***************************************************************** \ / Primordial Life -- Shareware v3.14 / \ \/ |--| /\ Copyright (C) 1996 Jason Spofford \ / ***************************************************************** Thanks for trying Primordial Life! Your screen is transformed into a artificial world where living biots can survive and multiply. The course of evolution can take many paths, resulting in thousands of biot shapes. Watch biots battle for survival. Don't be surprised if you end up spending hours watching the dynamics of evolution! >>> Please Note: Primordial Life 3.14 will not connect to, or <<<< >>> accept connections from Primordial Life 3.13 or earlier. <<<< *** What is Primordial Life? *** Primordial Life is actually two programs. One program runs Primordial Life as a screen saver and the other runs Primordial Life inside a window on your Windows 95 or Windows NT computer. A help file included with Primordial Life which explains the simulation in depth. Just run Primordial Life and select help. *** What is new in Primordial 3.1? *** Primordial Life 3.1 brings networking to biot worlds. Now you can connect biot worlds together over a TCP/IP network. With a 32 bit TCP/IP stack, you can connect your world to up to 4 others. There is no limit to the number of worlds you can interconnect! Watch as the diversity of life increases as you expand the known biot universe. Primordial Life 3.1 also attempted to fix some video related problems seen in 3.0. Note that the Diamond Stealth may still leave trails. I must conclude that the Diamond Stealth drivers are buggy when drawing from the context of a thread. If you have a Diamond Stealth, give it a try anyway. If it doesn't work for you, you can revert to the drivers Microsoft wrote for the Diamond Stealth on your Windows 95 CD. If you are a dial up user, I don't recommend using the network feature in the screen saver. Run the windowed program instead. When the screen saver starts, it might envoke the dialup dialog which will cause the screen saver to terminate immediately. If you dial up prior to using the screen saver, it should work for you. *** Primordial Life Installation Instructions *** Prim31.exe is a self extracting file. Chances are you already have installed this program since you are reading this file. Prim31.exe will install the Windows program and related files into the directory of your choice. It will also install the screen saver (Primordial Life 3.1.scr) into the \Windows\System or on NT, the \Winnt\System32 directory. The installation program does not add the program to your start menu. If you'd like to do that, just go to Start->Settings->Taskbar menu and add it to the menu of your choice. If you are running Windows 95, or Windows NT 4.0, the installation program will copy a shortcut icon to your desktop. *** Shareware Notice *** Primordial Life is shareware. If you like it, please register. If you decide to register, press the "I want to buy it!" button found by pressing the "Register!" button on the Primordial Life settings dialog. It will start register.exe which will provide details on how to purchase Primordial Life. Primordial Life is now registered to you and not to a specific machine. That means you will be able to move Primordial Life from one computer to another or upgrade your computer without worrying if your Primordial Life registration will still work. *** Disclaimer of Warranty *** To use this software, you are must agree with the following terms. THIS SOFTWARE AND THE ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE SOLD "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. Because of the various hardware and software environments into which the software may be put into and because it is possible that software itself contains software defects, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED. Should any problem with the software be found, the seller is not required to inform the purchaser, even if it the problem is damaging. The user assumes the entire risk of using this program. ANY LIABILITY OF THE SELLER WILL BE LIMITED EXCLUSIVELY TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF PURCHASE PRICE. *** Registration *** If you'd like Primordial Life to continue to evolve, please register. There are several ways to pay for Primordial Life. Through an Internet based shareware fee collection company, I can accept credit cards, as well as other forms of payment. Included in this distribution is a program called "register.exe". Run that program for more details and see http://www.kagi.com to learn about the shareware fee collection company. Soon you will be able to order on-line by going to my web site at http://www.io.com/~spofford Primordial Life is just $12.00 for a single user, single computer license. If you own or operate more than one computer, you can get a license for 2-4 computers for $18. Please note that you must be the primary user of each of these computers or the computer must reside in your primary residence. The next version I produce will be yours free. To upgrade to a single user, 2-4 computer license from Primordial Life 2.0, 3.0 or 3.1 costs $8. A site license lets multiple people run Primordial Life that belong to a particular organization at a specific site (~50 mile radius). That license costs $60. A world-wide license lets multiple people run Primordial Life that belong to a particular organization at any site. That license costs $120. NOTE: If you'd like to receive a *diskette* with Primordial Life, please indicate that in your comments. Otherwise I will assume that Internet delivery is acceptable. *** If you have any questions or comments *** You can reach me at: Jason Spofford 11040 Crossland Drive Austin, Texas 78726 email: spofford@io.com You can visit my web page at: HTTP://www.io.com/~spofford