Short: Tower of Babel HD Installer Author: girv@girvnet.demon.co.uk (John Girvin) Uploader: girv@girvnet.demon.co.uk (John Girvin) Type: game/patch Requires: 1Mb HD space, Installer 43.3+, WHDLoad 0.608+ TITLE TOBInstall VERSION 1.00 Latest updates available from my homepage: http://www.girvnet.demon.co.uk/ AUTHOR John Girvin E-Mail: girv@girvnet.demon.co.uk WWW: http://www.girvnet.demon.co.uk SnailMail: John Girvin, 25 Moorgate Street, Belfast BT5 5BZ, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. DESCRIPTION This is version 1.00 of a hard drive installation package for the Rainbird game "Tower of Babel". Supports loading and saving of game positions, scores and tower designs to hard drive. Supports both the original Rainbird release and the "Astra Pack" version as distributed with A500s. Please read this document *thoroughly* before attempting to use the installer! There are some important points you may miss if you just dive right in, so much as it may be against your nature, I REALLY DO THINK YOU SHOULD READ THIS FILE. You have been warned! Requires version 0.608 or later of the WHDLoad package by Bert Jahn (v0.608 included in this archive). The latest WHDLoad package, along with installers for many other games and demos, may be obtained from Bert's support page at: http://www.fh-zwickau.de/~jah/whdload.html INSTALLING THE GAME INSTALLATION NOTES ------------------ PLEASE READ THIS SECTION *COMPLETELY* BEFORE INSTALLATION! You should not attempt to install the game before reading and understanding the information given in this section. You have been warned! Installation is handled by version 43.3 (or later) of the "Installer" program from Commodore, which should have been provided with your original Amiga system disks. It is also available from any Aminet site as: util/misc/Installer-43_3.lha (NB: the version number might have changed!) After installation is complete, you may delete the directory produced by extracting this archive ("TOBInstall"). All files required for running the game will be found in the directories created during installation. Tower of Babel makes use of "virtual save disks" to enable players to save their game progress, high scores or tower designs to hard drive. They behave exactly like the floppy disks used by the un-installed game to save this information, except that they reside on your hard drive. You decide the total number of virtual save disks you wish to use (between 1 and 8) during the installation process and the installer will then create this number of *blank* virtual disks on your hard drive. You are then given the option of copying the information from any floppy save disks you may have to some or all of these blank virtual disks. In this way you can use your saved information from the floppy game on the installed version while optionally having further space to store new information. The "Change Disk" button on the in-game file requesters is used to cycle through the virtual save disks you are using. The requesters revert to the first virtual disk each time they are opened. Note that the "Prepare Disk" menu option (on the tower designer "File" menu) has no meaning to the installed game and has been removed. I appreciate that the area of virtual save disks may be a little unclear to some users. Please, if you dont understand, feel free to get in touch and Ill try to help. It helps me if you have specific questions rather than general enquiries though! Tower of Babel equires approximately 1Mb of free space on your hard drive, plus an additional 900K for each virtual save disk you wish to use. Please do not attempt installation if you have less than this amount free on the partition you intend to install Tower of Babel on. Space used = 1000 + (900 x number_of_save_disks) Kb Do not attempt to crunch/pack/compress etc. the game data files (in the "data/" subdirectory) or the "Tower_of_Babel" program. It won`t work. The WHDLoad program may be compressed like any normal executable program. INSTALLATION PROCEDURE ---------------------- Have you read the Installation Notes yet? You REALLY should. Assuming you have read and understoon the installation notes, extract all files in the archive to your system. They will be extracted to a drawer called "TOBInstall". If you are reading this document, chances are this step has already been performed! Open the newly created "TOBInstall" drawer and double click on the "Install_Tower_of_Babel" icon found there. Follow the instructions given to you by the Installer program: - when asked to insert a game or save disk, do so and wait for the floppy activity light to go out before clicking the 'Proceed' button. MAKE SURE YOU INSERT THE CORRECT DISK! - at one point during the installation process, all multitasking will be disabled and you will not be able to do anything else with your Amiga. DON'T PANIC! This is both necessary and normal. The interruption should last less than one minute and you will be well warned beforehand. The game will be installed to a directory you select on your hard drive. You will be alerted if installation fails for any reason. PLAYING THE GAME From Workbench, open the "Tower_of_Babel" drawer created during installation and click on the "Tower_of_Babel" icon. From the CLI/Shell, CD to the "Tower_of_Babel" directory and type: WHDLoad SLAVE=Tower_of_Babel NOVBRMOVE PRELOAD When the game is running, the following keys may be used: Keys F9 = quit and make a coredump (for debugging only) F10 = quit the game and return to the OS. IF THE INSTALL DOES NOT WORK ? Please read the "INSTALLATION NOTES" and "BUGS/CAVEATS" sections of this document if you have not done so already. They contain important