary Colors".)
The major problem is independent color control. We need three separate electron beams (ie: one for each color) arranged so one beam strikes only the red phosphor dots, one beam strikes the green dots, and one beam strikes the blue dots. It is not practical to aim the beams this precisely; instead, a shadow mask is used. The shadow mask is a perfora ted metal plate placed just behind the phosphor screen in the picture tube. The three electron beams can strike the phosphor dots only after passing through holes in the mask. The electron guns that produce the beams are positioned so each beam strikes only dots of the correct color; thus each gun casts an electron "shadow" on phosphors of the other colors. Brightness of each of the primary colors is controlled by the intensity of the corresponding electron beam. [...] »
Along with a survey of the major Adventure games, here's an explanation of how to play them.
[author : Bob Liddil] #GameAdventure #HowItWorks
Extract : « [...] Adventure is a semi-intelligent, word-recognizing computer program that employs a narrative style to present an unsolved puzzle. (For an example of an Adventure dialog, see listing 1.) The format of the game can be almost any organized grouping of locations that are bound together by a single theme. The clues to the puzzle are tied to the theme so that the game flows logically and smoothly. Solving the puzzle in whole or part leads to the treasure or to valuable clues to the ultimate winning of the game. Some Adventures are goal oriented, while others rely on the accumulation of valuable objects.
The commands in Adventure affect four factors: where you are, what you see, where you can go, and what you can do. [...] »
One of the authors of Zork describes his game and how similar games may appear in the future.
[author : P David Lebling] #GameAdventure #HowItWorks
Extract : « CFS (computerized fantasy simulation) games are a new art form: the computerized storybook. Instead of reading the story, you play it. The author presents the story, but only as you squeeze it out of him by wit and brute force . It's tip to you to figure out what's going on, and the satisfaction of doing so depends on how well thought out the story is. To be fun to play, the story must be more or less consistent and complete. To a large extent, this means that the program that embodies the story must simulate the universe well.
I have been involved for several years with Zork, one of the larger and (I would like to think) better worked out CPS games. The authors (Marc Blank, Tim Anderson, Bruce Daniels, and I) have spent a lot of time trying to make the universe of Zork as consistent and complete as possible within the bounds of the space available . The first version of Zork was written for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10; it eventually grew to strain even the megabyte address space of that machine. The game was completely rewritten for microcomputers and is now limited primarily by the size of a 5-inch floppy disk. Zork games swap data (programs and text) into memory from the disk as needed and therefore aren't limited by the size of the system's user memory. Standard 5-inch floppy disks store about 100 K bytes (some store more, some less). This works out to about 10,000 words of English prose and a similar amount (about 40 K bytes) of code. This is large for a microcomputer-based program, but as literature it's still only at the short story length.
Zork is shrunk to fit into the micro-world by running on a Zork-Ianguage virtual machine. [...] »
A variable set of character traits can be used to create a game of high adventure that is different every time you play it.
[author : Jon Freeman] #GameAdventure #HowItWorks
Extract : « The peculiar attraction of Dungeons and Dragons, Tunnels and Trolls, Traveller, and other similar games stems, I believe, from two things: open-endedness and role-playing. Anything can happen: as a player in such a game, you may be attacked by 1,000 goblins or a jealous lover, contract a disease, acquire a new suit of armor, or inherit one hundred dollars-er, gold pieces. Anything can be done, from fighting a dragon to begging a wizard's forgiveness, from besieging a castle to kissing a frog. And it never stops, except temporarily: there is no final victory, no point to playing except playing, and no ultimate aim except the continuing development of your "character" -the alter ego who stalks the imagined landscape in your stead. [...] »
#Game #Review