OTHELLO

Section: Games and Demos (6)
Updated: 9 April 1990
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NAME

othello - an othello game.

SYNOPSIS

othello [ -d display ] [ -g geometry ] [ -r remarksfile ] [ -v ] [ -Wi ] [ -Wp x y ] [ -WP x y ]

DESCRIPTION

Othello is a version of the popular Othello game. It contains graphical interfaces for SunView, X11 and XView, as well as being able to function on normal display terminals using a termcap interface.

Othello is played on an 8 x 8 board, with pieces which are black on one side and white on the other. A legal move consists of placing a piece of one's own color on the board so as to "sandwich" a row (orthogonal or diagonal) of pieces of the opposite color between the piece just placed and another piece of the same color. All pieces so sandwiched are flipped over to reveal the color of the other side.

The object of the game, is to have more pieces than the opponent at the end of the game (ie. when the board is full or neither side has a legal move). If you have no legal move, you simply miss a turn. White goes first.

With othello, to place one of your own pieces simply click with the mouse over the square in which you want your piece to go. Note that it is also possible to supply a number and a letter pair, to indicate where you would like your new piece to go. This is the only method to place pieces with the dumb tty interface.

There are various buttons and cyclic selections available. Their meanings are given below, plus an indication of their keyboard equivalents. With the cyclic selections, clicking over the left half of the cycle icon increments the selection, and clicking over the right half of the cycle icon decrements the selection. With the SunView and XView version, it is also possible to make a seclection from a popup menu using the right mouse button.

OTHELLO BUTTONS

With the graphics versions, there are six buttons that are displayed at the top of the Othello window. Each of these buttons, except the "done" button has one or more keyboard equivalents which are given in brackets below.

done [ No keyboard equivalent]: Change othello to an icon.
last [l or L]: Show the last move played by the computer.
new game [n or N]: Start a new game of othello
suggest [s or S]: Let the computer suggest a good move for you.
undo [u or U]: Undo the last two moves, yours and the computers.
quit [q or Q]: Exit the othello program.

OTHELLO CYCLIC SELECTIONS

With the graphics versions, just below the six buttons are for cycle icons. These can either be selected with the left mouse button, to increment or decrement the current selection (depending upon which half on the icon you click over), or a selection can be made from a popup menu when you click with the right mouse button (SunView and XView versions only). Each cycle value has a keyboard equivalent which is given in brackets below. This must be followed by the value of the new selection you wish to make. The dumb tty version has the equivalent of these buttons displayed to the right of the othello board display.

Aspiration [ A ]: Sets the degree of aspiration for the computers moves. Keyboard selection values are in the range '1' to '6'.
Difficulty [ D ]: Sets the degree of difficulty for the computers moves. Keyboard selection values are in the range '1' to '4'.
Computer plays [ C ]: Selects whether the computer plays black, or white pieces. Keyboard selection values are 'b' for black, and 'w' for white.
Remarks [ r or R ]: Toggles whether the computer makes remarks. Keyboard selections values are

OPTIONS

-d display: Used with the X11 variant of othello to give a display type.
-g geometry: Used with the X11 variant of othello to give geometry information.
-r remarksfile: Use an alternate remarks file. By default, othello will initially look for the remarks file using the name supplied when the program was built. If this is not found, then it searches every directory on your search path. This option is also provided as an alternative at run time.
-v: Print the version number of this release of the othello program.
-Wi: Start the othello program up in iconic form. SunView automatically uses this flag, but the NeWS version will also.
-Wp x y: Start the open window position at x y
-WP x y: Start the icon position at x y

FILES

/usr/local/lib/othello.remarks

BUGS

See the TODO file for the list of known problems.

AUTHOR

Rich Burridge, Domain: richb@Aus.Sun.COM
PHONE: +61 2 413 2666 Path: {uunet,mcvax,ukc}!munnari!sunaus.oz!richb
Original SunView graphics implementation by Ed Falk, Sun Microsystems, CA.
Computer playing strategy and remarks code by Chris Miller.

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 09:25:07 GMT, December 12, 2024