information which may help resolve your problem. Adapted from the WHDLoad support site. TOBInstall is written to work with the ORIGINAL game disk. Don't try to use the installer with a version of the game which has been altered in any way. I will make no fixes for pirate copies the game. Don`t even ask because you will only annoy me. I don`t care if the game is no longer available commercially, I have enough to do as it is without doing updates for every version made by every braindead 3l1t3 cracker group there ever was. NO! Clear? There are various reasons possible why the install may not work. Either it is a hardware problem (your machine differs in speed/ cpu/ram etc.) or you have an unknown version of the program to install. Here is a list of common problems and how to solve them: * a requester with "Exception xyz ..." + set the ToolType "NOVBRMOVE" and/or "NOCACHE" * graphics errors + set the ToolType "NOCACHE" * the program hangs with a black screen and nothing happens + set the ToolType "NOCACHE" + free as much as possible memory, that whdload can preload all files (set ToolType "PRELOAD") + make sure there is enough free room on your disk if the program tries to save highscores or savegames + unset the ToolTypes "NTSC" and "NOTRAPHANDLER" If the above tips do not solve your problem, please spare a moment to send me a bug report (email preferred). Please include at least the following information in all bug reports: * version of the game (eg. 1 MB English Version ECS), number of disks etc. * configuration of your machine including type of Amiga, CPU, CPU speed, amount of chip and fast memory, gfx chipset (OCS/ECS/AGA), special hardware, kickstart version * version of WHDLoad * description what happens (error while installing, error while starting, gfx errors, keyboard hangs, game crashes on level 15...) It helps if you describe *exactly* when the error happens. * the .whdload_register file created after a core dump. It is the small file, NOT the huge .whdload_memory dump file! This is an important difference! BUGS/CAVEATS TOBInstall is provided "as is" and is used at your own risk. The author is not liable for any loss or damage caused by the use or misuse of this program. It almost certainly *wont* destroy your Amiga, but if it does (or does anything else untoward) then I cannot be held responsible. The installer is written in as system friendly a way as possible, but the game is not. Owners of heavily expanded Amigas may have problems running the game, but this is not the fault of TOBInstall. It might be possible to enhance TOBInstall to fix these problems - get in touch if you have trouble and Ill see what I can do! If you have saved something during your game, you may find that any further file requesters will close immediately on opening. This is a problem with the Tower of Babel keyboard routine getting confused and thinking that the Return/Enter key is always pressed, thereby closing any file requester the moment it is opened. If you experience this problem, simply press Return/Enter after performing a save operation. This allows the keyboard routine to get back in sync with the keyboard hardware and so resolves the problem. HISTORY 0.01 First beta version. Released to select members of the Pure-Amiga mailing list in December 1997. 1.00 First release version. Released to Aminet in December 1997. FUTURE * Add methods to manage virtual save disks more effectively eg: - erase existsing virtual disks - create new blank disks - install additional floppy disks to virtual disks. This will be performed by a separate program as it is not possible to carry out these operations from within the game. * Add an option to use physical floppy disks for saving/loading rather than virtual disks. * Add an option to save in-game preferences eg: button type, display position etc. * Add a "no time limits" trainer. Is this necessary? Mail me! HOST NAMES Uploaded to wuarchive.wustl.edu (Aminet) probably in game/patch Latest updates available from my homepage: http://www.girvnet.demon.co.uk/ FILE NAMES TOBInstall.lha TOBInstall.readme PRICE One email message - TOBInstall is emailware. (if you use it then let me know) I'd also appreciate a postcard of your home town, especially if you live outside of the UK! This isnt required, but it would be *nice*. Cash donations, gifts etc. are also appreciated; these tend to also buy you faster and more positive responses to help and change requests ;) DISTRIBUTABILITY © 1997 John Girvin. No modifications may be made to either the program or its accompanying documentation without my consent. Freely Distributable, provided all files are included unchanged in any distribution and no more than minimal handling/media costs are charged. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS "Tower_of_Babel" is © Rainbird. Piracy is theft. If you like the game then buy it (and run it from your hard drive with TOBInstall) ! WHDLoad is © Bert Jahn (jah@fh-zwickau.de). Bert's homepage, with the latest version of WHDLoad and installers for many games and demos can be found at: http://www.fh-zwickau.de/~jah/whdload.html Thanks to Chris Page for lending me the original "Astra Pack " disk and testing the first versions of TOBInstall. Chris is developing a high-end space exploration game called Explorer 2260 - find out more at http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/dasoft/ Thanks to "Den of Iniquity" for testing the installer on the original release disks. Big hello to all those on Pure-Amiga, the best Amiga mailing list around. http://www.pureamiga.co.uk/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- $VER: TOBInstall documentation version 1.00 (c) 1997 John Girvin