⟦2e2dec180⟧

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Hello,

        The following is a public domain, System V based  version
of  pacman.  It is based upon a Berkeley version of the same game
posted a few months ago.  I  promised  to  post  this  in  mid  -
January,  when  I  finished it, but for the past two months I was
unable to post due to problems involving  a  transfer  to  a  new
computer.   Anyway, here it is, in two parts.  It has been tested
on Interactive System  III,  System  V/68  and  ATT  System  5.2.
Hopefully it will work an all system V and III machines, and with 
a  minimum  of  work, on 4.X Berkeley.  The last I'm not too sure
about.  I never tried it on a  Berkeley  system,  so  I  couldn't
really say.  

        There are still some small problems.  Firstly,  sometimes
when  someone plays for the first time, it sits there for five or
ten seconds before accepting commands.  This only happens once in 
a while, and only when the person gets put in the user  file  for
the  first  time.   I have had some problems with turning on echo
for the shell escape.  I fixed this on system III by changing the 
curses library routine echo until it worked.  I could not do this 
on system V because I couldn't get  at  the  sources  for  curses
under  system  V.   Finally,  I  elected  to  not  post  the file
"flsbuf.c" included in  the  earlier  posting  of  pm,  since  it
contains   proprietary   unix   source   for  which  I  signed  a
non-disclosure  agreement.   The  code  in   flsbuf.c   contained
_flsbuf(c,  iop) from the stdio library, with a small change made
to count the number of characters  printed.   This  was  done  to
allow  for  a  delay  after printing characters, to make the game
smoother.  If you compile the game and find it too `choppy', take 
the routine _flsbuf from the library, place it in  flsbuf.c,  and
try  to  modify it to increment chcnt for each character printed.
If you don't know how  to  do  this,  find  an  original  posting
containing  the  proprietary code.  You may have some problems on
system V, with the  linker  complaining  about  multiply  defined
procedures.   I  just  left  flsbuf.c  out entirely, and it works
fine.  Don't forget to move  tester  to  pm  before  you  put  it
somewhere  permanently,  as  it  is  in  root mode if the game is
called tester.  

        Thanks to the original author, Peter  Costantinidis,  Jr.
who  wrote  the  Berkeley  version.   This is a pretty good game,
quite well written.  The biggest problem I  had  with  it  (other
than the numerous berkeley dependencies) was the non-intelligence 
of  the  monsters.  They are designed to only spot you if you are
in their `line of sight'.  If you simply stay out of  their  way,
they  will  simply  wander aimlessly.  It seems to me that in the
arcade version, they know where you are on  the  board,  line  of
sight  or  not.   Please  send  me  a  copy  of  any  bug  fixes,
suggestions, etc.  that you may have.  
-- 
	  Eric Safern
	  ...{ihnp4,rocky2,philabs,esquire,cucard,pegasus,spike}!aecom!safern
DataMuseum.dk

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⟦2e2dec180⟧ TextFile

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